If you don't already know about 3 Quarks Daily, check it out. It's an elegant group blog that links to all sorts of interesting stuff on science, art, literature, politics, and philosophy. They also put "gossip" in the list of topics in their banner, but I don't recall anything on Angelina Jolie or Mel Gibson. This morning, for example, they've posted stuff on the evolution of house cats and the leader of the defeated Tamil rebels on Sri Lanka. Yesterday, the folks at 3QD made an announcement: We have decided to start awarding four prizes every year in the respective areas of Science, Arts & Literature, Politics, and Philosophy for the best blog post in those fields. First up is the prize for blogs on science. Readers are invited to nominate posts from May 24, 2008 to May 24, 2009, posting the url in the comment section of the announcement post. The editors of 3 Quarks Daily will winnow down the nominations, and then Harvard linguist Steven Pinker will select the first, second, and third prize winners. (The top prize comes with a $1000 award.) The deadline is June 1. Now, if, on the outside chance, you wanted to nominate a blog post from the Loom, who am I to interfere with my wise readers? In fact, let me help you out a little. Here's a list of posts from the past year that I'm particularly pleased with, in reverse chronological order. Life On Earth: A Losing Game of Whack-A-Mole?Darwinius: It delivers a pizza, and it lengthens, and it strengthens, and it finds that slipper that’s been at large under the chaise lounge for several weeks…In The Prebiotic KitchenHow To Be A Bat [Life in Motion]Unchecked Ice: A Saga in Five ChaptersLive Blogging The Mars Methane Mystery: Aliens At Last?The Island of Fossil VirusesThe Puppet Master’s Medicine ChestThe Evolution of the Face: A Letter to Some Readers in TennesseeA Catastrophic CareerGoing GreenYou Want A Piece of This? (Please Please Please Don’t Take a Piece of This!)The Clock That BreedsEven Blood Flukes Get DivorcedThe Allure of Big AntlersThe Bird That Dare Not Speak Its NameFestooning The Tree Of LifeMissing The WristDawn of the Picasso FishA New Step In Evolution
