It's been about three months since National Geographic announced that it was starting a new blog network called Phenomena, and so it seemed like a good time to drop in and see how things are going.
The design is a little different from the usual blog setup, in which each new post rests on the shoulders of those that came before, as with the Tracker. The posts are in reverse chronological order–with the newest at the top–but each page contains a horizontal space at the top with a teaser for a post, and then eight vertical tiled teasers below that, each with a photograph. I can't decide whether this design is an improvement on the usual design, or a minor distraction. In either case, the design is secondary to the quality of the posts–which is superb.
One could hardly have expected anything else. If hiring the right people is the most important factor in getting a job done, Phenomena's editor, National Geographic magazine's executive editor for science, Jamie Shreeve, made the right call. The four bloggers he signed to launch the network are Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, Brian Switek, and Virginia Hughes, all established and admired bloggers.
Among the items they've posted in the past few days:
–A creepy piece on parasites by Zimmer, who regularly writes creepy pieces about creepy parasites (that might not sound like a compliment, but it is).
–A post by Switek asking, and answering, the question "Why was Supersaurus so big?"
–A Yong "missing links" post (a regular feature for him), in which he points us to all kinds of wonderful stories that prove two things: There is a heck of a lot of good science on the web, and Ed Yong reads more of it that anyone else alive.
–A Yong animal story about male frogs that extract eggs from dead females and fertilize them.
–A Hughes post with a surprisingly interesting tale of a Romanian scientist who returned home to pursue his scientific career in Romania after studying abroad. Why surprising? Because you don't think you're interested in Romanian science. But Hughes will convince you that you should be.
–And a delightful series of posts by Switek that make up a dinosaur alphabet. ("Q is for Qiaowanlong," "R is for Rapetosaurus," and so on. He's up to "T.")
I would have preferred to spend more time there browsing, rather than breaking off to write this post. But I thought you should know: Things at Phenomena are looking very good indeed.
-Paul Raeburn
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