Came across this post about a biology lab at University of British Columbia where everyone is required to maintain a science blog.
When it comes to science labs I am way out of my element, but the piece does touch on the benefits of blogging in the open. These include the blogger more fully developing ideas and gaining improved writing skills.
I agree that this is a good use of open blogs. However, I wonder if a lab notebook is actually quasi-public by nature. A lot of these entries are fairly technical (I wonder what "DprA" and "ComM" are).
Of course there are some interesting references to pop music (not exactly a discussion on mechanisms of DNA repair)