TypePad Featured Blogs

SeaNotes

Over ¾ of the world is covered with water, yet we know less about it than we do the moon. But thanks to SeaNotes, the blog of the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, we can learn more about the oceans every day. The collective work of staff members at the Aquarium, the blog seeks to “spark conversations…among those working toward a future with healthy oceans”. With its conversational language, photos and videos, the blog covers virtually everything that swims, dives, crawls, floats, or simply rests in place, giving you a look at new species, peeks at fearsome denizens of the deep, and some of the dangers faced by aquafarmers. A wonderful array of Categories (including Climate Change, Deep Sea, and Sharks) offers even more opportunities for learning and involvement and the list of recommended sites will keep you coming back for more. And if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium is an easy day trip from the city and highly recommended!

Feral Thoughts

Tony Peacock is the CEO of the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre in Canberra Australia. He’s also a professor at the University of Canberra and the author of Feral Thoughts, his site that details the impact of invasive species, whether it’s far from home happening all year long, or right outside his door. Photo albums document the people, the pests (two-, four, and no-legged), and the impact; and one particular link offers possible solutions to the problem. Whether you’re batting insects in your garden, rodents in your field, or are just concerned about the global impact, Feral Thoughts offers welcome opinion and insight.

NPA Thinktank

“Oh, my aching back”! Sound familiar? Then take some time to check out NPA Think Tank, a blog dedicated to “critical observations of health, science, and the physical therapy profession”. Not so much treatment oriented as opinion focused, the site offers insightful commentary from blogger and Physical Therapist Eric Robertson and is one of the few written by a PT. This site offers posts, newscasts, videos, and more on such subjects as back pain, the environment , and of course, physical therapy. Not one to shy away from controversial topics, Eric also offers his opinions of health policy and its effects on you. Want another opinion? Eric won't mind – in fact, his blog features a handy custom search feature that will help you locate high quality web sites for consumers and professionals.

Chemistry.com

Ready to join in the "Great Mate Debate?" It's just one of the subjects under discussion on the pages of this blog. Couples experts talk about relationships in America, and their comments make fascinating reading, as they provide insight into such topics as the #1 reason couples fight to what's wrong with flirting? If you want more, you can look at books, explore interesting links and read blogs that are posted on the site. If you've ever wondered, "what's up with him (or her)"? here's a robust, revealing source for all things related to relationships.

The Daily Galaxy

Is there a better way to catch up on the sometimes odd developments in science, technology, and their fictional representations in pop culture, then by browsing The Daily Galaxy? We think not.  An eclectic digest of “news from planet earth and beyond,” the Galaxy’s got the goods to trip out even the most grounded of web surfers. For example, The Worldwide UFO Phenomena – Religion or Science speculates on ways extraterrestrial travelers might bridge the vast gaps between habitable planets. (Wormholes!) This post on an upcoming expedition to the sea floor beneath the Arctic ice posits potential discovery of life forms as exotic as those imagined on alien planets. A little more down- (or up) to-earth is this entry on Conan O’Brien’s visit to Lucasfilm in San Francisco. Visit "The Daily Galaxy." It's out of this world. 

The Fossil Record

Teachers, parents, kids -- there's a new way to learn about science. The Fossil Record explores the all things prehistoric with cool videos, news of rare and endangered animals, information about dinosaurs, and links to cool sites about science and space. This fun-filled blog is written by Deborah Fazackerley, writer and director of the DVD, "Dinosaur George's Guide to Prehistoric Life." The posts aren't organized by category, but there are great links in the left nav-bar to other kid-friendly learning sites. Subscribe to the blog's feed for emails about when this great learning resource is updated.

