From Scientific American, Press release, July 5th 2011:
Blog Network Launches on ScientificAmerican.com
Today Scientific American launched a new blog network which unites editorial, independent and group blogs under the magazine’s banner. The community of 60 bloggers provides authoritative information and insights about science and technology, and their roles in global affairs. The blog network, overseen by Blog Editor Bora Zivkovic, who serves as moderator for the community, encourages discussion and facilitates the exchange of ideas with both the bloggers and Scientific American readers.
Zivkovic, known for his own “A Blog Around The Clock,” a blend of chronobiology, science, media and education among other subjects, has invited a diverse group of voices for the network. Bloggers range from graduate students, who are launching their careers, to veteran science writers such as John Horgan, Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Renowned writers including Jennifer Ouellette (“Cocktail Party Physics”), Darren Naish (“Tetrapod Zoology”) and Scott Huler (“Plugged In”) join veteran Scientific American bloggers John Platt (“Extinction Countdown”) and Jesse Bering (“Bering in Mind”) on the network. The format of the blog allows for great diversity in tone and topics. Many of the bloggers focus on the bridge between science and other fields such as philosophy, sociology, music, art, gender and race, hip-hop culture and literature.
“In its 165 year history, Scientific American has built a reputation as the leading publication for science in the general media,” says Zivkovic. “The goal of the blog network is to provide a new platform for people in the science community to exchange ideas and interact with the SA readers in a dynamic way.”
The Scientific American Blog Network features three new SA editorial blogs. @ScientificAmerican provides news, updates, highlights and anecdotes from the Scientific American newsroom while “The Incubator” highlights the best work by students in science writing and journalism schools. The “Network Central” blog will feature highlights from the blog network each week. Existing SA editorial blogs such as “Observations,” “Solar at Home,” “Anecdotes from the Archive” and “Expeditions” remain. The network also features new blogs by Scientific American Editors Davide Castelvecchi (“Degrees of Freedom”), Anna Kuchment (“Budding Scientists”), and Scientific American Mind Editor Ingrid Wickelgren (“Streams of Consciousness”). There are future plans to launch additional staff-authored blogs.
The Scientific American Blog Network is hosted on its own landing page, blogs.scientificamerican.com.
Links:
http://twitter.com/#!/sciamblogs
About Scientific American:
Scientific American is at the heart of Nature Publishing Group’s consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S. and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 14 local language editions around the world it reaches more than 5 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany. For more information, please visit www.scientificamerican.com.
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I looked through a number of blogs, some of which were refugees from last year’s advertising debacle over at ScienceBlogs. Interestingly, there appears to be no blogs about climate.
The filter selector has no category for it. In “Energy and Sustainability”, as well as “More Science”, I looked also, but found none on that topic. Perhaps the powers that be at SA realize that climate is not a topic for the meek, as it often gets very ugly and contentious, and it just isn’t worth the hassle.
Or maybe, climate is falling off the serious science radar at SA?
I notice many people who were former fans of SA are dropping off because of its anti-science attitude in its articles. I too join those ranks. When I first started reading SA in the early 1960’s it was a gem of information. Now, its been dumbed down. Maybe because of their choice of writers and editors. I don’t know, but there has been a change and from the perspective of science in general, it hasn’t been good.
Now they want to set up a series of blogs? Good for circulation I suppose. But not for science.
What Larry said.
Scientific American used to be THE science periodical for the layman. Now it is just another left wing political rag. Not just on ‘global warming’, but on every other topic it covers. It has become an anti-science fish wrapper. Such a shame. It used to be a genuinely fun read. But now you have to deal every month with the fact that, even if you agree with the politics, it simply isn’t fun being bludgeoned with them. I gave up on them several years ago, with initial great reluctance that turned to disgust.
American Scientist is much better.
Wow, who knew SA was still operational. I truly hope that all good science will have a forum on this site. As I go through he blogs, several key topics are indeed missing. We will see if they get this one right..
Perhaps the reason there is no section devoted to Global Warming is that they see it as all-pervasive, and so falls under all other sections? Certainly, it seems to be shoehorned in at every opportunity, irrespective of the subject matter.
Will any of them post neat things like how to build a laser light show from common items one might find around a typical nerd-cave? How about how to build a mercury vapor laser from scratch? Both were articles in SA sometime in the early 1980’s.
I don’t know much about Scientific American, but one good scientific blog (though not climate related) I do know that has just moved to Scientific American is:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/
It is run by Darren Naish and is very worthwhile for anyone interested in zoology.
Darren and his commenters are both knowledgeable and a worthwhile read.
He previously ran his blog at: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/
Sad to see the Scientific American become the Politically Correct American.
I really miss the old SA. I had forgotten about the Amateur Scientist until Andrew30 mentioned it. Perhaps it was too focused on showing people how to do real observations on natural events?
I really believe people prefer pretend worlds to live in; look at the fare on television these days. ‘Reality’ shows that are not real. Manufactured contests in ‘Survivor’ shows. Avatar, a cartoon version of Dances with Wolves.
As long as it has slick special effects, people go for it.
SA is just responding to what people want.
And does anyone else miss the Mathematical Games column? That was fun too.
Like everyone above, I had to abandon SA long ago. I find Andrew30’s observation of the demise of the Amateur Scientist column as apt irony.
I got interested in amateur astronomy and meteorology in elementary school and graduated into SA thereafter, andco-founding the Minnesota Astronomical Society.
I predict they will get around to having a “climatesci” blog. But who? I suggest a thread for plausible (but PC) nominations by Anthony. Sadly (PC-sanitized). But can anyone fill that unctuous but convincing role?
