science 2008-2009: 1: on the blog

I’ve spent the the last few years writing a book called Science in the Twentieth Century – and Beyond. It’s being published by Polity Press. Oddly it’s already available from amazon, so I had better finish it.

I want to end the book with a survey of science in 2008 and 2009. I’ve chosen to do this survey in the form of a blog, collecting together comments on stories. I’m using Nature and Science as my main sources. This and the blog posts that follow are the first draft of the survey. Let me know if I miss anything stupid.

And science blogs were part of the story in 2009. Geoff Brumfiel in Nature reported that, while the downturn in newspaper revenue was driving out traditional science journalism, the trend was being matched by surge in the number of researcher-written blogs. The journalists that are left are much more likely to source stories from blogs as well as write their own.

The other science and blog story of 2009 was social media applications – blogs, twitter and the rest – were undermining conferences. Data captured by digital camera was being published immediately, often without the presenter’s knowledge. A Nature editorial called for a sharp distinction to be drawn between open and closed conferences, and for bloggers to respect it. The alternative would be secrecy and suspicion.