The Unlikely Activist

Larry Grob is fighting the good fight. You could say he's just a family man who likes to play the violin, read, and spend time outdoors. He could be your uncle, your brother, your dad. And then one day he woke up compelled to do something about the state of our planet. The Unlikely Activist is his blog pointing to what we need to know about the environment as citizens of Planet Earth. Grob acts more as a translator than an expert, pointing readers to facts, discussions, and industry insight relating to environmental consciousness and sustainability. He is not preachy nor condescending. Instead, Grob's tone is hopeful and encouraging. Posts about climate change, biodeversity, and topics with big scientific names are made digestible for anyone without a science major in his Understanding Science category. If you saw the movie An Inconvenient Truth and wanted to do something to help the cause, but were left hanging with how to get involved, this blog is for you.

Cocktail Party Physics

Once upon a time, Jennifer Ouelette was just a physics-phobic English major. Now, she's the author of Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics, and the newly released The Physics of the Buffyverse, which takes concepts and plotlines from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and uses them to illustrate everything from thermodynamics to the string theory. Her blog, Cocktail Party Physics takes 1 part pop culture, 1 part science, and mixes vigorously with a shakerful of passion. Pour it into a blog and even dark matter becomes fascinating to the layman. The reading goes down a little thick for a non-science person, but for those with even just a twinge of interest in how our universe works, the adventures of Ouelette's alter-ego, Jen-Luc Piquant can be fun to follow. Watch out, by day she uses her black belt in jujitsu, and by night she wields flaming cocktails like Combustible Edison and Mad Scientist. If you're more afraid of fire than physics, no sweat, use her recipe for Quantum Theory, "guaranteed to collapse your wave function." Feel free to skip the prolific science lessons and head straight to the drink recipes on the left. Either way, it's obvious that this writer is headed for intergalactic success. Catch her on her Buffyverse book tour across the country over the next few months.

Steven Johnson

This month's featured book is Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map, subtitled "The story of London's most terrifying epidemic -- and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world." We are proud to include this best-selling writer's work in our monthly celebration of authors who use TypePad to connect with their readers. We recently recorded a great 30-minute discussion between Johnson and TypePad GM Michael Sippey and Six Apart's in-house evangelist Anil Dash, which is available by streaming player, for individual download, or via subscription in your favorite podcast application (including iTunes). Along with the podcast, we're also showcasing all Steven Johnson's books this month in the TypePad bookstore  And finally, you'll want to check out  Johnson's own blog for tour information, linked reviews, the author's collected essays, and always interesting digressions, including news of Johnson's newest online project, outside.in.

Marginal Revolution

Marginal Revolution is a very popular TypePad blog that share information, news, and opinion from the world of economics. The authors, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, are both professors at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, and offer the level of expertise you'd expect from a such a respected institute of higher learning. The posts range from current affairs to raw data to political science, as well as media mentions and analysis about books, music, and film. It's a lively forum for anything and everything that is related to economic theory. With Freakonomics and The Tipping Point dancing up and down the bestseller lists, anyone who has a thing for economics should make a point to bookmark this blog.

3 Quarks Daily

3 Quarks Daily is primarily a filter blog -- one that captures interesting flotsam and jetsam from around the web and republishes excerpts, commentary, and links to the original. But on Mondays, 3 Quarks Daily is something very different. The group behind the filter -- an erudite cadre of scientists, artists, and philosophers -- each take their turn penning regular columns on any subject they choose or, in some cases, regular subjects such as politics, poetry, and art. The site's title is a reference to the sub-atomic particles that emerged from a turn of phrase by literary legend James Joyce, and the blog itself hopes to span the breadth of culture -- from science to literature, from politics to philosophy. Judging by the success of this blog at drawing readers and contributors of keen intellect, they're found a winning formula.

Discovery Educator Network

The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) Blog is the home base for a collection of more than twenty regional blogs, each working to fulfill the promise of teacher synergy. The idea behind the cable network's Educator program is to "connect teachers to their most valuable resource -- each other." It's great to see science education enhanced through such a thoughtful use of blogs, discussion boards, pdf's, streaming media, calendaring, and, more fundamentally, a keen sense of how powerful communities can be formed online. If you are an educator who sometimes feels separated from others in your discipline, check out the video introduction to the network or browse the DEN blogs themselves to get a picture of how powerful a little asynchronous media can be.

