Posts Tagged Science communication

Upcoming popular lectures by Professor Lawrence Krauss Grant Jacobs Mar 10

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The Psychology Department of the University of Otago is sponsoring two talks by leading physicist Professor Lawrence Krauss next week. If you’re in town, be there!

prof-lawrence-krauss-200pxAmong his popular science books are Hiding in the Mirror (2005) and The Physics of Star Trek (1995). Hiding in the Mirror is subtitled: The Quest for Alternate Realities, from Plato to String Theory (by way of Alice in Wonderland, Einstein, and The Twilight Zone), which will give readers a better idea of what it’s about!

Don’t be mislead by this to thinking he is a lightweight populist, he’s a serious physicist who has received many awards. According to wikipedia and his on-line biography he is “the only physicist ever to have been awarded the highest awards of all three major US Physics Societies”.

He is also a recognised science publicist, with his awards noting this in alongside his physics contributions. With the credentials he has in science communication, I have no doubt that he will be an excellent speaker.

Below are the blurbs for the two lectures cut’n’pasted from the advertising poster (with permission):

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Molecular biology in museums Grant Jacobs Mar 09

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The past fifty years has seen the rise of molecular biology. Many museums have little to represent molecular biology and it’s impact on medicine, perhaps because the objects studied in molecular biology are usually visualised indirectly, whereas museum visitors traditionally go to view objects with their own eyes.

While on blogcation,1 biologist-artist Jessica Palmer continues to write posts to her blog, bioemphemera.

canterbury-museum-350px

Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand. Note the early power poles. (Source: wikipedia.)

Recently she pointed out a conference on presenting modern modern science in museums, quoting from the call to contributions. It’s a lengthy “call”—almost a treatise!—so I will present only the initial portion (interested readers should read read the full account):

The 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) will be held at the University of Copenhagen, 16–18 September, 2010.

This year’s conference focuses on the challenge to museums posed by contemporary developments in medical science and technology.

The image of medicine that emerges from most museum galleries and exhibitions is still dominated by pre-modern and modern understandings of an anatomical and physiological body, and by the diagnostic and therapeutical methods and instruments used to intervene with the body at the ‘molar’ and tangible level — limbs, organs, tissues, etc.

The rapid transition in the medical and health sciences and technologies over the last 50 years — towards a molecular understanding of human body in health and disease and the rise of a host of molecular and digital technologies for investigating and intervening with the body — is still largely absent in museum collections and exhibitions.

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137 years of Popular Science back issues, free Grant Jacobs Mar 08

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One-hundred and thirty-seven years of back issues of the monthly magazine Popular Science are now available on-line free.

Popular Science cover, October 1977. (Source: Google books)

Popular Science cover, October 1977. (Source: Google books)

You can either search the Popular Science archives, or access issues via Google books. It does not appear to be possible to download copies to read them locally, as some might prefer.

Popular Science was first published in May 1872 with quite substantial editions, over 100 pages in length.

With it’s long history, it will appeal to many different readers.

Those on a short budget will like the free access last year’s editions. Some will enjoy exploring the historic “science”—not all of it would be considered science today—of the editions from the late 1800s. Others might prefer the early colour illustrations. Fans of old advertising will be in for a treat, too.

Popular Science was intended to address the non-scientific public, as explained in the Editor’s Table of the first edition, to “contain papers, original and selected, on a wide range of subjects, from the ablest scientific men of different countries, explaining their views to non-scientific people.”

Before I continue I should confess I’ve never read Popular Science. My own science reading tends more to the research literature, books or blogs.

I’m going to limit this article to mainly the first edition, partly in the interest of time, and partly as what drew my attention to this resource being made available was access to early attempts to bring science to the wider public.

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Book review: The Open Laboratory: The Best Science Writing on Blogs 2009 Grant Jacobs Feb 28

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The Open Laboratory offers 50 of the best writing that science blogs gave over 2009.

You know the WWW is the source when the editor is listed by their pseudonym! Scicurious edits, with Blake Stacey as production editor and Bora Zivkovic the series editor.

It’s available for the princely sum of $US 15.50 from Lulu in either book form, or as a download. The PDF version includes links to sources. (Those new to Lulu may want my tips in the footnotes.)

The volume opens with with a poem (Beyond Energy, by Kristopher Hite), a refreshing start that caught me slightly off guard. It’s bookended with another poem: My Personal Genome Project by The Digital Cuttlefish.

Next in line, editor Scicurious’ Preface introduces science blogs, to quote, we scientists and science writers:

do our geeky best to fight ignorance and hype, and to show people just how useful, and cool, science can be

(I’d add that one more thing that people can get from science blogs is to they are ask scientists things and can engage in conversation. More than just seeing science and scientists for what they really are: they can interact with them. It’s something I don’t see enough of.)

She rightfully hopes that this volume can extend the reach of the science blogs further into “living rooms and offices around the world” and looking at it, I hope it does.

There’s 50 articles. That’s precisely 31¢ per article, if anyone cares.

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Best research blogs: get ready for voting; well done Aimee and David Grant Jacobs Feb 26

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Research blogging have put up their list of candidates for the Research Blogging Awards, 2010.

research-blogging-awardsIn them are a few familiar names.

misc.ience, one of our own, makes the short-list for the Best Blog — Chemistry, Physics, or Astronomy category. Well done, Aimee!

The Atavism, syndicated here, also makes the Best Lay-Level blog selection (the link points to the stand-alone blog). Well done, David.

They can now add the Research Blogging Finalist icon to there blogs.

