Popular Science magazine (online)

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The internet has revolutionised the way in which information is propagated to the mass audience, creating a communication web which encompasses the whole world. As a result, Newspapers, Magazines, Television Channels etc all have an associated website through which communication can continue, and Popular Science Magazine is no exception. I had a look through their website, to determine how effective and indeed engaging the site was.

My overall impression of the website was very positive, as it is well presented and entices you to have a look around. The home page includes their top articles from each of the different sections; How2.0, Science, Aviation and Space & Technology, as well as a PopSci blog section which instantly caught my eye. Navigation through the website is very simple, with the articles are clearly laid out in their respective categories. The articles themselves are from a varied range of topics, and in my opinion pitched at the right level for lay persons to understand. Links are available for further understanding on the topic.

I particularly liked the blog entry based on Laser tagging and graffiti technology (pictured), which enabled a building in Rotterdam to be used as a massive Etch-a-Sketch board.

Aminur Rahman

The Last Word

Everyweek in the New Scientist magazine I always end up skipping straight to the ‘Last Word’ column. The ‘Last Word’ is a small section of the magazine in which scientist from across the world try to answer questions from members of the public. These can vary from intelligent questions which are quite difficult to answer such as;

Why is it when two people walk together they often subconsciously start to walk in a synchronised manner?

To highly amusing, silly questions such as;

Why is snot green?

The highlights of the ‘Last Word’ column were, last year, made into a highly successful book aptly named ‘Does anything eat wasps?’ This was so well received by the general public that the follow-up ‘Why don’t penguins feet freeze?’ has just been released.

Even though these books are presented in a light-hearted and jovial manner I believe they actually represent a very good piece of science communication and further aid the publics understanding of science.

Why? One might ask. It is precisely this type of informal scientific writing which intrigues those who relish wit, insight and scientific curiosity, yet may not want to read the complex, and sometimes slightly boring articles in the New Scientist or Nature. These books are definitely a ‘wise, weird and wacky compendium that is guaranteed to amaze, inform and delight.’

Chris McLeod

howstuffworks.com

How Stuff Works is an informative and easy to understand website which answers day to day questions to more complicated, specialised questions. It covers a wide range of areas including Health, Money, Science and Travel just to name a few. These categories are then sub-divided into about six areas which make the information needed easy to find.

The endless amount of topics, each contain animations, pictures or video clips which not only increases the audiences’ understanding of the topic but also keeps the audience entertained! Having a glance at the topics increased my curiosity of how things do work and I believe I could spend hours on the website to increase my general knowledge and have all my curiosities answered!

The audience are able to sign up for weekly news updates from the website keeping them up-to-date with all the great stuff going on in the world and it also contains brain teasers, not only for fun but also to challenge the audience. A new feature of the website is the section on readers’ opinions where the audience are open to discussion boards in which they can state their opinions and views of various topics.

The downside of this website is that the immediate presentation is not as attractive to the eye as say the BBC Science and Nature Website. The BBC website caught my eye straightaway and I was curious to have a look around, whereas, it was only after I had a look around the ‘how stuff works’ website that I found the positives of the site.

Younsuk Oh

“Parasite Rex” by Carl Zimmer

Ever lie in bed at night and swear that you can feel something crawling around inside your skull?

Well it is probably paranoia or it could just be a Botfly larva devouring your brain from the inside-out. This disturbing thought is just one of the disgusting and frightening images depicted in Carl Zimmer’s “Parasite Rex”.

The front cover of “Paraste Rex” is analogous with that of a 1950’s Sci Fi comic, but on further inspection we find that this is not a story of intergalactic space aliens, but that these hideous, disturbing and grotesque organisms are actually ‘common’ human parasites.

Parasite Rex is a refreshing popular science book that neither shys away from using scientific names nor tries to patronise the reader with endless repeats of the same information like most popular science books of recent years.

The story of the human tapeworm I found particularly nauseating as we travel from mouth to gut to the intestinal tract and find that these pulsating Cestodes can grow up to 30m in length and break up into hundreds of egg sacs, ready to infect new hosts.

I would strongly advise those with weak stomachs and heart conditions to read this book at their own risk, as Carl Zimmer pulls no punches and delivers what I would call, a riveting and enlightening picture of those organisms that feed, breed and survive at our expense.

Matthew Hayward

SciPod – New Scientist Podcast

With the use of iPods and other MP3 players on the increase, it is of no surprise that the science world has started using ‘Podcasts’ as a way of communicating science to the public. An example of a science magazine employing this method of communication is the NewScientist.com Podcast – or SciPod.

