David here again. This week I’m giving you only two links, but they represent the best of the BEST of the science blogs.  While I like to think I know what’s “best” in the science blogosphere, I think actual science bloggers may have an idea or two about that as well.   So every year science bloggers get together to publish an anthology of the best posts as judged by the bloggers themselves.  The collection of posts is called “Open Lab”.  Each year a different blogger runs the show –  this year Scienceblogs.com’s Jason Goldman invited others to submit entries and recruited bloggers (such as yours truly) to serve as reviewers.
The result was 50 really outstanding posts – all intended to be “accessible” for non-scientist audiences.   I’m very pleased that a couple of the posts on that list were featured here on Science Cheerleader, but I’m even more pleased that nearly all of them may be new to the readers here.   There are some great posts on things that really matter to us “regular folks” – stories about the BP oil spill, personal experiences with in vitro fertilization, stories about history, and about the world around us.   There’s something for everyone here, and Jason did a great job pulling it all together.
The other post I’m sharing today is also a “link post” – it’s a collection of posts before, during and after ScienceOnline 2011.  (If you’re interested, you can also see the tweets, photos, and videos.) Each year about 300 science bloggers come together to talk about science, blogging, and reaching out to people beyond their own online community. (They also asked Darlene Cavalier to give a presentation – I was there and she was great.)   If you take a look at a few of the posts you get an “insider’s view” of how this community thinks about itself and how it might do a better job bringing science to everyone else.  I hope you’ll take some time to look at a couple of these posts and maybe weigh in with a comment or two.   Science bloggers really care about what readers think, and will learn from your feedback!