Dr Richard P. Grant participated in an inaugural Science Blogging conference

With support from the School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences and the Faculty of Science, Dr Grant represented the University of Sydney at Nature Network’s Science Blogging 2008: London. The conference, the first of its kind in Europe, brought together members of the science blogging community to discuss issues in science, science communication, publishing and education. Most delegates were from the UK and Europe, with significant numbers coming from the US. Attendees included scientists who blog ‘professionally’ and ‘personally’, senior editors at Nature, a representative from the American Chemical Society and professional journalists from the Guardian and Times Higher Education.

Although Dr Grant was the only delegate to travel from as far as Australia, a combination of ‘live-blogging’, Twitter, FriendFeed and Mogulus enabled the sessions to be followed in more-or-less real time across the world. A major message from the conference was that blogging as a scientific tool is still an innovative concept. Dr Grant helped formulate a challenge at http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2008/09/science_blogging_challenge.html to encourage mainstream acceptance, which brings with it the chance to win an
expenses-paid trip to Science Foo Camp 2009 at the Googleplex in California.
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