The long-lived, old-school blogging site 3 quarks daily is
holding its annual science blogging contest
They have nominated eighty-five blog posts upon which one can vote to
advance it into the finals round. In
theory, this means that everyone voting should read all 85 posts, and make an
honest choice. If that doesn't work,
then they should at least skim each post- OK, how about simply clicking the
links and glancing at them?
Having done the latter, I doubt more than a few percent of
the people who actually vote will do the former. Because, in addition to clinking the links, I
have gone the extra mile micron and extracted their metadata. And this is how I’m pretty sure not many
people are going to read all 85 entries this week- they total over 128,000
words, more than a hefty novel, or two skinny ones. I will summarize it here,
for potential voters who want to pretend to be voting knowledgeably, but are too
lazy even to look at text summaries.
With the exception of a song (complete with ukulele chords)
and a dialogue, the nominated blog posts are all expository prose. Most of them are written in a serious tone,
although there is a smattering of snark, cutsiness, and metaphor. One is written
in Spanish, the rest are in English.
The length distribution of the nominated blog posts is not
normal. In fact, it is not even log
normal (figure 1), as there is a surplus of nominees in excess of 2000 words
and/or a deficit of nominees less than 700 words (incidentally, that is the
length of a standard print newspaper column). The lengths range from just over
300 words (the song) to just shy of 5000 words, with a mean of about 1200 and a
median of about 1500.
All but seven of the entries are illustrated. Nine have imbedded video, sixteen list references, two have data tables. Seven entries feature text grabs- featuring (machine unreadable) text presented in image format. The type of text presented this way varies widely, spanning twitter screengrabs to scanned informal handwriting to page captures of ancient books.
The relationship between the number of images and the number
of words is not clear. I have
(arbitrarily) divided the posts up into two groups (figure 2). A small, highly
illustrated group, in which the number of illustrations scales with the length
of the post, and a main, less illustrated group, where the number of
illustrations is essentially unrelated to text length. In the highly illustrated
group, there is about one additional figure per 400 words, but the zero word
intercept is still quite high- six.
Figure 2. Post length vs. number of imbedded images (embedded
text excluded). Groupings are done via eyeball, not statistics.
Hopefully this summary will inform your choices of which
articles to read and consider. Please
don’t make any voting choices solely on the metadata. You are, after all, a human, and not a
Facebook algorithm. And sure, if you want to nominate this post for the 2015
contest, I won’t stop you.
A summary table is below:
site
|
title
|
words
|
images
|
video
|
text
grabs
|
references
(1=present)
|
table
|
3 Quarks Daily
|
The
Dictionary is not Literature
|
2539
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Action Science Theater
|
How
to fall and miss the ground
|
541
|
4
|
1
|
|
|
|
Aeon
|
Cows
Might Fly
|
3473
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
American Science
|
The
Curious History of the Paleo-Diet, and its Relationship to Science &
Modernity
|
2194
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
An Evolutionist's Perspective
|
The
Woes of Capitalism: Kinship, Sociality
and Economy
|
1433
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Ars Technica
|
Could
dark matter be hiding in plain sight in existing experiments?
|
1085
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Babies Learning Language
|
Shifting
our cultural understanding of replication
|
3158
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
BBC
|
The
quest to save the
|
1443
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
Beach Chair Scientist
|
Mother
Nature vs Santa Claus
|
711
|
0
|
1
|
4
|
|
|
Brainwaves
|
Searching
For The Elephant’s Genius Inside the Largest Brain on Land
|
1502
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Charismatic Minifauna
|
Bats
have sparkly poop
|
606
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
Chemically Cultured
|
That
love-hate supervisor relationship
|
411
|
0
|
|
12
|
|
|
Cocktail Party Physics
|
Seen
and Unseen: Could There Ever Be a
“Cinema Without Cuts”?
|
2400
|
2
|
4
|
|
1
|
|
Comparatively Psyched
|
The
Robin's Song
|
1302
|
2
|
|
|
1
|
|
Curious Meerkat
|
Eating
Insects
|
1827
|
3
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
Eat Your Brains Out
|
Science
and the Supernatural
|
3802
|
4
|
|
1
|
|
|
Ecology & Evolution
|
And
to the victor the spoiled
|
474
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Ecology & Evolution
|
The
Heat and Light of Science Communication
|
1045
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
|
Ecology & Evolution
|
The
Science of Scientific Whaling
|
1207
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Ecology & Evolution
|
What
is(n’t) palaeontology like?
|
884
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Ecology & Evolution
|
What’s
it like to study Zoology?
