Comments on: Pocket Science – when enslaved bacteria go bad, gut microbes and fat mice, and stretchy beards of iron

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:29:40 +0000

I hear you, Steve, and I feel largely the same. If I had infinite time on my hands, I’d give everything the full treatment. The short format does allow me to cover stories that I don’t actually have much to say about but I thought were worth a mention. For example, I didn’t really have much more to write about the mussel beards than the three paragraphs above. In previous months, I’d have just ignored it.
As I said in the pilot post, if I suspect that the Pocket Science posts are compromising the quality of the longer pieces, I’ll cut back or stop them.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:11:20 +0000

I think the longer format is much better. Quality before quanity. Either way, however, you’re doing a great job.

By: Daniel J. Andrews

Daniel J. Andrews — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:50:25 +0000

Re: gut bacteria. So does this mean obesity might be contagious after all?
I like this pocket science experiment.

By: LKL

LKL — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:38:56 +0000

once again I am glad I have this site bookmarked. Some really fun stuff there! Thank you for spending the time that you do on this blog.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:53:55 +0000

I just wanted to say that I prefer the multiple articles per post for two main reasons:
1) It forces me to look at research I might otherwise avoid since it’s already right in front of me to read. Sort of like a newspaper or magazine. I use a feed reader so I’ll avoid articles that don’t catch my attention.
2) I read from my iPod, so multiple posts in one place is much more convenient. It makes it much more likely for me to read each article.
Further, I’m still loving the pocket science. Great for those of us that are super-busy, want to keep up on interesting finds, but don’t have the time to get into a full article.