Cruzified by Cuil

I just visited cuil (self description: the 'world biggest search engine') and was searching for TaxonConcept to see if the site is already indexed.
Besides some TDWD WIKI entries on the TaxonConcept Scheme, cuil showed links to some paleonet newsgroup posts where I mentioned TaxonConcept. No link to TaxonConcept or Snet which is a bit disappointing but not surprising for a search engine start up.

The real surprise however was the thumbnail which cuil displayed (for whatever reason) beneath the link: A cruzifixion scene! Hmm.. does this mean something ?

Analysis of Author Networks in Wikipedia

The Social Sciences Department of the J.W. Goethe Univsersity Frankfurt sent out a press release on idw about a nice piece of work by Christian Stegbauer, a professor of social science at this department.

In his work, Stegbauer analysed the network of Wikipedia authors and their contributions to Wikipedia topic discussions on philosophy. The network analysis - or graph analysis - showed the social network of Wikipedia authors, how they interact and how they are connected through common topics.

In their graph analysis Stegbauer et al. used an approach very similar to TaxonRank. Of course, the same questions that Stegbauer asked about Wikipedia author networks could also be applied to taxonomists.

Geology-related Reality TV

In his Arizona geologist blog Lee Allison featured a reality TV show on drilling for oil. "Black Gold - 2 Miles Deep or 6 Feet Under". Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? Is there any geology footage on YouTube? I haven't checked for that yet.