I found the premise of Barbara Bradley Hagerty's new book "Fingerprints of God" quite intriguing.  The author, raised as a Christian Scientist, attempts to look into alternative religions and science to see if her faith is justified.  There is nothing really new here - in terms of topics that have been covered in many other popular books.  

But what I found interesting was her interpretation of her experiences and investigations.  She chronicles her struggles and revelations in an autobiographical format - and I'm usually a sucker for autobiographies.

This week I participated in a Social Media Day at NIST. During my talk I provided an overview of our current work in using Web2.0 tools for doing Open Notebook Science in fields related to chemical synthesis and drug discovery.

I recently attended an NSF workshop on eChemistry: New Models for Scholarly Communication in Chemistry in Washington (Oct 23-24, 2008). The group consisted of about a dozen members, including publishers, social scientists, librarians and chemists. For background, this was the mandate:

Timo Hannay recently gave a talk "Scientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social Not Working?", which is reproduced in this Nascent blog post.

This is a sobering review of the state of social software in science and he lists several roadblocks to its widespread adoption. It is important to counterbalance the almost unavoidable hype that emerges from the enthusiasm of those energized by a movement.

However, it can be a tricky endeavor to attempt to define success or failure, especially within systems that are evolving rapidly.

I usually limit my book reviews to Goodreads or Shelfari but this one deserves much more attention.

In Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs; When Scientists Find What They're NOT Looking for, Morton Meyers reviews examples of the unpredictability of scientific progress.

This could just be a collection of interesting anecdotes - and some of the stories are truly fascinating. My favorite is probably the discovery of platinum compounds for the treatment of cancer.

Maxine Clarke highlights a bit of recent controversy regarding Open Notebook Science that has been bouncing around the blogosphere and FriendFeedosphere.

There are some who interpret the ongoing publication of our laboratory notebook as an expectation for the world to read it like a magazine. For someone who is not a collaborator or working in a related area that would make about as much sense as reading the phone book.

Here is an example of how an Open Notebook should be used:

I'm back from the UCSD workshop on New Communication Channels for Biology held June 27-28, 2008. The talks were recorded and are now available here.

The first day mainly consisted of talks while the second was very heavy on breakout sessions (see agenda). Probably the most beneficial part for me was seeing old friends or meeting in person several people I had only interacted with online previously. For example was nice to finally meet Dan Gezelter from the OpenScience project and Hilary Spencer from Nature Precedings. I also had a blast over enchiladas on Friday night with Mike Nieslen and Jen Dodd. Mike gave a very engaging talk on the Future of Science on Thursday night.

The presentations were recorded and should be available within a week on the wiki link above - I'll post an update here when I am made aware of it.

I was asked by the Institute for the Future to highlight a dozen "Signals" that may point to new trends in science as part of the X2 Project:

Today, science is entering another period of accelerated change, thanks to the growth of the Internet and dawn of pervasive computing; the explosive growth of new sciences like genetic engineering, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and simulation; the rise of new scientific powers in the developing world, the revival of amateur scientists, and the growth of citizen science movements in the United States and Europe; the growth of new institutions supporting scientific research and innovation, and changes in the structure and funding of universities, government, an

The Journal "Open Medicine" has published a very thoughtful editorial on "Open science, open access and open source software at Open Medicine" by Sally Murray, Stephen Choi, John Hoey, Claire Kendall, James Maskalyk and Anita Palepu.

Not only are they writing about it but they want to get their hands dirty as well:

The American Chemical Society will be offering a virtual poster session in Second Life from selected posters at the Sci-Mix session taking place April 6, 2008 at the next national meeting in New Orleans.

I'm helping out with that effort and I'm pleased to say that we have our first submission from Jodye Selco, Mary Bruno and Sue Chan: "Safe and economical chemistry inquiry for the K-12 classroom".