The Best of Nature Network: 28 August-3 September 2010

Blogs

We say goodbye to one of our most cherished bloggers this week, as Martin Fenner moves on to pastures new:

Writing this blog here on Nature Network since August 2007 has been an incredible experience, something that can’t be covered in a single blog post. I simply want to say thank you to all the people I interacted with over the years – both online and in person.

He then links to some of his many excellent contributions, which include opinions on publishing technology and interviews with those behind the scenes.

Tom Webb takes a critical look at recent suggestions to wipe out mosquitoes, thus easing human suffering from the diseases the insects spread. He asks if it’s feasible or desirable to completely remove a species from its ecosystem:

Even within the mosquitoes this is complex. There are, after all, around 3500 species, only a few of which are a health hazard. So should we eradicate the malaria-carrying Anopheles species? What about Aedes aegypti, which carries yellow fever? And if those, why not the bloody midges that can ruin Scottish holidays? Or the wasps which seem to exist only to cause havoc at picnics…

Others are looking forward to upcoming conferences. Ian Brooks previews the elephantine Society for Neuroscience meeting, in which he plans to use a ‘Segway with scythes attached to the wheels’ to cut through the 35,000-strong crowd. Jim Caryl, meanwhile, prepares for the encroaching Science Online London conference, before offering his thoughts on the search for better antimicrobials:

For all the hope I have that there are academic solutions to better strategies of antibiotic use, anticipating and preventing resistance, better surveillance, and identifying new drug targets in bacteria (or better approaches to known targets), these are all rather like architect’s plans when what we need right now are some bricks in the oven.

In other recommended posts, Anthony Fejes sounds the death knell for microarrays, Ayusman Sen describes a nanobot technology for seeking oil, Stephen Curry reviews a sumptuously illustrated book explaining the machinery of the cell and Austin Elliott leads a discussion about swearing and shouting in the workplace.

Science Maps

Our series on scientific maps continues apace. So far, we’ve curated maps of London, San Francisco, Münster, Malta, New York and Cambridge, UK, with more in the pipeline. If you’d like to take part, and map your own city, please email Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com) for details, and read our guide to making maps.

And Finally…

Matt Brown finds a chart showing the 500-year history of science, in the form of a London Tube map.

Click here for a bigger map.