I came across this great video when it was advertised on businessweek.com - it's a very engaging piece on DNA related research initiatives that IBM are using to market themselves.
The remarkable Dana Centre in London is hosting an interesting event looking at whether people's fears are rational or not:Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid!(via the November 2007 BA-Lert)
29th November. Dana Centre, London
Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Or spiders, or heights? Why? Do your fears and anxieties hold you back? Are they even rational? Does fear serve any useful purpose? Join our panel of experts to explore and challenge your fears.
With only a month to go before Science Week Ireland 2007 kicks off on 11 November, science communicators around Ireland are working hard organising a huge variety of events.
"[a] column devoted to the exciting and fascinating world of scientific discovery and how images made in laboratories and publications in science advance our understanding of the world around us."
"I have the wonderful joy of helping researchers visualise there work"And she touches on the sometimes controversial issue of:
"How much can we manipulate an image in science?"
"A one-day video-skills workshop, organised by the British Interactive Group, based on teachers' workshops run as part of the NESTA/ ETB/IOP SciCast project. Facilitated by science TV professional Jonathan Sanderson, participants will work in small groups to film and edit a short demo-based movie, learning about working in video, from script to performance, and exploring what makes a compelling web video."This is a really interesting project and their well designed and written website has some great tips on visual story telling as well as some videos showcasing best practice - including a silent movie by the staff of the Glasgow Science Centre.
"4GLS will be a world-leading photon facility to enable internationally outstanding science in the UK. The 4GLS facility will combine energy recovery linac (ERL) and free electron laser (FEL) technologies to deliver a suite of naturally synchronised state-of-the-art sources of synchrotron radiation and FEL radiation covering the terahertz (THz) to soft X-ray regimes."So there you have it. The video glosses over that bit!
"...members of the RI have told Education Guardian there is concern within the organisation that research is playing second fiddle to "public outreach", meaning the communication of scientific issues to the public. The RI is seen as a model of excellence in this respect, opening its doors to more than 30,000 children each year. Its Christmas lectures, held annually since 1825, have introduced world-famous scientists - such as the father of electricity and magnetism, Michael Faraday, and Sir David Attenborough - to young audiences.
One member of the institution says: 'The direction in which the RI is heading is deeply troubling. It is playing down research...' "
The annual Science Speak competition takes place on Thursday May 3rd, in the Royal Dublin Society Concert Hall at 7pm. A panel of judges will hear seven competitors, one from each of the universities who must explain their scientific research in ordinary language and without recourse to technological jargon.
[...]
Science Speak is a joint initiative organised by the RDS and The Irish Times in association with Irish Universities Promoting Science. It is sponsored by the Discover Science Engineering programme and by Wyeth Biotech at Grange Castle, Dublin.
Admission to Science Speak is free of charge but places are limited, so it is advisable to book a seat. book online at www.universityscience.ie or by telephone on (01) 240-7217.
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Tokyo, Amsterdam, and the entire Mediterranean island of Ibiza were inundated with floodwaters today due to rising sea levels brought on by global warming.
Or at least, that would have been the headline if events in the virtual world Second Life mirrored reality.A rolling flood temporarily swamped several areas of the online world as part of a campaign to illustrate the potential environmental and financial impacts of climate change.
"Our message was, You may have a second life, but [you still need to] offset your second life in real life," said David de Rothschild, a London-based environmentalist and adventurer whose nonprofit Adventure Ecology helped stage today's flood.
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The conference seeks to address the key issues facing science communicators in the UK.
In 2007, it will take place over 2 days with the second day focusing on climate change and the first on more generic and varied aspects of public engagement. Each day the conference will run sessions in three strands - engaging to inspire & educate, engaging to involve and engaging through the media & PR.
Date: 14 & 15 May 2007Venue: The Institution of Engineering & Technology, Savoy Place, London
Specifically, the conference aims to
- demonstrate and discuss the contribution science communication activities are making to the various broadly-shared strategic aims for public engagement
- raise awareness of new developments
- promote greater understanding and cohesion amongst those working in science, technology and engineering communications
- provide opportunities to network, share ideas and good practice
The conference is aimed at key people engaged in science communication, including policy makers, professionals and academics, in government, research institutions, universities, industry and business, the media, PR, science centres and museums, science education, funding organisations, learned institutions, NGOs and research charities.
