Another example of how blogging can be great for science, both as public education and as communication among scientists: The Open Source Paleontologist Andrew Farke first walks his readers through his nifty new study of skull injuries in Triceratops, which suggests that their horns were used for combat (as opposed to mere display), then follows up with a post detailing the open-source technologies behind the paper.

This is better, to my mind, than whatever coverage the New York Times science section can give Farke’s result. Farke links directly to the PLoS-published paper – mainstream science coverage tells me the journal, at best, and leaves me to ferret out the paper myself. (It’s not that much work, but I’m lazy.) I can read the author’s own explanation of the result, and post comments to ask for clarification, which better approximates the experience at a conference. And, as a bonus, I learn about some ways I can improve my own, very non-paleontological, work: Zotero, for instance, looks well worth a try.