Bora Zivkovic and Anton Anton Zuiker Kick Off the Conference

The last two years I have had the pleasure of attending Seed Media’s blogtogether.org’s yearly Science Blogging conference in Research Triangle (See previous years’ posts 2007 here and 2008 here, here, and here). Each year I come away from the conference brimming with so much blog-fodder that I end up needing an entire day to cover it all.

Unlike previous years, I decided to go eco-friendly and only grab the free swag I knew I would use. Two books Edge’s What Have You Changed your Mind About? and The Best American Science Writing 2008 will both be regular companions with me throughout the year, as their previous volumes have done. I’ll be looking forward to Open Laboratory 2008, when it gets posted to LuLu, as the previous editions also made great relaxation reading.

One bit of new swag I couldn’t resist was from Small Science Zines, little books you can print out on a sheet of paper and distribute proselytizing science subjects. I picked up two of these, Endless Spirals and Snake Legs & Wisdom Teeth and found them delightfully illustrated in a rough indy-magazine sort of flavor. There’s something rebellious about this concept, reminiscent of distributing fliers for punk rock bands, only its science, which is appropriate, since science is a perpetual rebellion of ideas.

This was also the first road trip for my brand-spanking-new Toyota Prius. Vicky and I both had turns driving it, each of us trying to drive in such a way as to bring our average MPG up higher and higher. When we got home, our average MPG was 41.9, just shy of the magical 42. I think we can get that extra tenth of a decimal place with a few more days of driving slower than senior citizens.

Prius at 41.9 MPG

I’ve got eight fascinating sessions to cover, lots and lots of blog-fodder. So I hope to tackle two of these a day for the rest of the week.

Stay tuned. : )