Who owns you Scienceblog.com?

One of the key concepts that we try to get across to students when they're doing online research is that you have to figure out who owns the material, and guess at their motiviations for putting it online. That said, the news on Scienceblog is lovely, multidisciplinary, and current. But who owns it? Is this Elsevier or Nature further steering people to their own content?

Growin'?

I totally haven't updated anyone on the garden--but it's occupied most of our spare time recently. So much for the originaly purpose of whatsgrowing.com.

Anyway, the jungle looks downright tame these days, even though there is still an overwhelming amount of crabgrass in our front perennial bed. Tuesday, when I rushed home to continue the weeding of Sunday, I began to think that quite a bit of the grass is actually garlic. There is quite a bit of it. Last fall I pulled a few bulbs of it and placed them in the herb bed (as well as a number of flower heads, which now look mysteriously like chives), but I find more and more that as I weed along the edge of the bed (we have a goal of having a 6 inch border), people walk by and say, "are you growing garlic?"

Sunday was a major gardening day, with at least 7 full hours spent at work. At some point, L and I simultaneously got fed up with weeding and decided to attack the side beds. Now, let me explain: these aren't really beds. At some point someone tried to make them beds, but when we moved in last summer they were just piles of crap: concrete, rocks, and pulled weeds. Three of them. Last fall I dug one out and planted some winter cover that never really took off. The other two just sat as they were. Sunday, we decided to dig them out. After a while, we decided that the grass dividing the beds was useless, so now we have a 15 foot long pile of dirt along our side street, and a garbage pail full of turf and dirt drying out in the garage.

The plan is to have a self-seeding annual bed, but we are currently arguing about its shape. Should we have a couple of square beds seperated by rock or grass paths? Should we have an undulating bed set into lawn? Should it just be the megabed that it is now? L got a book from the library Monday(?) night: "Getting Your Lawn off Grass," so we have some plant ideas. I'm sort of hoping for a big paisley.

So right now we have blooming:
--daffodils
--daphne (a passerby identified this little shrub for us)
--violas (I think)
--the cherry tree across the street
--the camillia outside out window
--the last of the wacky winter flowers (no ID yet)

And coming up strong are:
--tulips and irisses
--lemon balm and mint
--recently discovered peonies are starting to unfold
--the aforementioned garlic
--the rhodies should go at any time (although they probably haven't been fed in several years, so they might bloom rather lazily)
--california poppies (this is a candidate for the annual bed)
--fancy fuzzy poppies

So that's whats growing.

Kind of sort of science

Well, here's a group of Chicagoans that has a couple scientist members. These folks are all over the place, but I'm pretty sure one of them is a physicist. The other is an ABD biologist from UChicago. It's definitely readable, but I'm not exactly going to call it a science blog.

Dangit people--tell us about your lab life!

Positive and Dense

Here's the first biology blog, from Amy Greenwood. She's got a Harvard address, but I'm not quite sure what she does there. Something with mice.

She's not too frequent a poster, but I think I'll be reading regularly, and going back and glancing at the archives. She had some conflicted feelings about the war last year, I'm curious how they turned out.

Hurray Multnomah County!

Got sucked into a couple 'orthodox' catholic blogs for a little while, so now I feel a little dirty and need to redeem myself.

So for all my big gay friends: If you want a cheaper alternative to tying the knot in San Francisco, come visit us and drive up to Portland--where they started selling marriage licenses to same-gender couples today. You're all welcome to spend your wedding night on the guest futon! (er, uh--maybe not if you all visited at the same time.)

So many blogs...

So little time.

Some folks seem to be getting hipper and hipper on the idea that the current state of journal publishing just isn't sustainable. Here's a Comp Sci theorist talking about another editorial board jumping ship to start a non-profit journal. He got the story from Crooked Timber, a blog with many authors that I just can't figure out: what's it supposed to be about? If there's 12 authors, what's the commone theme?

One thing it does have is a blogroll with a bunch of academic links--so I think most of the Crooked Timber people are professors. Anyway--the list points to many many more English professors than it does biologists, but at least the biologists (and one lonely chemist) are there. Hurray for chemists! I've got some readin to do.

Yet another not-original idea.

Oh Please! I want one. Ever since I got my palm I've wanted something to move my bookmarks from home to work and back. Sync them, if you will. This guy claims to have one. I knew this couldn't be something that someone hadn't thought of.

Thank you bloggers. I'll let you know how it goes.