Liberating Commenters From Social Media Nosiness

Posted on by Carl Zimmer

This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.

September 18, 2012

A reader writes:

I have a suggestion for the Download the Universe website, of which I am a regular reader. The current commenting system might make some people, including me, uncomfortable because it requires us to login through Facebook, Twitter, and similar systems. For example, if I choose to use Facebook-based login system, I have to let the app access to my basic info (including my friends IDs!). This is beyond what I am willing to share just to put a comment on any website. This might also be a reason that the website does not receive many comments. I suggest you to make it a bit easier for people to comment.

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Another Science Hurricane: A Massive Survey of the Genome

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Every now and then we science writers come face to face with how much science there is to write about–and how limited our powers to write about it are. This week, I’m on the road to report a magazine feature–a week that just so happens to be the one that a team of scientists chose to publish dozens of papers at once on the nature of the human genome. The purpose of the project, called ENCODE, is to systematically measure the function of every bit of the human genome. ENCODE has been going on for quite some time. In 2008, I wrote about the first chunk of results from ENCODE in the New York Times, and I followed up in 2010 here with a report on the work of some skeptics who challenged some of ENCODE’s results. If I wasn’t already insanely busy with another story, I’d be all over this one.

If you’re interested in the debate over how our DNA works, let me direct you to some coverage:

Brendon Maher at Nature News

Ed Yong blogs the story, then updates with responses from skeptics

University of Toronto biochemist Larry Moran explains why he doesn’t buy the results.

Originally published September 5, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.