Seeking a best of… a scientific blog review

Although the subject science may not be everyone's cup of tea, but for those who are interested pharyngula (a.k.a scienceblogs.com) is the most clear and concise blog about random scientific discussion available online.

Pharyngula is a blog run by PZ Myers (professor in Biology of University of Minnesota) which focus heavily on relating biology matters. The site displays a vast span of debatable topics ranging from validity of evolutionism to topics such as genetics. Pharyngula is listed by the science journal Nature as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist, and it is easily understandable once entering the site where every blog is clearly categorized and organized into date of post as well as subject of relevance.

Pharyngula is multidisciplinary in every sense; It is informational, instructional, social, and even political. A large variety of videos, and article are the arsenals used by the bloggers to convey their opinion upon a subject matter. The style and format of these post ranges greatly, some of which are random rant upon a subject matter, some are written to make a brief statement about local happenings, and some are in depth critique of a article that includes a lot of counter thesis that are backed up by scholarly research.

The post Trading Food and Grooming for Sex from a Behavioral Neuroscience Perspective, is one that refers to the finding of such phenomena upon chimpanzees. Jake Young(the author) goes in depth supporting this finding and ties it to the Biological marker theory (a theory which implies that animals possess a host of cognitive capacities, some of which were previously only ascribed to humans). He also used the article where monkeys were trained to use little plastic wafers as currency to backup his thesis. The article finishes off with Young's interpretation of the primate brain anatomy explaining how such phenomena is possible, which is a process beyond my comprehension.

In short, the pharyngula blog puts itself ahead of the other blogs with a clean cut interface. The discussions are intriguing and engaging for those who are 'science savy'. The humours at some of the post such as Ali G's Religion Interview are just the icing on the cake.