Open Lab selections 2009

Here is the list of posts selected for the print version of Open Lab 09 (-2008 edition is here). Definitively worth a read:

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Blogroll Updates

It was time to fix numerous things in the blogroll, since too many links were broken or moved around. Now I think it is correct, though if I inadvertantly erased yours, please give a call to stand back in the list…

Here are a few more plant blogs that I discovered:

• The Scientist Gardener

• Wild Plants Post

• From Seeds To Table

• Plants Are The Strangest People

• Talking Plants

• How Plants Work

• Joe Paph & Orchid Blog

And among non botanicals:

• Almost Diamonds

• The Intersection

• The Loom

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Global Ersatz System?

From Robert D. Holt, in the latest issue of Nature (a ten year perspective exercise into some major science area by leading scientist)*:

The greatest practical challenge facing ecologists over the next decade is that much of what we wish to study may vanish before we can really fathom it. The planet is increasingly dominated by ersatz ecosystems — human-sculpted landscapes occupied by haphazard assemblies of introduced species and tolerant natives. These are legitimate objects of study, but there are considerable practical, aesthetic and moral costs of losing natural ecosystems before we can even fully document and understand them.

*Nature 463, 26-32 (7 January 2010) doi:10.1038/463026a;

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Berry Go Round #23

You can read the latest edition of Berry Go Round at Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog… Winter editions of the plants carnival are really wonderful. You may even discover some new blogs around. Go read, now!

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PSOTW: Lycopodium

Lycopodium plant along Blue Ridge Parkway

Originally uploaded by Martin LaBar

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OMGs GMOs

They’ll help us fight global warming. Or would they?

Pierre-Henri GOUYON tells us:  ‘What really frightens me are people who think that technical progress will solve all the problems caused by technical progress‘.

(Words from my PhD advisor mentor).

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2009 from…to

If I only consider blogs*: basically, this year, I’ve been receiving most traffic (light -sorry bad pun :-) from:

• catalogue-of-organisms.blogspot.com

• linnaeuslegacy.blogspot.com

• invertebrates.blogspot.com

• beetlesinthebush.wordpress.com

• ianramjohn.wordpress.com/plant-bloggers

• evolvingwithdarwin.blogspot.com

• scienceblogs.com/gregladen

• ntsavanna.com/links

• botanizing.typepad.com/botanizing

• membracid.wordpress.com

And I’ve mostly sent it (a lot! ;-) to:

• scienceblogs.com/gregladen **

• scienceblogs.com/pharyngula

• sarcozona.org

• membracid.wordpress.com

• blog.proinsias.com

• phytophactor.blogspot.com

• 10000birds.com

• mossplants.blogspot.com

• scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit (Now there: A simple prop, really needs to update the blog roll!)

• agro.biodiver.se

Strikingly, people coming from other places are really Insect-biased. Should I turn more into entomological thingies? Did I miss the start as a plant blog? Hmm…

* Actually, only a few readers came in due to blog-to-blog linking (most readers find a post and leave without ever coming back… :)

** Note to Greg: “Hey, I happen to send you three times more people than you do! I want my monney back!” :-) I don’t know how this can possibly happen since I’m more of a sink than of a source (I receive more than I send to).

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