This blog entry concludes exactly one year of the Neurologica blog. I wanted to take the time to look back at my first year of science blogging.

It has been a wonderful experience overall. First, I am proud that I managed to maintain 4-5 posts per week for the entire year. Statistics vary, but about 80% of all new blogs are abandoned within a month. The average blog has the life expectancy of a red blood cell – about 120 days. There are now an estimated 12 millions blogs in America alone, but most are not maintained and/or have few readers. I have been averaging several thousand readers per post, so by all measures I think my first foray into blogging has been a success.

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On the current episode of the SGU (Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe), our guest, Lawrence Krauss, mentioned that he is involved with an effort to have the presidential candidates for 2008 (in the general election, not the primaries) engage in a debate focusing on the many scientific issues that face Americans and with which our next president will have to contend. The effort is called Science Debate 2008.

This is a wonderful idea. We have mentioned this casually on our podcast in the past so I am glad that prominent scientists have banded together to spearhead this effort. You too can join the effort by signing up on the website. When each of the major parties has picked their nominee we will also need huge public pressure to make a science debate happen.

In fact, it’s such a good idea that we should have pushed for such a debate during the primary elections. During this earlier phase of the presidential run there are many more debates, and therefore it would have been easier to slip in another debate on science issues. During the general election typically there are 2-3 debates that are highly crafted and negotiated by both sides. It will be more difficult to add an extra debate on scientific issues, as important as that would be. This is why it is going to take a huge effort to make this happen.

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The Skeptics Guide to the Universe now has an official blog – The Rogues Gallery. There are seven authors, myself included, and we will post a new entry every day at 8:00am Eastern. Give it a look.

I posted today’s blog entry over at the Gallery, answering a listener’s question about intelligent design.

The Scientist.com is putting together a list of the top science blogs, so if you have not done so already please go there and vote for your favorites. Now, I’m not going to say I’m bitter because I have only had a single mention so far (thanks, Pekka). I understand my humble blog is still relatively new. It’s just that, it’s a little embarrassing when I’m standing around the water cooler with the other science bloggers and they are all bragging about their awards, mentions in prominent journals and websites, and all the votes they are getting from their readers (I mean Orac can be a real snob and Phil Plait will just not shut up about himself, and don’t even get me started on PZ Myers, the primadona).

Seriously, if you like what you read here please help me get on the radar of science blogs by giving me a kind mention.

As many of you have undoubtedly noticed, my older blog entries tend to get overwhelmed with spam comments (spam, by the way, is one of the few pure evils in our world). Attempts at fixing this problem with our prior blog software were unsuccessful, so we moved the blog over to WordPress – a more tried and true blog application with real anti-spam functionality.

Hopefully the transition will be seamless. Our goal is to port over all the old posts, keep all the links the same, keep the real comments and delete all the spam comments.

Thanks to my webmaster (and brother) Jay for donating his time to this project.

Note: The RSS feed has changed, so click on the RSS button at the bottom of the page to update your RSS feeder.

Barry Beyerstein, a psychologist, skeptic, teacher, promoter of science and reason – and without hyperbole the single nicest guy in the skeptical movement, passed away two days ago. He was only 60 and his death was unexpected, it certainly came as a shock to me. The premature death of such a wonderful person is always a tragedy, it is a terrible loss for his family, and I feel as if the skeptical family has also suffered a great loss.

I had the good fortune of knowing Barry, although our paths crossed only occasionally. We worked together on the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, and I always enjoyed seeing him at skeptical meetings. I am glad we had the opportunity to interview him recently for the Skeptics Guide. Take a listen to the interview – his good humor comes through no matter what topic we were discussing.

The inner circle of the skeptical movement is actually quite small. Although we are geographically spread out, I feel as if we are tied closely together by our common cause, by a shared worldview and purpose, and by the virtual bonds of blogs, podcasts, magazines, and e-mail. It’s an intellectual community and every member is extremely valued. I hate to be reminded of that in this way.

Barry was a CSI fellow – you can read their tribute to him which includes a summary of his many skeptical accomplishments. His daughter, Lindsay, also has a touching tribute to her father here.

So long, Barry.

Continuing the tradition of former Star Trek stars appearing in science (or pseudoscience) related programs, Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard from The Next Generation) is starring in a new BBC drama called The Eleventh Hour. He plays Professor Ian Hood, a Sherlockian character whose job is to investigate and head off potential disasters caused by modern technology.

I’m glad to see the increase in such programming – mainstream dramas featuring protagonists who are decidedly scientific and even skeptical. My favorite such character is Gil Grissom from CSI, but others come to mind, including Dr. House.
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