Apr 24, 2007
Chemical blogs, wikis, and quanta
I recently interviewed quantum chemist Steve Bachrach of Trinity University and asked him his thoughts on the web 2.0 revolution and whether or not chemists might benefit realistically from blogs and wikis.
“Well, this is really an issue of culture. My personal hesitancy to adopt Web 2.0 technologies is that I don’t have the time to read random thoughts by random individuals. I barely have time to keep up with the old-school (i.e., traditional journals) literature in my field. The blogosphere just seemed to me to be filled with the rantings of people who have nothing better to do with their time. Peter Murray-Rust’s blog was the first to demonstrate to me that real chemistry content could be had, that interesting and novel ideas could be found and shared and discussed.”
You can read the complete interview in the latest issue of Reactive Reports together with my regular round up of chemical science news for the site.
Proteins’ Web of Intrigue The latent strength of Miss Muffet’s arachnoid friend may have been in sexual allegory, but the image of a spider’s web as somehow weak, a glistening, gossamer netting for trapping only flies could not be further from the truth.
Stem to Sperm Stem cells from human bone marrow can be converted into early-stage sperm, according to a research team based at the North-east England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI), Newcastle.
Dino Remains We have not quite entered Jurassic Park, but researchers have successfully extracted protein from a 68 million year old Tyrannosaurus rex bone.
I think blogs can definitely help chemists, if they are done the right way. The concept of a “blog” is evolving, and nowadays blogs can be so much more than people ranting. Blogging is just another platform of communications and I’m all for it.
I don’t think “Chemical blogs, wikis, and quanta”, will benefit chemists or scientists. After researching a few websites I noticed that most are Chemical Directories which benefit the consumer or mass buyers of chemicals.
Web 2.0 seems to be filled with so much information from non experts. It’s a platform to discuss the latest and greatest in every field. The trick to maneuvering through myspace, facebook , orkut, and the others is finding those experts that do blog. It’s great to get the latest thoughts from the experts. Don’t wait for the chemistry book to be published get the chemists’ thoughts today.
I tend to agree with your interviewee especially when it comes to blogs. Wikis, however, or other similar web-based applications that allow collaborative work could definitely aid research. I personally like the idea of the Open Science project.
‘Chemists to benefit realistically from blogs and wikis’ is a too demanding wish for web 2.0 network, IMHO. But there may be still some possibility. I talked about this in my latest post.