The NN blog roster is expanding by leaps and bounds. The last couple of weeks have brought us another four new bloggers, this batch as varied and exciting as the last.

Christie Wilcox will soon begin her graduate work in Oceanography. A self-proclaimed Oompa Loompa of Science (hence the name of her blog, O.L.S. Buzz), Christie has hit the ground running with posts about sound pollution in the oceans and its effect on whales, and sharks that don’t need males for reproduction. I am not sure what being an Oompa Loompa of Science means, but if reading Christie’s blog brings me closer to O.L.S. status, I won’t object.

Steffi Suhr is a long time NN contributor who has finally decided to take the blog plunge. Steffi is a journal editor (Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics) in Germany with a background in marine sciences. Her approach to blogging will be a very humanistic and organic one – she plans on presenting issues in science by telling the stories of the people involved. Her first post, Cam and Kinari Webb, describes the efforts of two people in Borneo to simultaneously promote rain forest preservation and health care.

Zhiming Wang is an open access devotee and Editor-in-Chief of the OA journal Nanoscale Research Letters. He also runs a nanotechnology lab at the University of Arkansas. Somehow, he has found the time to start a much-welcomed blog on NN, Open Access, Freedom Space in which he will discuss his views on the OA model of scientific publishing as well as his work with quantum dots, nanostructures, and the like.

Lei Xu makes my inner geek very happy – he will blog about his work in single molecule detection and fluorescent techniques. The first post on his blog, Dance with Single Molecules introduces the many techniques he plans on exploring in the course of his PhD work.

Go over and say hello when you have the chance, extend that NN hospitality we are becoming famous for!

P.S. Now aren’t you glad I didn’t call it the Bloggy Block again?