Is Science Daily a respected publication? I'm not familar with it

[seemslikeadream]

Thanks


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228174801.htm

oops I see it is link to down the page must be alright!

[arendt]

1. They are a little too "breathlessly excited" for me...

I quit reading them 20 years ago.

But, if you are not a full-time scientist, they can point you at the currently hot topics. Just don't expect all their stories to pan out over time. They are a little "tabloid" in their characterization of what the impact of things will be.

AFAIR, their citations are accurate. I would think there are better internet sites that will point you to hot papers.

arendt

[seemslikeadream]

2. Oh Thanks arendt

:hi:

[arendt]

3. I think "The New Scientist" is a UK version of the same idea; maybe a little higher-brow...

If you have access to a library, just reading the News stories in Science and Nature can give you a good idea.

Actually, I just checked it, and you can read their news for free:


http://www.sciencemag.org/current.dtl

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7182/

Let me know if its too technical. I am curious. :hi:

arendt

[n2doc]

4. They are pretty much a press release site

If someone has a science related press release, it can easily be published there. Nothing wrong with that, but there isn't any "value added content" there. Good place to see what's going on, though.

[Markgalantier]

5. We'd have to find out who funds it

Sometimes it's all about the money trail.

[SnowGoose]

6. most of the articles are press releases.

Sometimes verbatim, sometimes it looks like they've got a writer who makes them a little 'punchier', but I've never seen an original article there. Honestly, I've kicked myself for doing my PhD instead of creating a sciencedaily site - it's a hell of a racket. If I had only gotten there first.

I glance at it once or twice a week ~ the utility of the site is that you can usually parse out the publication and author, and then go search the actual paper and see for yourself.

Someone mentioned Science & Nature, both decent (I like to put the weekly Science podcast on my mp3 player and listen walking to work). The link for that is: http://www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl Their downside is that they focus on stuff published in their own journal, so it's limiting.

NPR's Science friday (http://www.sciencefriday.com/) is ok, but mostly focuses on a theme, rather than giving you the full buffet of the week's science.

Speaking of a theme, you should definitely know about radiolab (www.radiolab.org). These folks have found a very nice balance - it's half "this american life" and half "NOVA". Really great stuff with downloads available. Everyone I've turned on to this has dug it in a big way. They do need to fire the recording engineer, though, who seems not to have grasped the concept of "compression".

Lastly, since you asked about an internet resource, may I direct your attention to the absolutely fantastic scienceblogs.org.

This website is just kickass. It will keep you abreast of the new stuff in science (like sciencedaily.com), but with a slant given by the individual blogger, and with the added benefit of comments sections that can be extremely enlightening. So you've got the wiki-esque crowd of informed observers adding their thoughts to the story, and keeping the bullshit factor down. Absolutely awsome site.

[Greyskye]

7. Radiolab

I just heard a Radiolab report on NPR on my way into work this morning. Your description is spot on - "half 'this American life' and half 'NOVA'."

Good stuff. :thumbsup:

[TZ]

8. I find it a useful collection of many types of science stories

Basically it just reports on new articles coming out. I think because it has so many different types of sciences that they report on make it a kind of easy centralized location. A good jumping off point if you will