SciPod is a weekly podcast which is available for download on the New Scientist website. The programme consists of four or five pieces of science news which correspond to articles in the upcoming issue of New Scientist magazine - published the following day.

The informal style of the programme makes for easy listening and the language used make the more detailed aspects of the science easy to follow. The topics are often related to current issues, allowing listeners to learn more about subjects covered briefly in the news, such as climate change, obesity, etc. The variety of subject matter is broad, with different areas of science being included in each programme.

SciPod is an effective audio programme for communicating science to the public, in spite of the cheesy music and tag-lines such as “SciPod - it’s not just a podcast, it’s the very essence of happiness!” With specialist subject matter explained in layman terms and in digestible chunks of about 7 minutes per topic, SciPod is a good overview of the week’s science and technology news that engages the listener’s interest and may also encourage listener to pick up a copy of the magazine to found out even more, which, in my opinion, indicates that SciPod has successfully served its purpose as an effective form of science communication.

Cheryl Lai

Cosmopolitan

Even Cosmo has started to science communicate! Imagine my surprise when a quiz in the December 2006 issue with the headline “What sex is your brain?” turned out to have nothing to do with, well, what you expect of Cosmo!

The gregarious claim that men and women’s brains are “completely different” was supported by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen from the University of Cambridge. He asserts that women are “geared up for empathy” whereas men have “excellent spatial awareness.” Interestingly within the introductory paragraph to the quiz lies a contradiction. Men and women supposedly have different brains, but the Professor’s research concludes that “only 50% of each sex have the brain type that corresponds to their gender,” hence the quiz. In this article you can take the quiz to find out whether your brain is more male or more female, even though your sex should determine that already.

While I acknowledge that Cosmo readers may not be the most intellectual bunch, I wonder if such a huge contradiction went unnoticed by them. If women can have male brains and if men can have female brains, is there really such a thing as a male or female brain?

Why did I buy Cosmo? The free bag matched my shoes. My brain is male, in case you were wondering.

Noora Husseini

The Science Channel

The science channel is a television channel from the same people behind the discovery channel, it focuses specifically on scientific issues. The channel focuses predominantly on space science, such as astronomy, human science and other topics in science related to humans aren’t usually broadcasted on this channel. This channel can be watched on television and also on pod casts.

I recently watched a documentary about the discovery of new planets, which was titled our destiny.

The documentary was very simple, explaining how new planets were discovered and by whom. The documentary has a narrative text which describes what’s on the screen and features several guest speakers from universities that carried out research in to the topic. In this documentary research that the scientists were doing was simplified to a point that their work seemed trivial. Although taking away from the scientists achievements, it was probably necessary so that the audience could have a better understanding of the topic.

The documentary takes advantages of visuals using a lot of actual pictures and footage of events in space; however during this no information on what these pictures depict is given. These are simply used as they are appealing to the eye, they have no informational value.

The Science channel explains scientific topics very simply making it easy to understand for lay audiences and even children. The channel however only looks at a small part of science and what it does look at is oversimplified. It is a very interesting channel and I would recommend it to anyone interested in space science.

By George Banjo

Science is a game

Game On is a temporary exhibition at the Science Museum looking at the technologies that have changed gaming over the decades. It looks at the earliest games, different game types (action, simulation and puzzle games), game soundtracks, games associated with films and many other aspects of gaming. Visitors to the exhibition get the chance to play a wide variety of games, from pong to the Nintendo Wii.

Obviously getting to play a lot of games is immense fun. It's not just the game's ability to distract but there is a nostalgic attraction to some of the older games, which heightens the experience. However, does such an exhibition really belong in a science museum?

A science museum's remit surely should be to educate, inform and interest the public in scientific issues and also more generally in science and technology. Game On is really a history of games. It looks at how new technologies impact on how games are played - the Internet's influence on multiplayer games for example - but does not examine how these technologies work. And who would pay attention to any explanation while trying to collect all the coins or win the race? Here the Science Museum fundamentally fails its remit.

The exhibition does raise some questions. How well do play and science education mix? For example, how well can a game convey a scientific principle? Is it justifiable to have an educational 'loss leader', an exhibition which has a rather a tenuous link to the remit of the museum but attracts a lot of people who may explore other parts of the museum which deal more directly with science? I have my doubts.

Ryan Dee

Animals in the Womb

‘Animals in the Womb’ aired on channel four on Thursday 21st December at 9pm. The lives of an Asian elephant, a dog and a dolphin were followed from conception to birth, with revolutionary ‘4D’ technology used to illustrate each stage with images of foetuses moving inside the womb.

