Looking for good science writing online? You couldn’t find a better field guide than The Open Laboratory 2012, a collection some of the best writing on science blogs in 2011.
This is the sixth collection in which Bora Zivkovic, Scientific American’s blog editor, and various co-conspirators have reviewed science-blog posts to come up with some of the best of the lot. Jennifer Ouellette was the editor this year, along with Bora. Together they read and re-read 720 entries. Amanda Moon, of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, decided the tie-breakers. Bora also noted that Amanda and FSG will publish the collection as an offline book next September–likely assuring it broader distribution than it has enjoyed in the past.
“The point,” writes Bora, “is not to choose the 50 best posts in some absolute sense, but 50 representative posts of the year, showcasing the diversity of topics, forms, formats, lengths, styles and voices, including pieces by established writers and by new talent (at quick glance, at least three bloggers whose work will be included this year have only started blogging during the past year).”
Jennifer puts it this way: “This is an anthology comprised of a selection of 51 OF SOME of the best blog posts in 2011 — not THE 51 “best” posts. It’s a critical distinction because, let’s face it, there’s likely many gems out there that didn’t even get nominated, and there were several posts we would have loved to include but had to cut to get the count down to 51.” (Did you spot the discrepancy in the math? The collection contains 50 posts–and one poem.)
I’ll refrain from pointing out some of my favorites; the editors have already done the hard work for us, and there’s no need for me to make a further cut. The links are all there. Enjoy.
– Paul Raeburn
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