The conference is jointly organised by the BA and the Royal Society.
the media are often in a difficult position [...] They often bemoan the researcher's lack of talent in the art of communication, but at the same time that justifies their own role. Nevertheless, whenever they find a scientist who seems to be at ease and has a certain 'aura', the media are quick enough to call on that person for every topic [...]He also discusses briefly the changing role of museums / science centres and he has this to say on the topic:
Museums’ treatment of science is undergoing a “cultural revolution”. The new centres are placing an emphasis on the relationship with communication, producing interactive exhibits that are both educational and playful in order to capture the attention of visitors and concentrate on the technical and industrial realisation of the research, but that did not count on the questions of a public that does not necessarily want all the answers, but does want to be able to contemplate.This analysis is of particular relevance to Ireland now that the exciting plans for the Exploration Station science centre to be based in Dublin have recently been launched...
Museum directors are, therefore, torn between a new relationship between science and society, which suggests to them that science should be depicted just as it is, a more critical general public, and pressure from the cultural sector towards consumption. Fortunately, they also know that while they can never compete with Disneyland, they will never return to a rose-tinted view of progress. It is maybe this frame of mind that tells us that making an effort in scientific communication can bear fruit…
"There are lots of people who specialize in marketing, but as far as I can tell, none of them work for you," Page told researchers at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science late on Friday.He has a point - a lot of science communication is really about finding innovative ways of marketing science to various target audiences - be it school children or funding agencies. And that's ok.
Nature Publishing Group (NPG), publisher of the world's most influential science journals, today announced the launch of Nature Education, a new venture to develop innovative educational resources and tools for science students and their professors. Building upon NPG's strong reputation with educators and their students as a source of timely, relevant and high quality information - some of which is already used to supplement traditional teaching resources - Nature Education will take a non-traditional approach to the rapidly-evolving college education market, focusing primarily on creating leading edge, digitally-based, learning solutions in biology, chemistry and physics.
[...]
“Now is the right time to redefine undergraduate classroom education worldwide,” said Vikram Savkar [Publishing Director]. “Instructors and students are thirsty for learning environments that move beyond traditional textbooks and even course management systems to provide a highly interactive and personalized experience that simultaneously builds understanding, inspires career and research aspirations, and connects the student to a worldwide community of likeminded thinkers. With its excellent content, brand, global reach, and community of practicing scientists, NPG and Macmillan are superbly positioned to catalyze and capitalize on a radical shift in education.”
The new Science Center in Hamburg designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA looks just like an amethyst. [...]
The Science Center measures 14.000 square meters and features an aquarium, an academic theater, and probably also a planetarium.
While some may see them as vanity projects, physics blogs are starting to have a real impact on the way researchers communicate. For instance, several papers have already been published on arXiv.org that cite blog entries, demonstrating that blogs are becoming a bona fide channel for scientific communication.
Meanwhile, a debate about string theory that began in the blogosphere has recently been thrust into the spotlight, being widely reported in science magazines and picked up by national newspapers. The most outspoken critic of string theory, Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit, has used his blog Not Even Wrong to point out that string theory does not make predictions that can be tested by experiment, and that the status granted to the theory as the most promising approach to reconciling quantum physics with gravity diverts resources away from other alternatives.
His blog has sparked a fierce, and sometimes unexpectedly personal, debate, both in the comments posted on Not Even Wrong and on string theorists' blogs such as Luboš Motl's Reference Frame and Clifford Johnson's Asymptotia. Such slanging matches may not be typical of the level of discussion in physics departments, and cause one to wonder how much of the debate depends on the easy anonymity that such online forums offer. But, for better or worse, blogs have opened up a new form of discourse in physics that can – as it is carried out in such a public fashion – be propelled into a broader context in a way that a discussion at a conference, say, would not have been.
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