Nautilus

The week on Nature Network: Friday 26 June

This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors and communicators. Readers are welcome to join any of these discussions by visiting the links provided. The Nature Network week column is archived here.

Registration is now open for the Science Online London 09 conference this summer. Act soon if you would like to attend, as there are only 150 places, 100 of which have already gone. A list of the attendees (so far) is here. The organizers have been collecting ideas for topics for discussion over the past few weeks, and will be announcing the programme soon.

Branwen Hide was asked the other day how she would set up a research base in the UK if she could start with a blank slate. She passes the question to Nature Network readers: “If you had ultimate power what would you do? If you want you can start now and talk about changes you would make and things you would like to see.” Visit the UK science policy forum to add your answer! (Mine is there.) Moving from the UK to the US, Michael Nestor says that we need a national consortium of science, and for universities to be parallel distributed processors. Read on, and contribute.

Maria Nowotny, a researcher in materials science, enjoys peer-reviewing papers and acting as a guest editor for journals – so much so that she’s interested in an editing career. An online discussion follows of the qualifications and experience needed for this role.

If you’re a scientist who writes, and you like travelling to the remotest of places, Steffi Suhr rounds up current opportunities to visit the Antarctic, complete with insider tips.

How do you fit 4,000 years of science into 400 pages? Historians of science call this the Big Picture problem, and now Patricia Fara has provided the first ever solution – Science: A Four Thousand Year History (Oxford University Press). In a Second Life talk on Tuesday 30 June, she discusses three of the Big Questions she had to confront while she was writing her book – When did science begin? Who did science? How does science change? Some of her answers may be unexpected. More details are here. You may have difficulty attending if you are in Australia, unfortunately, as Craig Rowell reports censorship plans.

Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:

Planet Nature

Nature.com’s science blogs index and tracker

Nature Publishing Group news at Nature Network

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