The Naked Truth: Canadian Science Blogging Scene

Bloggers are changing what was the tightly controlled world of science communications -- dominated by peer-reviewed journals and mainstream media -- into a two-way street. 

Join four popular science bloggers to hear how social media lets them tell their stories without compromise. The panelists will tell you about political science and apes during the 2011 federal Canadian election; about what you do after you get your graduate science degrees and start developing your post-school career; about running a science lab and writing one of the most incendiary science blog posts of 2010; about the very well kept secret that is the Canadian nanotechnology community. We anticipate a lively (rowdy) interactive session with lots of questions from the audience to the panel and from the panel to the audience.

Panelists

Rosie Redfield (http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/) is a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia and, unlike most other science bloggers, blogs openly about the research going on in her lab [RRResearch]. Blogging is part of her ongoing attempt to practice 'open science'. A few months ago she wrote a post critical of the NASA-sponsored claim that bacteria can put arsenic into their DNA, which started a tirade of criticism by other scientists and bloggers.

Beth Snow (http://scienceadvocacy.org/Blog/) has a PhD in Human Nutrition and currently works as an Evaluation Specialist in Public Health. She co-writes The Black Hole, a blog that engages issues that face science trainees across Canada from finding jobs, to communicating science, to improving the training environment for the upcoming generations.

Eric Michael Johnson (http://primatediariesinexile.blogspot.com/) has a master’s degree in evolutionary anthropology focusing on great ape behavioral ecology. He is currently a doctoral student in the history of science at the University of British Columbia looking at the interplay between evolutionary biology and politics. His work has appeared in the Journal of Human Evolution, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Scientific American, Discover, Seed, Psychology Today, Wildlife Conservation, and The Huffington Post. He blogs at The Primate Diaries on issues of science, politics and history related to our shared experience as primates in the human zoo.

Maryse de la Giroday (http://www.frogheart.ca), an independent scholar and science communications professional, writes about nanotechnology, science policy, science  communication, the arts, and society. With a BA in Communications, an MA in Creative Writing and New Media, her science-oriented blog is an interdisciplinary affair.

Moderator

Lisa Johnson (http://lisa-johnson.ca) is a journalist, reporting daily for CBC News Vancouver, on television and radio, specializing in science and environmental issues. She used to be a scientist, or at least a scientist-in-training, with an Honours degree in Biology before deciding to become a storyteller. That makes her a geek for all kinds of things that many journalists she's met dislike, including animal carcasses and math.