as many of you have likely experienced, social media are also one more stream feeding the flood of information that washes over the busy practitioner on a daily basis. We are all aware of the immense amount of primary literature published daily in the biomedical sciences; keeping up with this information flow can be a full-time challenge. Many of us have neither interest nor bandwidth to dedicate to yet another source. This is unfortunate, because discussions in the social media realm, while less rigorously moderated, reflect current trends and controversies with substantially less lag than traditional media. These discussions are lively and passionate, and participation is not constrained by geography or conference schedules.