What ecological niche does a site like this occupy in the world of science journalism? Nature this week has an editorial ("Critical Journalism", subscription required) about the fact that coverage of science and technology news has declined in print and television news, from about 4%-6% of total news in 2001 to about 2% now.

A recent Czech study about a supposed inverse correlation between beer-drinking and scientific output (the more beer you drink, the less productive you are - read the NY Times report) has been the butt of jokes around the scientific blogosphere: scientists drink a lot of beer, even successful ones. Most scientists probably would have guessed that there is a positive correlation between success and beer-drinking in science. So what's the deal? I thought the data didn't look so impressive - a fairly small number of data points, not a great correlation coefficient (but not terrible either).

This piece is slightly old, but it's amusing: over at Inkling Magazine, they're examining why beards may not be the best thing for a job that requires sterile conditions. Among the findings they cite are the results of a strange but apparently effective 1907 French study, which involved swabbing women's lips before and after being kissed by either a bearded or non-bearded man. The swabs after the bearded kiss picked up more bacteria. If beards are breeding grounds for bacteria, why do many scientists have them? I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I have a perfectly good reason for my beard - think about it this way: how many U.S. politicians can you think of with beards?

The promoters of Ben Stein's anti-evolutionist movie Expelled have been holding screenings around the country to drum up enthusiasm for the movie.

While I recently slammed bad science writing, I do enjoy good science writing and recognize that there are many good science journalists out there. To help scientists learn to communicate with the public better, the AAAS has put up an interesting site on communicating science. Much of it seems really basic, like the tips for gauging your audience, but I suppose many people don't even get the basics. The real gems on the site are interviews with accomplished science writers - go check out how the best in the business do it.

If you had a sample of bacteria taken from an environmentally sensitive area, or from a patient with a severe infection, would you be able to tell if any of these bacteria had been genetically engineered? A group at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LANL) is developing a technique for distinguishing natural DNA from DNA sequences designed in a lab. There is no general, intrinsic property that distinguishes artificial from natural DNA, so you have to tackle this problem by brute force.