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Post-embargo publication delays: be gone Grant Jacobs Feb 25

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Scientific research articles cited in the media should be available at the time embargoes are lifted, not later.

missing-in-actionRecently there was an article I very much wanted to write about in a timely fashion, having seen the news in local media and on Ed Yong’s blog. To my complete frustration, the research paper was unavailable despite the story being widely reported in the media. And not just frustration, either: it seemed wrong.

Others explained it was because PNAS (the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA) has a practice of not releasing the paper for a period after the media embargo.

It seems a number of journals take some time to release the DOIs (Document Object Identifiers) associated with a publication or even the article itself following an embargo on reporting the publication.

As Yong writes in his call to Kill the post-embargo publication window:

This practice punishes scientists who are unable to see, comment on, or discuss work that is outed in the mainstream media, it punishes journalists who are trying to link to original sources, and it punishes readers who are inquisitive and skeptical enough to try to verify the information they read. None of these is acceptable.

I agree.

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Lab lit: for bookworms who like the science to be plausible Grant Jacobs Feb 23

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Jenniffer Rohn defines ‘lab lit’ as “realistic mainstream fiction featuring scientists as central characters”.

Dr. Rohn is the editor of LabLit.com, which, along with articles and other material, hosts the Lab Lit List.

(Source: Lab Lit)

(Source: Lab Lit)

You can read about Dr. Rohn’s experiment with promoting Lab Lit in Waterstones in London. (PDF file.)

The LabLit website aims to support the portrayal and perceptions of “real laboratory culture”, including the science, scientists and labs, in fiction, the media and across popular culture.

On the list you’ll find a wide range of books, films and TV shows, even plays. If you’re looking for new things to read, this is a good place to poke around.

If you’re thinking that the list is looking a little behind the times, enough lab lit has been published that it’s developed a backlog! They don’t just bung ’em in there, they check them out first, then create synopses. I’m told that they are aiming at an update in 2-3 weeks or thereabouts.

Being a computational biologist or a bioinformaticist, depending on how you want to split hairs, I just had to look to see what books featured someone from my field.

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Special edition of Biochemist E-volution: Science and the Media on-line free Grant Jacobs Feb 11

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The latest edition of Biochemist E-volution hosts a special issue on science and the media with scientists’ and science communicators’ thoughts about science and the media.

Public chemistry lecture at the Surrey Institute, early 1800s (Source: wikipedia)

Public chemistry lecture at the Surrey Institute, early 1800s (Source: wikipedia; artists: Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Charles Pugin)

Alerted via twitter by the ever-busy Bora Zivkovic, and later by a brief mention in an article on his own blog, there is a special edition of Biochemist E-volution Science and the Media available on-line, with all the PDFs of the articles available for free download. (Volume 32, no. 1; Feb. 2010.)

It looks a great collection of articles. including:

Science for the public – beyond the wow factor
by Tracey Brown (Sense About Science)

Facing the press pack – how to hack it
by Paul Hardaker (Royal Meteorological Society)

Heroes and villains – scientists on the small and big screens
by Jennifer Rohn (University College London)

Selling science – Absolutely Fabulous or The Thick of It?
by Dianne Stilwell (Communications Consultant)

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Eureka’s top 30 blog; vote sciblogs.co.nz for top 100 Grant Jacobs Feb 05

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Times On-line’s Eureka science magazine has released it’s list of it’s top 30 blogs.

microscope-stampsWe’ve all got own own favourites, see anyone’s blogroll. Mine are listed to the right of this article. It’s easy to get locked into the ones you habitually visit. Trying others’ lists opens up new possibilities. Explore Eureka’s list, there might be some that appeal to you.

You can also send votes to them to recommend others. Go on, recommend sciblogs.co.nz. You know you want to! According to Bora, they’re asking for another 70 to make up a top 100 so please do.

You might think different to Eureka choices. I do. I’d expect most to, we’ve all go our own ideas.

First up, the last on their list should go. Watt’s Up is anti-science, surely?

I’ve two minds about The Intersection. Their science writing is OK, although I personally think there is better. (I’m very picky about science blogs!) Their advice for science communication is a mixed lot to my opinion: it often feels as if it needs more thinking through and stronger self-criticism.

I’m a fan of both Not Exactly Rocket Science, The Loom and a good half-dozen others, although I would have added Neurophilosophy.

Personally I would have excluded the “blogs” that rarely provide any truly original material, but mainly repeat others’ material in re-shaped form or point at it. They have their place, but they’re a different type of beast. They’re aggregators, rather than blogs or blog collectives. (I’m also a bit wary as these “blogs” of this style seem to be under so much pressure to “produce” that they push the line on “pirating” others’ original content and sometimes don’t really give enough credit to the original source.)

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Singing for science Grant Jacobs Jan 27

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If you’re looking for science songs, especially for young kids, not a bad place to start is The Great Beyond blog. A far as I can tell, this is the latest in the series. They’re up to thirty now! You can always trying searching the blog using ’song science’, using the search box in the upper-left corner. (I’ll be honest some of them make me squirm, but some aren’t so bad, and the kids’ ones are obviously for kids!)

An earlier post in the series passes on that Jef Poskanzer has posted the entire collection of the 1950s-1960s era Singing Science Records online (for kids).

Below I’ve given a video of one of the songs (below the “fold”), which will be (very) familiar to science bloggers, but perhaps new to some of my non-science readers. The fish featured in it is a model of the Tiktaalik fossil. Neil Shubin, who the song mentions, is one of the discoverers of the fossil. An account of his work on this fossil is given in his excellent book Your Inner Fish (cover to right). The author offers an adapted excerpt  from the book, Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish, that you can read on-line.

Anyway, on to the video for you (and back to work for me!):

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