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After my post earlier this week about how I’m organizing my online reading, it’s occurred to me that it might be useful to go into further depth about what I’m reading. Specifically, what’s in the “Science Blogs” folder I have set up on Reeder. These are as close as I can come, currently, to the experience of the peak Science Blogosphere.
That’s what we called the network of science-oriented websites updated serially with posts and articles by grad students, senior scientists, educators, journalists, and interested amateurs that really hit its stride (in my memory) in the late 2000s and early 2010s, before much of what we did with those serially-updated websites got sucked into Twitter. Some of the people in that network are still posting, at the same URLs, even — more have undergone as many career transitions as I have.
So here’s the full list of sites and newsletters I’ve been following as “Science Blogs” — at least those that are still relatively active. It’s a diverse mix, but it’s certainly not as diverse as it could be, especially in terms of writers’ perspectives. If you’re still updating — or if you’ve just started updating — a blog or newsletter about science, especially genetics, evolution, and ecology, let me know about it in the comments or on Mastodon.
- Absolutely Maybe — Hilda Bastien, epidemiologist, writer, and cartoonist, posting semi-regularly on public health and science communication.
- The Biologist is In — Geneticist Darren Abbey, posting lately a lot about plant coloration genetics and breeding.
- The Ed’s Up — The personal newsletter of Ed Yong, science journalist and author (most recently) of An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.
- The Last Word on Nothing — a group blog by a long list of science writers, with recent posts by Kate Horowitz, Penny Wednesday, Sarah Everts, and Emily Underwood, on topics ranging from archaeology to suburban boars.
- Mike the Mad Biologist — Microbiologist “Mike”, who is mad, posting about politics with varying degrees of proximity to science and academia, and biology-adjacent interesting news.
- Notes from a Data Witch — Technical deep-dives on data science and statistics from psychologist and statistician Danielle Navarro.
- Pharyngula — The blog of P.Z. Myers, biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, posting general cranky-left commentary and excitement about research with spiders.
- Scientist Sees Squirrel — A wide-ranging blog by Stephen B. Heard, evolutionary biologist and entomologist, and author of books on scientific writing and fun case studies in taxonomy.
- Skulls in the Stars — Physicist Greg Gbur’s blog about optics, science history, and topics adjacent to his recent book on the science of Invisibility.
- Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science — Statistician and political scientist Andrew Gelman leading a big crew of co-bloggers posting about statistical theory and methods, with lots of current-events-relevant examples.
- Team Trash — The newsletter of Bethany Brookshire, staff writer at ScienceNews and author of the (terrific) Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains.
- Treethinking — Personal newsletter of TME alum Ethan Linck, who’s just starting a faculty position in ecology at Montana State University.
- Volts — The newsletter of environmental journalist David Roberts, mostly interviews about clean energy technology and policy.
- Weather West — The blog of UCLA meteorologist Daniel Swain, going in-depth about weather forecasting in the western U.S.
- The Well-Read Naturalist — John Riutta’s reviews of natural history books.
- Ze Frank’s YouTube channel — still the prime source of natural history videos I’m not quite sure I can get away with using in class.