Public appeal was obvious with plenty of cute pictures of baby animals waving, blinking and yawning at the audience. However, this wasn’t merely ‘soft science’ –there was a strong informative foundation behind the pink dolphins and waving puppies.

I was impressed by the depth, quality and scope of the information the programme provided, from embryology to evolution to behaviour, all delivered in ‘everyday’ terminology that the layman could understand. The programme kept the audience awake by switching between species, rather than just recounting the lifecycle of each in turn. Computer imaging was also used to good effect, bringing the science alive.

However, I felt that the length of the programme was slightly too long; lay audiences may loose interest after the first hour. It would also have been nice to see a human foetus for comparison of the different stages of development. This may have related the programme to the audience more closely.

Despite these criticisms, viewing ‘Animals in the womb’ was a refreshing and rewarding experience. The programme was informative, appealing and exciting – exactly the way science communication in the public sector should be!

Submitted by Lucy Fray

Hamster power

Amidst a frantic band of jumping and shouting little kids, a science teacher attempts to explain the concept of conservation of energy to an 8-year old. Meanwhile, another bunch of children is jumping up down, waving their hands in the air, to make a lightning bolt strike a tree. Designed to be yet another ‘interactive’ science exposition, the energy gallery in the science museum subjects a hapless visitor to a torrent of acoustic abuse and even electric shock therapy.

Indeed, for adults, the energy gallery may not be quite what they had in mind for an enjoyable, quiet afternoon out. However, by keeping in mind that it is aimed at children of about seven to fourteen years old, I think the gallery succeeds quite well in conveying some of the key issues concerning energy and its associated problems.

With a minimum of text and an overload of audio-visual-sensual effects, it is made clear that it will be very hard to change our current pattern of energy consumption. Visitors can have a try at energy management by pretending to be minister in a computer simulation. The kids are asked if they would process there hamster into electrical energy to power the television, illustrating rather well that tough choices must be made.

Although all-in-all a good initiative, it is deplorable that virtually no mention is made of the relationship between fossil fuels and climate change, which might raise questions considering that BP and BASF were the main sponsors of the gallery. Definitely worthwhile visiting with your hyperactive little cousin!

Submitted by Cornelis Plet

The March of the Penguins: a Trade Off

The film documentary ‘La Marche de l’empereur’ was first released in January 2005 in France. Other versions were later released including the American ‘March of the Penguins’ which we saw in Britain. It follows the reproductive journey of Emperor penguins in the Antarctic.

It has been received as a documentary, and in that category has won many awards including an Oscar. Although I think it is a brilliant film, I do not agree with this classification. Documentaries are visual records conveying factual information. Being interpreted as a documentary when it clearly isn’t bestows on it false factual authority.

Anthropomorphism is used to increase empathy in the audience. However, this leads to misunderstanding the nature of the penguins. There is a trade-off between how realistically you portray the subject, and how the devices that create empathy affect the realism. The French version was dubbed to give the penguins dialogue. It successfully instilled empathy in the audience, but was a far cry from a visual record.

Although the American version was narrated, it again developed the penguins’ character beyond fact. It assigned the penguins emotions such as love, and encouraged an interpretation that has led to both the Conservatives and US religious groups heralding the Emperor penguin as the epitome of family values.

Kate Royle

A Quite Interesting Blog

Based on the BBC 2 Quiz show, QI (it stands for Quite Interesting if you didn’t know) The Book Of General Ignorance throws what you thought was true in the recycling bin and sheds light on common misconceptions in History (Medieval people did not believe that the Earth was flat), Invention (Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb) and Nature and Science in general (the Blue Whale is not the largest organism on Earth – it is a 2000 year old mushroom covering 890 hectares).

Obviously then, it is not a pure science book, but what science it does contain is very enlightening. The book is broken up into small bits of texts only a few paragraphs long explaining the who/what/where/which in question. The science is not spread evenly throughout the book, but is rather delivered in chunks of a few small articles, so you could go through a few pages encountering no science at all – but that’s alright because each article is written in a witty manner, and most of them are indeed quite interesting.

Since it is not marketed strictly as a science book, it has the potential to reach a larger audience than most science books. Of course it doesn’t go into as great a detail as those science books, but in reaching more non-scientific audience it may spark a hidden interest in science in more members of the public, which can only be a good thing.

The Nature Podcast

The Nature Podcast is released on a weekly basis and is intended as a free audio supplement for the famous journal Nature. I believe that the Nature Podcast is an invaluable resource for time and money-strapped students that wish to keep abreast of any new developments in pretty much every scientific field.

Even though I have a subscription to Nature and try to selectively read every biologically-related article each week, it’s still useful to listen to the podcast, as I find that it simplifies and consolidates the main gist of some pretty complex research.