|
896
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Errant Science
|
Tradition,
in Science
|
767
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
|
Eruptions
|
So,
You Think
|
1295
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Genotopia
|
Hail
Britannia! (Dorkins Reviews Wade)
|
1759
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Genotopia
|
On
city life, the history of science, and the genetics of race
|
2298
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
Grrlscientist
|
Influenza: How the Great War helped create the
greatest pandemic ever known
|
2088
|
4
|
|
|
1
|
|
Hawkmoth
|
On
Wildness
|
494
|
9
|
|
|
|
|
Huffpost
|
A
Few Short Rules on Being Creative
|
1313
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Illumination
|
GMO
Leukemia Outbreak in
|
471
|
1
|
|
4
|
|
|
Inkfish
|
Scientists
Ask Why There Are So Many Freaking Huge Ants
|
913
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Leaving Plato's Cave
|
The
Meta-lympics: a catalyst for
scientific discovery
|
1076
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
Limulus
|
Living
Fossils
|
771
|
8
|
|
8
|
|
|
|
Procida: Picture Perfect
|
881
|
12
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vesuvius
at Night
|
897
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
Nautilus
|
The
Math Trick Behind MP3s, JPEGs, and Homer Simpson’s Face
|
1599
|
5
|
|
|
|
|
Neurobabble
|
Parasitic
wasps vs. zombie cockroaches
|
785
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Neurobabble
|
Technology
and the adolescent brain
|
1112
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Neurobabble
|
What
sign languages have taught us about our brains
|
1198
|
2
|
2
|
|
|
|
Nothing in Biology Makes Sense
|
When
the going gets tough, mutualism gets going
|
885
|
3
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
Pacific Standard
|
Your
Genome Is a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland
|
782
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Patrick F
|
Clarkin, PhD: Developmental Plasticity
and the “Hard-Wired” Problem
|
4343
|
3
|
|
|
1
|
|
Pen Sapiens
|
Monkey
See, Monkey Yawn
|
764
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
|
Peter Pearsal
|
A
Desert Orogeny
|
995
|
5
|
|
|
|
|
Planetizen
|
The
Wicked Problem of Urban Biodiversity, pt 1
|
897
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Psychology Today
|
Love,
Love Medulla: The Neuroscience of
Beatlemania
|
1181
|
6
|
|
|
1
|
|
Preposterous Universe
|
How
Quantum Field Theory Becomes “Effective”
|
3553
|
5
|
|
|
|
|
Preposterous Universe
|
Why
the Many-Worlds Formulation of Quantum Mechanics Is Probably Correct
|
2525
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Prophage
|
Modest
Data Reported From
|
724
|
2
|
|
|
1
|
|
Scicurious
|
Addiction
showcases the brain's flexibility
|
1086
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Science Explained
|
Knock,
Knock Who’s there?
|
423
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
Science Sushi
|
Did
Allergies Evolve To Save Your Life?
|
1925
|
3
|
|
|
1
|
|
Science Sushi
|
Muscles
Love Oxytocin: So-Called “Hug Hormone”
Important In Muscle Regeneration
|
767
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
|
Sexual Selection and Life History Evolution
|
Aesthetics,
mathematics, physics and biology
|
1255
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
Skulls in the Stars
|
How
*do* cats land on their feet when falling, anyway?
|
2336
|
14
|
|
|
|
|
Slate
|
Promiscuity
Is Pragmatic
|
1054
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
Space
|
Hazard,
Risk, and the Steelhead (Oso) Landslide in
|
1099
|
8
|
|
|
|
|
Space
|
Real
Atmospheric Science in Stargate:
Atlantis
|
1696
|
9
|
|
|
|
|
Starts With A Bang
|
22
Messages of Hope (and Science) for Creationists
|
1555
|
14
|
|
|
|
|
Starts With A Bang
|
How
is the Universe bigger than its age?
|
1488
|
11
|
1
|
|
|
|
Stuff About Space
|
The
Strangest Star: A Neutron Star Inside
a Red Giant
|
1021
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
Synthetic Daisies
|
Playing
the Long Game of Human Biological Variation
|
1021
|
6
|
|
|
1
|
|
Synthetic Daisies
|
The
game of evolution
|
3507
|
17
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
The Bleeding Edge
|
Butterflies
|
2252
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
The Book of Science
|
Photosynthesis
|
355
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
The Conversation
|
Despite
metamorphosis, moths hold on to memories from their days as a caterpillar
|
988
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
The Conversation
|
The
ancient Greek riddle that helps us understand modern disease threats
|
902
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
The Conversation
|
Why
cold-blooded animals don’t need to wrap up to keep warm
|
608
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
The Last Word On Nothing
|
What
Luis Alvarez Did
|
1654
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
The Loom
|
The
Wisdom of (Little) Crowds
|
1726
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
The Mermaid's Tale
|
Are
bees intelligent?
|
1416
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
|
The Mermaid's Tale
|
The
visible colors and the falseness of human races as natural categories
|
2479
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
The Mermaid's Tale
|
Whooza
good gurrrrrl? Whoozmai bayyyy-bee boy?
|
1839
|
10
|
|
1
|
|
|
The Neurocritic
|
Existential
Neuroscience: a field in search of
meaning
|
1838
|
5
|
|
|
1
|
|
The Neurocritic
|
When
Waking Up Becomes the Nightmare:
Hypnopompic Hallucinatory Pain
|
1161
|
5
|
|
|
1
|
|
The New Yorker
|
The
Power of the Hoodie-Wearing C.E.O.
|
1267
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
The Philosopher's Beard
|
Love's
Labours Lost: How Robots Will
Transform Human Intimacy
|
4822
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
The Trenches of Discovery
|
The
human machine: obsolete components
|
2572
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
Things We Don't Know
|
Squid
Lady Parts
|
1350
|
5
|
|
|
1
|
|
Too Long For Twitter
|
New
neuroscience on why we dream
|
3052
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
How
One Scientist Broke in to Professional Craft Brewing
|
847
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
Unthink
|
Five
Things Scientists Know About Romance
|
913
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
Weekend Adventure
|
The
Wild Inside
|
1298
|
5
|
|
|
|
|
Wired
|
Have
We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time?
|
3328
|
5
|
1
|
|
|
|
Wired
|
What
is brain death?
|
1603
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
You've Got Some Science On You
|
Infection: It's all a matter of perspective
|
973
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
128775
|
283
|
13
|
31
|
16
|
3
|
mean
|
|
1515
|
3.33
|
1.4
|
4.4
|
1
|
1.5
|
median
|
|
1207
|
2
|
|
|
1
|
1.5
|
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