Tracking Science

I’ve been a science buff since grade school so it’s natural I want to follow recent developments in science. The trouble is, it’s an impossible task. Not even scientists can keep up, even within their specialty.

So the best I can do is track some of the highlights of science, technology, and medicine that make it into the news. The task is made easier through the use of Twitter, by adding science and technology Twitter feeds to my account. I’m currently following 45 sci-tech feeds and receiving up to 100 tweets a day. I expect the number of feeds to increase as I discover more of them.

Although Twitter is a great help in keeping up to date on things sci-tech, it’s a burden to read through the daily feeds. I spend a lot (too much) time on the Internet as it is but there are more feeds than I can easily track. As a consequence I was missing a lot of interesting stories.

What I needed was an easier way to track the stories. I found a good compromise solution by using Paper.li, a nifty service that allows you to create a daily online newspaper from your Twitter feeds. Paper.li lets you set up your newspaper on a once-a-day or twice-a-day publishing schedule, and you can set the times of publication.

Using this service I’ve created Gene’s Sci-Tech Daily, a twice-a-day paper and it’s proven a helpful way to track news items. It keeps me up to date on the hunt for the Higg’s Boson, the voyage of Curiosity to Mars, the potential cloning of wooly mammoths, reviews of new tech items such as the Kindle Fire, and the latest in the Apple-Samsung lawsuits. The paper misses some stories, of course, but on the whole it seems to vacuum up the main items.

Feel free to bookmark this newsletter and use it if you want a pleasant way to track science and technology news. Drop me a line if you find it useful.

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