In fact, the podcast is so good that I often find myself listening to and understanding the basics of research from outside the biological field, such as astrophysics (which is quite interesting incidentally!).

Thus, I believe that listening to the Nature Podcast can help give a broader appreciation of all sciences. This is especially useful at an undergraduate level, where I believe there’s a ‘funneling’ effect of teaching; as you progress through your degree you get a more and more detailed understanding of a certain section of the discipline you’re studying, but as a result, the overall picture of what is going on in the other sciences in general can be lost. Would you agree?

The Nature Podcast makes my learning and inclusion of outside reading easier, and more diverse. I hope that many of you make use of this resource and perhaps consider listening to it on the way into university each week.

Submitted by Heny Mori

How the Universe Got its Spots

When is a doughnut the same thing as a coffee cup? Is the universe infinite or just really big?

Janna Levin sets out to answer these questions and many more in her book How the Universe Got its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space. She writes about important scientists and theories of complex geometries and strings – including a fantastic section where she makes use of Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott (discussed in one of our lectures).

But the book captivates primarily through the way the author goes about transmitting her message. The explanations of chaos and background radiation are thrown in amongst accounts of her personal life with its love woes and frequent relocations.

She also discusses how scientists are viewed (badly dressed, white lab coats and glasses) and is realistic about the degree of subjectivity innate in scientific research (theories “fall out of favour” or are “all the rage”). Actually the book itself renders a moving and accurate picture of what being a scientist is all about.

Although this book rides the popularity wave created by writer-physicists such as Stephen Hawking, it is very different in tone. Janna Levin succeeds in conveying the beauty of physics in a manner that is alternatingly poetic and wryly humorous. All this makes the book a lovely read for people interested in theoretical physics but put off by the degree of dry technical content in some popular science books.

Inspired? Buy the book or become a cosmologist yourself.

Submitted by Alex Martinsson Dorff

Creationism against science

This topic of ‘where we came’ from was the main topic of The Guardian’s weekly science update podcast. The focus was on the debate between intelligent design and science, and whether or not both of these views should be taught in schools. The point about it being taught in schools was on the back of a video sent to state schools outlying the basis of intelligent design.

The podcast used 4 different scientists only one of which actually supported the notion of intelligent design. This first scientist introduced the idea behind intelligent design, and the notion of irreducible complexity. This was really the only argument for the intelligent design belief that the podcast put across, which made it a little one sided.

The remaining 15 minutes of the podcast was dedicated to arguments against intelligent design, initially started by a ‘Christian believer’ studying palaeontology at Cambridge. This scientist totally dismissed the theory and then followed this up with the question of exactly what there was to teach as intelligent design from a scientific perspective. This was then adequately reinforced by a professor at UCL and also a scientist from the U.S.A who has had to deal with this debate in more severe cases.

In summation the podcast has certainly re-affirmed my belief in evolution and did so without clouding the basic argument with ‘too’ advanced scientific jargon. There could have possibly have been more of an argument put forward for the intelligent design theory but to be fair they may have just struggled to find scientists willing to argue that theory.

submitted by Chris Hanley

The Kids Know It Network: Biology Domain

The Kids Know It Network is an online-learning network, a lot like a virtual homework club. It is divided into sections. Biology is predominant, but there are maths, geography and geology networks too. Unfortunately, the physical sciences are sadly underrepresented.

As a biologist, I had a nose around the biology sections. The network is easy to navigate, and the information is clearly presented and uses the same adult but child-like language your favourite primary school teacher used to use.

Each section starts off very basic, but on the whole progresses to fairly detailed explanations. The wordsearch in the games section includes words like ‘macronucleus’ and ‘chromatin’, giving an idea of the depth the website goes into and also an idea of the poor quality of the games!

Information includes a network on human biological systems such as the circulatory and endocrine system, a database of animals and a network on biology basics like the make up of the cell.

One can imagine children treating the ‘chapters’ like most undergraduates treat journal articles, using what they recognise and ignoring the rest. Because of this the website can be used by children of a variety of ages, from junior school through to years 7 or 8, but due to the lack of good games, only for work purposes.

Submitted by Charis Howard

Space Station Experience

The human need to explore the universe and gain an understanding about the larger world has prevailed for centuries. The development of the International Space Station (ISS) which started its construction in 1998 has been one of the greatest engineering achievements, since a man first stepped on the Moon in 1969.

Spacestation is a 3-D movie running on IMAX cinemas all over the world giving the opportunity for millions of people to experience what it is like to work at a facility in space 220 miles above the Earth.

