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On science blogs this week: Sugar, sugar

Gary Taubes takes on another dietary foe: Sugar, he declares, is not just empty calories, it causes most of what ails us, even (maybe) cancer. The BP Gulf oil spill a year later: Still an oily residue. New guidelines on early diagnosis for Alzheimer's disease: What's the point, since there's no therapy?

On science blogs this week: Brainy

The Allen Human Brain Atlas at last, accentuating the similarities between Homo saps. Language may be Out of Africa too. The US science budget survives, mostly. But wait 'til next year, when it will be the liberal brain vs. the conservative brain.

Join us in Doha, Qatar, for WCSJ2011

Registration is now open for the 2011 World Conference of Science Writers in Doha, Qatar, June 26-30. The event includes multimedia workshops, dozens of sessions on hot topics in science writing, and field trips to explore science and the environment in the Arab world. NASW is content partner for the WCSJ, in collaboration with the Arab Science Journalists Association and the World Federation of Science Journalists. Early bird registration ends April 11.

On science blogs this week: Aftershocks

As Japan suffers through a big aftershock, there are more questions about radiation and other kinds of environmental damage, and online media experiment with telling Japan's story digitally. Another kind of aftershock follows this week's big paper on hormone therapy for symptoms of menopause. It showed that HT appears to reduce the risk of heart disease and even breast cancer in some women. That should have been good news, but it mostly added to the confusion.

2011 Laura Van Dam Fellows selected

Seven recipients of the 2011 Laura Van Dam Fellowships for travel to the World Conference of Science Journalists in June have been selected.

An update on the Google book (un)settlement

The controversial Google book settlement has come undone. Although there is talk of trying to revise it or appeal the court ruling against it, it's essentially back to square one for efforts to create a broadly accessible digital public library. An update from NASW's Jeff Hecht of his December 2008 guide to the now-rejected pact.

On science blogs this week: Radiation too

Homo erectus moved to India with tools about 1.5 million years ago. Homo sap moved to the New World with tools more than 15,000 years ago. Energy policy gets annotated and greenhouse gases get live-blogged. Is this the online future for science writing? The New York Times hits the wall. The pay wall. What to do about it?

On science blogs this week: Radiation

After Japan's earthquake and tsunami, it's all about nuclear power plants and radiation. But how much of this stuff is reliable? Stanley Miller's origin-of-life experiments are reanalyzed. Portrait of Otzi, the Iceman.

On science blogs this week: Quake

All earthquake all the time in Japan and elsewhere. Tsunami too. Also nuclear reactor accidents and radiation. Plus free videos to help you blog your best from the New England Science Writers and ScienceOnline2011 (SciO11)

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