Cosmic Variance was a collaborative weblog discussing physics, astrophysics, and other topics, written by JoAnne Hewett, Mark Trodden, Sean Carroll, Risa Wechsler, Julianne Dalcanton, Clifford Johnson, John Conway, and Daniel Holz.
Most writing on Cosmic Variance focused on modern physics, astrophysics, and cosmology, at a level accessible to the interested non-scientist.
Several discussions on Cosmic Variance gained attention in the print media, including a discussion on women in science that compared physicist Lisa Randall to Jodie Foster[3] and a post by John Conway about his discovery of a "bump" in particle accelerator data that turned out not to be caused by the Higgs boson.
[4] When the engagement of Carroll to science writer Jennifer Ouellette was first announced on his blog, the story was picked up by both the New York Times[5] and the prominent scientific journal Nature.
[6] Cosmic Variance hosted a number of guest bloggers, including string theorist Joseph Polchinski reviewing Lee Smolin's book The Trouble With Physics.