Data Mining

Data Mining is the info-rich playground of Matthew Hurst, the co-creator of BlogPulse. Matthew loves graphing the peaks and valleys of keyword trends, the interconnections between blogs, and the overall shape of the blogosphere. An image from his eye-popping data visualizations even appeared recently on the cover of a magazine. We have to admit that we love noodling around with spreadsheets and graphs and have often found Hurst's theoretical posts interesting points of departure. If you're a fan blogs and buzz and putting together small pieces together form a larger picture, we think you'll find Data Mining a rich vein for exploration.

Inky Circus

Who says that science doesn't have to be fun? Girl nerds Anna Gosline, Katie Law, and Anne Casselman have come together to play magazine, not house. These three science journalists from London are making their dreams come true by creating a science magazine for women. They're sharing their journey with readers of Inky Circus, offering a healthy mix of geekiness, humor, and style. On one hand, they might post about reports that women want gadgets more than bling, and on the other, they might point to a website demonstrating "fantastic explanations of DNA, animations of the Krebs cycle, and some super rad 3D images of chromosomes." The science-related posts come together beautifully --  with photos and a vibrancy that will appeal to any reader, no matter their gender (or their IQ.) And while we're wishing these bloggers all the success in the world for their magazine, it's categories like "men whose babies we care not to bear" and "men whose babies we want to bear" that make us wish they would pursue their own TV talk show, too.

Hybrid Blog

Visit the Webby-award-winning Hybrid Center and you'll find a ton of useful information about vehicles that are using fuel-efficient, emissions-cutting hybrid technology. A production of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the site offers news, reviews , and technical overviews of cars and trucks that consumers can buy to make a personal choice about their own impact on the environment. The Hybrid Blog complements the main web site and serves as an open dialogue about the issues -- political, commercial, and technological -- that surround fuel-efficiency and hybrid vehicles. Comments are open, so responses and additional information is encouraged. One look at the wealth of content the blog has shared over the past year and you realize that a blog serves really well as it's own kind of "hybrid vehicle" -- it shares the road with normal web sites, but it beats them hands-down for time-and-effort efficiency.

Popular Science

Popular Science magazine has been covering innovation in computers, automobiles, medicine, aviation, and other practical sciences for as long as we can remember. Their cover illustrations have fueled the dreams of countless gadget freaks for decades, and they're still going strong. Last month it was "Laser Warfare." One word: Sweet. We've been anxiously waiting for laser warfare since, oh, 1977 or so. All kidding aside, the PopSciBlog exchanges the speculative imagery for a more here-and-now approach. The writers and editors at PopSci.com offers great tidbits from the same categories as the parent publication -- automotive, aviation, aerospace, etc. -- plus some fun Internet finds, covered with all the enthusiasm and wit you'd expect. As the site's blogroll indicates, if you're a fan of Boing Boing, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, or Make, you'll probably want to add Popular Science to your bookmarks.

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, the noted New Yorker writer and author of Blink and The Tipping Point, is now blogging. If you're a fan of this smart thinker, you'll be delighted to find posts that  complement his other published work. If you've never had the pleasure, dive into his essays on behavioral science as seen through sports, crime, commerce, and everyday life. Gladwell's posts are so complete and beautifully connected, it will be great to have him as a member (and hopefully a leader) of the blogosphere for years to come.

Steven Johnson

Discovery columnist and best-selling author Steven Berlin Johnson lets us into his world and the people and topics that influence him. Most interesting is the insight into his writing process. Johnson offers readers glimpses into his fifth book, The Ghost Map -- a disease thriller with the history of London's sewer system, the evolutionary history of bacteria, and "the bizarre waste management techniques" of Victorian society woven in.  For writers, this is a great example of how you can buzz a book well before it launches, without sounding like you're trying to pre-sell the book, or yourself. Johnson's others books -- Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life, and most recently, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter -- have been rocking the charts for the past five years.