I had my 3-D experience of the Space Station at the IMAX theatre located at the Science Museum and it took me spacewalking under zero gravity alongside all the other astronauts. The movie is a story about how much effort is put in by engineers and astronauts in achieving the dream of a complete research laboratory in space.

The film also contains a scene where a dialogue activity had been organised between the astronauts of the space station and a group of school children through satellite communications. This type of activity helps encourage a younger audience to ask questions from human pioneers who have ventured into the space and learn from their experiences.

The large size of the screen combined with the sounds and the 3-D imagery takes anyone watching it right to the Space Station and also the movie is free for Imperial College students at the Science Museum-IMAX!

Submitted by Malith Wijesinghe

The Planet Earth Problem

There has been widespread media praise for the “scientific program Planet Earth”, so what’s wrong with the BBC spending license payers’ money funding the making of a science program, which utilizes cutting-edge technology to film the worlds wildlife?

The problem I feel is that the BBC have missed an opportunity to link cutting-edge film with thought-provoking science.

Due to time constraints of 50 minutes upon each habitat there’s nowhere near enough time to show the diverse range of adaptations to an environment, and what’s actually shown is a brief look at a few more recognizable creatures, with some rarities thrown in for the “wow-effect”. The BBC should be making scientific programs that encourage thought. Their own founding policy is that programs should “inform, educate and entertain”. And whilst I have no argument that Planet Earth doesn’t entertain, to say it informs and educates is debatable. I understand that there’s a balance between the amount of science and the accessibility to people, yet on modern television, with many animal programmes, people are more aware of the diversity of species, so programmes should be able to present more in-depth information, rather than acting as highlights shows of the Earths biodiversity. The BBC however compromises this and confines the science to 3 one hour slots upon BBC Four and radio4, which have significantly smaller audiences. A great chance to link environmental issues to natural beauty has been missed due to the BBC not wanting to risk audience numbers.

Submitted by Andrew Talyor

IMAX – ‘Deep Sea’

The IMAX at the science museum shows 3D films on a variety of science topics such as the moon landings, International Space Station and Wildlife.

‘Deep Sea’ is a documentary program about sea creatures, their environment and the interactions between them. The film focuses on the theme of symbiosis between fish and coral in the oceans whilst including interesting details about a diverse range of creatures, open sea and coral cleaning stations and the coral reefs themselves.

Overall I think that ‘Deep Sea’ focuses too much on the theme of symbiosis and is intellectually aimed at a young audience. I did not feel that it was necessary for every interesting point to be linked to this one idea and thought the film was long enough to have more than one main theme. However the film was very enjoyable. The 3D imagery was excellent making you feel you really were underwater in one of the world’s most beautiful environments, and the music was excellently integrated to create the peaceful atmosphere of the deep sea. I think that 3D cinema is an excellent media for this kind of film, allowing people to get really close to creatures and an environment that they would otherwise never experience.

‘Deep Sea’ includes a topical message: over fishing of the oceans is destroying the balance between ecosystems and causing the coral to die. I felt this was an excellent fact to include and was very effective within the media of the film. ‘Deep Sea’ also captures the wonder of science with facts such as how “all the coral in the ocean spawn precisely one hour after sunset eight days after the full moon in August.” This for me creates a fascination with science which I think is perhaps the best aspect of the film.

Submitted by Ceris Austyn-prys

The New ‘Scientist’

Who is the intended readership of the New Scientist magazine? Most of you have presumably at least flicked through a copy of the New Scientist; what did you think of it?

I personally think it has an identity crisis. On the one hand the public think of it as an up to date technical magazine where as those in research see it is dumbed down ‘popular’ science. It fits the later by trying to engage the public by being interactive like many other general science providers. Therefore it provides a website which includes podcasts, blogs and such like.

The problem in engaging the public seems to be that the content is too specific for those who not have none or little scientific background and hence understanding more than just the title becomes difficult. From my experiences the majority of the articles I can only get the gist of because there is a lot of presumed knowledge by the writer. Also a lot of stories covered do not necessarily have practical implications yet and therefore may not be of interest to the general public.

To gauge scientists points of view Alice recommended to me this discussion list (see point 12) which discusses the New Scientist usefulness to the scientific community. There are a range of views with some very interesting points. The majority seem to think that New Scientist is not an accurate report on research in their field and therefore are not trusting of the rest of the text.

To summarise I think the New Scientist is perfect for those scientists who wish to keep tabs on what is going on outside their field as the text is not up to date as a journal but also not so detailed. Though the last page of the New Scientist would certainly suggest that it does have a readership which extends outside the scientific community since ‘The Last Word’ has even been published in book form.

submitted by Sarah Clayton