My nomination is John Cook of unskeptical “skepticalscience” reknown. He is a Realclimate.org/Hockey Stick staff approved. He will have to be fact checked and edited down to less savvy audiences for popular consumption – something the SA staff knows too well how to do (PC-style, of course).
Their new strategy in translation:
http://oi51.tinypic.com/103g0h0.jpg
I can no longer think of Scientific American without thinking UN, or rather, Un-
Un-Scientific Un-American.
When I was born in ’65 Sci. Amer. had articles like this, full of diagrams minus any clip art. Currently Sci. Amer. acts as a device to actively stop citizens from thinking clearly by garnering their attention but then tranquilizing natural curiosity instead of arming it with discipline, knowledge and creative zest. They killed the Amateur Scientist in 2001. Obviously, I no longer subscribe.
“How the Amateur Can Identify Subatomic Particles From Their Tracks in Photographs”
“Plasticity in sensory-motor systems”
“How opiates change behavior”
“The origin and evolution of cities”
“Early man in Peru”
“Acoustic methods in psychiatry”
“Superconductivity at room temperature”
“The metabolism of the city”
“The swimming energetics of salmon”
“Photography by laser”
“The superellipse: a curve that lies between the ellipse and the rectangle”
“The’Untouchables’ of India”
“Microelectronics”
“The Stirling refrigeration cycle”
“The magnetosphere”
“Computer experiments in fluid dynamics”
“De Forest and the Triode Detector”
“The Evolution of Haemoglobin”
“The Structure of the United States Economy”
“Intense magnetic fields”
“The Greeks and the Hebrews”
“Molecular beams”
“Some comments by Dr. Martix on symmetrics and reversals”
“Nuclear fission”
“The Magnetic Field of the Galaxy”
“The origins of facial expressions”
“The mechanism of muscular contraction”
“The Production of Heat by Fat”
“Heat transfer in plants”
“The synapse”
“The skin”
“”Learning in the Octopus”
“The physiology of exercise”
“The genetics of a bacterial virus”
“The flight muscles of insects”
“The chemistry of cell membranes”
“The Composition of the Earth’s Interior”
I’m not sure how this will play out or how long some of the blogs being hosted will survive should their contributors fail to toe ‘the party line’.
Came across this post which may be worth following to see how it develops…
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2011/07/05/throwing-rocks-into-the-cosmic-ocean/
I too find it strange that the topic of climate change is absent from the list, although this could easily change.
Jusf for information – circulation of Sci Ame according to this website has come down 20% from 2009 to 2010. (number 157 on the list)
http://adage.com/datacenter/datapopup.php?article_id=228524
Count me in with Andrew30. The Amateur Scientist used to be probably the best thought-provoking feature in any magazine, and my CD of the entire collection (search on “Tinkers Guild”) is one of my most treasured possessions – and can still set me thinking about some unfamiliar topic. The modern mag is typical of its time, mindless and with no apparent interest in reality, and people who can produce that sort of stuff aren’t likely to have much to offer. Fond memories, SciAm, but that’s it.
intrepid_wanders says:
July 5, 2011 at 7:47 pm
I found the climo-blog!!!
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/creatology/2011/07/05/welcome-to-creatology/
Hey intrepid, good catch. They also say… “Whether the challenge is climate change, biodiversity at breaking point or global health, how can art communicate complex issues?”
So I left a little note. We’ll see what happens
I cannot imagine anyone not canceling their subscription in 1984 when Gerard Piel’s son Jonathan took over. He knew zero about science and was the Terminator of the Scientific part of the name. Two years later it was sold to Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck and the American part disappeared. I have not bought it since, though they did manage to publish a very good article on breeder reactors in December, 2005.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf
Whatever…
http://www.scientificamerican.com/climate
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-last-great-global-warming
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-researchers-seek-global-warming-clues-in-arctic-svalbard-archipelago
I gave up on reading SA right after they dropped “The Amateur Scientist”, with about the same distates as expressed by Andrew30. Just like NatGeo, glossy papered propaganda for the faithful jingoists
I just checked and the top entry in the blog is
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/creatology/2011/07/06/the-inevitable-evolutionary-effect-of-global-warming/
Scientific American would have to settle for second fiddle after WUWT….. and well they should for abandoning science for populism. People who are interested in SCIENCE now where to get good information and where the dialogue is taking place. It isn’t at the SA echo chamber. Facts will prevail.
Anthony, you need a succession plan. What if you bump your head getting into your electric car?
I used to be a subscriber to SA and when I moved to France, to its French edition “Pour la Science”. I now despise both.
I gave up on the Scientific American just as described by many people have described here. It wasn’t the climate science aspect. it started long before that when it was “dumbed down”. I used to read every article carefully, However as the magazine became dumber, the reading became a quick skimming since the articles contained very little content. Finally it became Climate Science Monthly and I just gave up.
My subscription must have lasted fror over 30 years. I occasionally find old copies with the prices on them of 50 or 75 cents. Their articles are still interesting. I wish that I could say the same of the current version. Even at 50 or 75 cents in 2011 money, the magazine would not be worth buying
I quit SA and tried Discover. It also bows at the altar of AGW. Will cancel it when it runs out. Even my Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines periodically genuflect to the AGW idol.
I also dropped my subscription due to the new heavy emphasis on morality, AWG, and “social impacts” of science rather than articles about actual science. It’s not a science magazine anymore, it’s part of the propaganda. Next up: National Geographic, who recently succumbed to inserting AWG in every article whether relavent or not.
Ditto all the above. I subscribed beginning in 1964. I let my subscription lapse for good this spring. I threw away my back issues four years ago.