Articles

On science blogs this week: Neurons

How many neurons in the human brain, and where did the traditional number — 100 billion — come from? Ötzi-the-Iceman's genome revealed. Trying to write science for women's magazines and other mass media. New rules for statins. Heartsick about the Heartland climate change email scandal. Open sesame for Open Access. For now.

Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings travel funding

Looking for ways to cover science on a tight travel budget? For the fifth year in a row, the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings invites NASW members who are working journalists or freelancers attending on assignment from a media outlet to apply for travel funding to attend the Lindau Meeting. Deadline: April 4.

On science blogs this week: Universe

AAAS meeting blogging. Are the enemies of science growing or just getting louder? A microbe field guide? Primate moral outrage over inequality. Those purloined Heartland climate change documents: the surprising villain, the textual analysis, and the education scheme. The first watery exoplanet, misexplained. FTL neutrinos, not so fast. Download the Universe and the future of science ebooks.

Idea Grants update: $140,000 awarded thus far

In the past seven months, the National Association of Science Writers has awarded an additional five Idea Grants, totaling $67,000, bringing the total awarded since the grant program's inception one year ago this month to almost $140,000. Funding is provided by income from the Authors Coalition, and the grants are intended to help science writers in their professional lives or benefit the field of science writing.

From ScienceWriters: The polls are in

In the circles in which we run we have seen the results of polls that seek to tease out how the public perceives science and scientists. For this edition of Scholarly Pursuits, we are taking a look at one of these polls as well as exploring some recent papers that seek to elucidate how and why people perceive science in certain ways. From the Winter 2011-12 ScienceWriters.

2012 travel fellows at AAAS

NASW awarded travel grants to 8 undergraduates interested in science writing to attend the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, B.C., Feb. 16-20. The fellows reported on some of the scientific sessions that they found most interesting and newsworthy.

On science blogs this week: Risky

The sad state of SETI and of space exploration. NASA budget dooms planetary expeditions. Bad infographics of bad science. Deceptive docs. A new stolen email scandal besets some climate change folks, and this time deniers are the targets. Darwin's papers online. Dark matter is everywhere. Wall Street loves dopamine. Videos: Flying robot jugglers and the aurora borealis.

On science blogs this week: Archaic

Archaic genomes and archaic behavior: The Neandertal within. The Denisovan DNA sequence is made public. Why the Komen-Planned Parenthood mess should cheer you up. Plus contraception, biological anthropology, the connected brain, Steve Jobs' FBI files, clinical trials, social media viewed from 2062, the politics of climate change, Mount Etna eruption video, and — don't miss this one — The Scale of the Universe.

From ScienceWriters: Amending tax returns

An accommodating Internal Revenue Service makes it relatively easy to correct mistakes on previous returns without the need to completely redo the returns or go through any complicated red tape. From the Winter 2011-12 ScienceWriters.

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