2nd Blog-iversary

New Under the Sun Blog is 2 years old! Because WordPress keeps such detailed statistics, here’s the annual numbers rundown. Here is the link to the first year’s numbers. 

Followers: 928

Still not exactly sure how this gets counted, but I’m definitely up from last year (668) and still completely amazed that many people outside of my immediate family chose to follow a blog about photosynthesis, plants and biochemistry.

Total page views: 35679

This number is waaay higher than last year. Thanks Google and social media. My all-time most-viewed posts and pages are still my basics of the photosynthetic reactions. Lots of students seem to be still confused about this topic and many variations of ‘photosynthesis-related’ Google searches send clicks my way. I hope my pages were helpful.

I have a new winner for the all-time highest single day post: Two Tales of a Manuscript at 304 views that day (Big thanks to the Plant Cell Facebook page for posting a link!). It faded pretty quickly, but still a good long read about the process of science that struggling scientists and even non-scientists will appreciate.

Also, internet users search for ‘cotton’ a lot and end up clicking on my post from last Labor Day. It’s on pace to even out hit my post on the world’s tallest tree (Hyperion), which continues to be my most popular non-photosynthetic post.

I also like to troll the stats on the least common and crazier search terms that earn me a click. This year’s favorite ‘everything aspiring biochemists should know.’ This search term alone gives me hope for the future and I hope that the clicker found something useful on my site. In addition to the Rules of Biochemistry and the Molecular Biology Code, I do have plans for Dr. Roose’s Pyramid of Biochemist Greatness coming soon ala the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness (coming soon).

Now for the bad news as to why the sequel isn’t as good as the original- only 55 posts this year (about once a week). Sigh. In my first year, I was able to churn out 165! My only excuse is I had to keep my new day job. So, on this free site, you get what you pay for. This summer has been less than productive on the blog front as well. It is hard to write clever, informative posts now that Jr. PhD has hit the stage where he is constantly asking questions. Tonight’s topic- Why did the Giant Sloth go extinct? (We went to the library today and got an encyclopedia on dinosaurs and prehistoric animals.) I’m a plant person and I don’t have a short answer that he will accept.

I was able to finish out some series this year. Check out the Frozen Parody series for a new twist on plant science topics and the Holiday Plants series for the botanical companions to your holiday traditions (also available in almanac-form downloadable PDF for free!). Still working on finishing some others and I’ve definitely have no shortage of post topics- just time to write about them. Please be patient.

Here’s to another year of science blogging!

Johnna