Five blogs I’ve been reading lately

Apparently it’s Blog Day, a day where you link to and write about five new blogs you’ve been reading. Who decides this stuff? Anyway, since the 1st edition of The Accretionary Wedge is later this weekend, I’ll put down five blogs that aren’t specifically geology blogs. These aren’t necessarily new to my feedreader…but ones that I may not have discussed explicitly before.

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Laelaps

I found this blog earlier this summer and have been enjoying it since. The author, Brian, is a prolific writer and a modern-day naturalist, posting about numerous natural science topics with a heavy focus on paleontology, evolutionary biology, zoology, and anthropology. Laelaps also has many posts mixing in history and philosophy of science. I still haven’t fully digested his essay, Homo Sapiens: The Evolution of What We Think About Who We Are.

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Sum 1 to N

This is the blog of a mathematician who spends a lot of his blogging time fighting the good fight against the anti-science movement and their spurious arguments. In fact, I found the blog reading a comment thread when the anti-evolutionists were celebrating what they perceived as a ‘hit’ against evolution when new data refined our understanding of hominid evolution. Check out his recent post discussing the different types of anti-science activists.

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Deep Sea News

I’ve been reading DSN for a long time. The authors have a great mix of science, information, humor, and commentary about oceanographic topics in general, with a focus on deep sea biology. My PhD research involves understanding sedimentary processes in the deep sea, so I find it a great complement to my own ponderings of what goes on down there. They even have their own theme song! [link to mp3]

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Trinifar

This is a semi-regular blog about sustainability. How 6 billion+ people can survive and flourish on this planet is a topic that, for good reason, is getting more and more coverage. Many blogs are popping up that deal with different aspects of sustainability. Trinifar is great because the author produces wonderfully informative (and beautiful) graphics and charts that bring together the numerous factors involved. The best place to start for this blog is a post titled visualizing sustainability.

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Cleantech Blog

This is another blog within the broader topic of sustainability. This is a group blog that focuses on new and emerging energy technologies. Have you ever wondered about biofuels, electricity deregulation, solar technology, the economics of diversified energy, etc.? This is the place. This blog emphasizes solutions and practicality and keeps the complaining and blaming to a minimum (not that that doesn’t have its place).

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