The first edition of The Giants' Shoulders, a carnival devoted to blogging on old peer-reviewed research, went up on July 15th at A Blog Around the Clock, and looks to have been quite a success from the number of interesting submissions there, covering interesting papers from all sorts of areas from 1543 to 1992. Coturnix has given us the "firstest, biggestest" edition so far. Well, I'll be hosting the next edition on August 15th, and while I probably can't make #2 any more "firster", with your help we can maybe increase the "biggestness". You can send your entries to my e-mail here.

More details about the carnival are available at its website, but here's the blurb:

"'The Giant’s Shoulders' is a monthly science blogging event, in which authors are invited to submit posts on 'classic' scientific papers. Submissions are due on the fifteenth of each month, and entries will be aggregated and linked to on the host blog of the month. Links to entries should be sent to that month’s host blog."

"What defines a 'classic' paper? This depends upon the field in question, but one expects that the work should have somewhat stood the test of time: we suggest perhaps 10 years old, or more. Contributors should not only describe the research involved but also put it in a broader historical/scientific context: why is the work in question important/groundbreaking/revolutionary/nifty?"

"It should go without saying by the use of the word 'classic', but papers should be in an accepted, established scientific field: contributions promoting non-traditional science and pseudo-scientific ideas are inappropriate."

"Why restrict yourself to 'classic' papers? Entries profiling an important person or concept in the history of science are also acceptable."

So come on - get writing!