Aetiology (blog)

Aetiology is a web log, or blog that is written by Tara C. Smith, PhD, a faculty member with an expertise in epidemiology working in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Its stated goal is to discuss "causes, origins, evolution and implications of disease and other phenomena."

It is hosted by The Seed magazine's "Scienceblogs" organization, which also hosts the weblog "Pharyngula", the top rated science-based blog in a 2006 evaluation conducted by Nature magazineand science category winner in the 2006 Weblogs Awards. Nature ranks Aetiology as 7th among science blogs.

Aetiology was chosen to be one of the inaugural blogs for Scienceblogs, which is selective AbOUT which blogs it features. Scienceblogs states that:

and also pays all costs and provides technical support. This venture by Seed Magazine demonstrates that science blogs are being recognized as gaining traction in the standard scientific literature. For example, science blogs have been mentioned as sources in both Science magazine and Nature magazine.

Smith has been a regular Contributor to the Panda's Thumb, another highly rated science weblog with many other notable contributors. Her First post to Aetiology was on September 23rd, 2005.

Professor John Gay, a veterinarian from Washington State University, lists Aetiology as one of his suggested sources of information on avian influenza for students and other veterinarians. Posts from Aetiology were selected by Bora Zikovic for his book on The 50 best science blog postings of 2006. This book was positively reviewed by Nature Magazine.

Aetiology was nominated for a "Koufax Award" for "Best New Blog" in 2006. It was featured in the Canadian student-produced science magazine Hypothesis, Cell, Medcape Today, The Epidemiology Monitor Newsletter, and even The New England Skeptical Society's "The Skeptics Guide" and Daily Kos. Aetiology was described in WebMD's Medscape Today in 2006 as, "a star attraction on Seed Magazine's ScienceBlogs."

See Also

SciScoop

SciScoop is a community science blog. Any visitor can post science news stories to the site....