Scientia Pro Publica

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.

Welcome to the 5th round of Scientia Pro Publica. The Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) blog carnival celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted to the public (instead of to other scientists) that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.

I apologize in advance if the carnival seems a bit incoherent, but due to a mild allergic reaction to something I ate yesterday, my tongue started to swell up, and I didn't sleep as much as I'd have liked. Apparently it's possible to get allergic reactions to food, without being allergic. This is a piece of medical knowledge I'd been perfectly happy to have gained through a blogpost somewhere.

Before starting on the submissions, I should probably mention that a number of the submissions didn't make it to the carnival. The aim of the carnival is to bring science to the public, which means that submissions should both contain science and be suitable for the general public. A number of submissions failed to live up to the science criteria, and thus haven't been included. Some of the submissions that did make it, might not be as suitable for the general public as one would have liked, but overall I felt that they merited inclusions.

Biology/Evolution
GrrlScientist presents a book review of Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True

Bora Zivkovic presents Yes, Archaea also have circadian clocks!

Given the media coverage of the discovery of Ida, I was surprised that there wasn't more submissions on that subject. Luckily Greg Laden has submitted a great post on Ida the Fossil Primate

Bob O'Hara presents Help! How Do I Deal With Microarrays?

Chemistry/Biochemistry
AK presents Wiring the Cell for Power

Human/Veterinary Medicine
jarofthoughts presents Stem Cell Research and you

Mike presents Neuro Brain Thermodynamics

Romeo Vitelli writes about the Vaccination Wars in two parts. Part 1 and part 2

Psychology/Psychiatry/Pharmacology
Michelle Dawson presents The autistic way of laughing

I will be rude enough to include my own post on the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Physics/Astronomy
DrKuha describes his submission as "Attempting to draw comparisons between Phlogiston Theory and the Higgs boson and String Theory in an effort to shed some light on how scientific insight is gained."
The Phlogiston: Not Quite Vindicated

Martial Development takes a good, hard look at Spike TV's new show "Deadliest Warrior", and is not impressed.
Inside Deadliest Warrior’s Combat Simulator

Phil for Humanity describes his submissions thus: "Finally, a plausible explanation as to why time travelers from the future have never arrived into our past or present, assuming time travel will be possible."
Time Travel Theories « Phil for Humanity

Behavioral Ecology/Conservation
Mesquite Pete explains that ets are at risk from mosquitoes as well in his post Pets and Mosquitoes

Jeremy presents Churros and peaches in the Canyon de Chelly

Oceanography/Marine Biology
At Mauka to Makai Overfishing Simplified... Then Complexified

Scientists and Society
Arj presents a book of Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track in The Inner Feynman

Russell Blackford disagrees with NAS and writes about it in NAS on the compatibility of science and religion

Rick Foreman presents Robotics and Artificial Intelligence - The Next Step in Human Evolution?. I should perhaps note that I am not in agreement with his premises, but I think it's a pretty good fit for the "scientists and society" category, as it reflects on how science might influence society.

Southern Fried Science has a Guestpost: What is Social Science?

Bob O'Hara presents Publicity and Outreach Done Wrong. Sounds like he has found the right way to promote his papers.

The final submission I'm going to include, is one I had to debate whether really fitted the format or not. I've pretty much reached the conclusion that it doesn't but, thought "what the heck".

Hank Roberts submitted a link to a YouTube video, which I've embedded. He writes the following:

I've known about these folks for quite a while; they're completely serious and dedicated to what they're doing. I"m not involved with them, just a fan. If their video qualifies as a blog article, this is worth attention.

As I said, this is not really the right format for this carnival, and people should not expect future YouTube submissions to be included.



This ends this round of Scientia Pro Publica. I hope you have enjoyed the posts, and that my lack of sleep hasn't been too apparent.

The next edition of Scientia Pro Publica will be up at target="window" href="http://maukamakai.wordpress.com/">Mauka to
Makai in two weeks, so make sure to submit all your science posts aimed at the public.