The blog facTotem
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After eight years the collaborators had the recent opportunity to meet socially; the collaboration had been almost entirely conducted by e-mail and occasionally by phone. |
At the beginning of 2008, the editors of Natural History magazine, asked two science nerdsthe magazines then copy editor, Annie Gottlieb, and Webmaster, Jim Van Abbemato try writing and illustrating, respectively, an online blog on the magazines Web site. The subject matter of the blog was to be furnished by Gottliebs fact checking responsibilities, which often led off down fascinating side trails from articles in the magazine.
The impromptu collaboration that ensued for the next year and a half turned out to be one of the most fun, compatible, and fruitful of both participants working lives. Provoked by Gottliebs findings and musings, Van Abbema crafted visual equivalents, accompaniments, and enhancements that made each blog post, more then just a commentary, an experience, and a portal to further adventures in the vast online science universe. After the post-2008 funding drought killed off the blog (and very nearly the magazine), we deemed the experiment worth preserving. It is recreated here in its entirety.
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