What’s not new under the sun? This blog!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of this blog. That’s right, it has been one year today since I clicked the publish button on my first post (UNLESS: What is your truffela seed?). It’s hard to remember how much anxiety I had over releasing my writing onto the internet to an audience of maybe three people. What a difference a year makes! Thanks to all of the stats that WordPress collects, here’s the year-in-review rundown with links to what you may have missed*…

The blog has 668 followers, which I find pretty amazing for a photosynthesis and plant science blog. This means that 668 people took the time to click the follow button or submitted their e-mail address to automatically receive my posts. This doesn’t really even count my lazy friends and family on Facebook or Twitter followers that catch my links via shameless self-promotion on social media.

Altogether, the blog has had 18,605 views with almost 1.5 page views per visitor. I’d like to think that means that most people that have stumbled upon a post have dared to click another. My all-time best for a single day’s worth of page views was Postdoc Appreciation at 275 views, but I can’t take too much credit because it is mostly just a collection of highly entertaining PhD Comics. However, the all-time most-viewed posts over the last year were somewhat surprising to me:

1. Photosynthetic Light/Dark Reactions
2. The Home Page
3. Photosynthesis: Not Just for Plants

Well, not that surprising considering that most of the search terms that landed visitors to my site included terms like “photosynthesis light and dark reactions or photosynthesis not plants.” I hope that the visitors using these search terms were students seeking clarification or a different presentation of something they saw in one of their classes or life-long learners trying to refresh their memories of a fundamental metabolic process. I hope they found what they were looking for, but they sure didn’t feel strongly enough one way or the other to comment positively or negatively below the posts/pages they found. Though not common, the winners for my favorite search terms leading to blog post clicks were “can pandas do kung fu” and “photosynthesis is crazy.” If you’re new to the blog today, that should really give you a feel for my range as a science blogger.

Beyond these basics, size matters when it comes to blog post popularity. The next most popular post after photosynthesis basics and whatever happens to be on my home page- Super Photosynthesizer Hyperion (The World’s Tallest Tree).

Some posts that were among the least popular but definitely deserve a click: SLIPS, Cyanobacteria shed, Mass out of thin air and Adamantium (for plants!). Not to mention this holiday favorite: The Scientific Night Before Christmas. Don’t miss them again this time around. Some other of my personal favorites that I thought would be more popular: Why bother being a scientist?, Science, Pandas and Kung Fu, The Rules of Biochemistry and Behind the Music: Plants. Click and read, remember I will know if you don’t.

In addition to writing for this blog, I’ve also written posts elsewhere. Check out this piece from the ASM Blog Small Things Considered on a mysterious microbial marriage that borders on scandalous. I’ve written a personal postdoc perspective for The Postdoc Way. I’ve also written posts for and hosted the plant science blog carnival Berry Go Round.

All of this writing has amounted to 168 posts or about one every other day. I’ve started a few blog post series: Holiday Plants, Superhero PhD, A new social contract between science and society, GMO Food, Journal Club. Writing this year-in-review has made me painfully aware of how much I’ve let some of these lapse. Sorry! I will continue them eventually (or your money back).

Even though this domain name isn’t shiny and new anymore, the sun isn’t setting on this blog. It will continue to be your source of new science related to plants and photosynthesis. So, check out the links for what you may have missed this past year and make sure to give the blog a follow so you don’t miss another post.

 

Johnna

*I tried to warn you that I knew what you were clicking, but you just don’t listen.