It's Tangled Bank time again!

During and after the Democratic National Convention, weblogs got a lot of attention as an up-and-coming medium for sharing news and information…but you may have noticed that all the attention was on the political uses of the blog. We all know, though, that there is much more to weblogging than the political rants from the left and the right—and one of the things many of us are also interested in is science. We have set up the Tangled Bank as a showcase for the scientific wavelength of the spectrum of viewpoints on the web, and are trying hard to give more prominence to the promulgation of science in this medium.

So don't be shy! You can help acknowledge the value of weblogging for disseminating all kinds of information other than political opinion by adding your voice to ours. We're looking for more entries for this week's Tangled Bank, so if you've written anything even remotely related to science, send it in to me so we can spread the word and direct more people to your writing. We want to know about you! You don't need to be a professional scientist, you don't need to write dry prose with statistics and eleven-syllable words, it is enough that you are enthusiastic about reason and logic and evidence and the wonders of the natural world around you.

Submitting an article has benefits directly to you, as well. Sending a link to us means your site will be linked in turn by a number of other science-oriented weblogs; several participants have reported to me that they've gotten their highest levels of traffic yet from their Tangled Bank entries. We aren't just raising science's profile on the web, we can help people notice your weblog as well.

I'm also looking for new people to volunteer to act as a host. Again, you don't need to be a scientist to do this. Do you think science is important? Do you want to help spread the word about science on the web? Then you have all the qualifications you need. Send me a message volunteering a little bit of your time and a little space on your weblog, and you too can be a Friend of Science. (Oh, and the hosts get even more traffic directed to their site than the link submitters—everybody wins in this game!)

Take a look at previous editions of the Tangled Bank. If you've written anything like them, send a link to pzmyers@pharyngula.org, and we'll put your work in the next edition. If you think promoting science is a good idea, also mention that you'd like to volunteer to help out, and I'll put you on the list of future hosts.