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The Loom
« Sigmas From Shoulder to Shoulder [Science Tattoos]
Big Ratings For Darwinius Day. So How Was It, Cable-Viewers? »

Introducing The Quark, A Prize For Science Blogs

3quarks600.jpg

If you don’t already know about 3 Quarks Daily, check it out. It’s an elegant group blog that links to all sorts of interesting stuff on science, art, literature, politics, and philosophy. They also put “gossip” in the list of topics in their banner, but I don’t recall anything on Angelina Jolie or Mel Gibson. This morning, for example, they’ve posted stuff on the evolution of house cats and the leader of the defeated Tamil rebels on Sri Lanka.

Yesterday, the folks at 3QD made an announcement:

We have decided to start awarding four prizes every year in the respective areas of Science, Arts & Literature, Politics, and Philosophy for the best blog post in those fields.

First up is the prize for blogs on science. Readers are invited to nominate posts from May 24, 2008 to May 24, 2009, posting the url in the comment section of the announcement post. The editors of 3 Quarks Daily will winnow down the nominations, and then Harvard linguist Steven Pinker will select the first, second, and third prize winners. (The top prize comes with a $1000 award.) The deadline is June 1.

Now, if, on the outside chance, you wanted to nominate a blog post from the Loom, who am I to interfere with my wise readers? In fact, let me help you out a little. Here’s a list of posts from the past year that I’m particularly pleased with, in reverse chronological order.

Life On Earth: A Losing Game of Whack-A-Mole?

Darwinius: It delivers a pizza, and it lengthens, and it strengthens, and it finds that slipper that’s been at large under the chaise lounge for several weeks…

In The Prebiotic Kitchen

How To Be A Bat [Life in Motion]

Unchecked Ice: A Saga in Five Chapters

Live Blogging The Mars Methane Mystery: Aliens At Last?

The Island of Fossil Viruses

The Puppet Master’s Medicine Chest

The Evolution of the Face: A Letter to Some Readers in Tennessee

A Catastrophic Career

Going Green

You Want A Piece of This? (Please Please Please Don’t Take a Piece of This!)

The Clock That Breeds

Even Blood Flukes Get Divorced

The Allure of Big Antlers

The Bird That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Festooning The Tree Of Life

Missing The Wrist

Dawn of the Picasso Fish

A New Step In Evolution

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May 26th, 2009 10:51 AM by Carl Zimmer in General, Link Love | 4 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

4 Responses to “Introducing The Quark, A Prize For Science Blogs”

  1. 1.   Lab Grab Says:
    May 26th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    Great idea to promote more blogging from the science community. Idea sharing and promotion something researchers and universities consistently site as needing help doing.

  2. 2.   Abbas Raza Says:
    May 29th, 2009 at 6:12 am

    “They also put “gossip” in the list of topics in their banner, but I don’t recall anything on Angelina Jolie or Mel Gibson.”

    In my own defense, Carl, I should point out that on that same day I did post a video of the US Pole Dancing Federation 2009 Championship Highlights!

    :-)

    Thanks for posting the notice about our prize.

    All best,

    Abbas

  3. 3.   Justin E. H. Smith Says:
    May 30th, 2009 at 11:31 pm

    Carl,

    I wrote an article on Mel Gibson for 3QD in August, 2006:

    http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2006/08/selected_minor_.html

    –Justin

  4. 4.   David Says:
    December 8th, 2009 at 5:15 am

    Hi Carl,

    Just came across your blog.

    Some fascinating articles – please keep them coming.

    -david

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