Monthly Archives: August 2015

HAPPY BIRTH-AVERSARY!

CMB logoAs Cloudy Media Blog turns 1 years old, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the past year and announce some exciting goals for the coming year.

First, none of this would be possible without the support of our followers.  A special thanks to Steve Kerfoot, Shannon Grande, and Becky Sweet for being the top social media likers, commenters, and retweeters (look out for a special gift coming your way!).  Without you guys the only person reading the site would likely be my mom (thanks for your faithful following mom!).  Second, I’d like to thank a friend, colleague, and guest contributor to this blog, Saheli Sadanand.  It’s quite amazing when you can find someone as passionate about the same things as you, whether that be science or football, and I’ve found that in Saheli.  On top of that, she has an amazing gift of story telling and I am excited to see where this ability takes her through her career.

For the first year of a new blog, managed by a nonfamous webmaster newbie, we’ve hit some incredible marks.  With more than 1,000 views and 30 non-spam comments, I am thrilled for the year we’ve had.  Check out our top posts here: CMB Yr 1 stats.  But I’m not content.  I challenge us to TRIPLE these numbers in the upcoming year.  To do this, I’m going to need your help.  I know that everyone is busy and it’s so easy to skip the CMB posts on Facebook and Twitter, but with each click, like, retweet, and comment we are all helping to end the scourge of science ignorance.  In the next year, I also plan to recruit at least 2 new guest contributors and increase publication by 100%.   With more content, we can expand into various new territories of science.  So continue to email me about things you’re interested in and we’ll try our best to deliver what you want to read.

With that, thanks so much and continue to be vigilant about science on the internet.  Question everything, even this blog!

-H

What you can do to help end a terrible epidemic

There is an epidemic currently sweeping up and down the west coast of the United States.  From Alaska to southern California, something wicked is causing lesions, malformations, and mass casualties.  To help support this cause, it’s not the CDC, WHO, nor Red Cross to whom you should send a donation.  Instead, pick this up at your local packie:

Rogue Ales & Spirits has teamed up with Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) to brew Wasted Sea Star Purple Pale Alea beer for drinking while thinking about the shrinking starfish population.  That’s right, the epidemic is not happening to people (thankfully, this time), but our star-shaped sea friends are being wiped out by an outbreak of sea star wasting disease.

Continue reading What you can do to help end a terrible epidemic