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

Class 15 info

Next week - Monday 5th February - we will be thinking about museums as a medium for science communication. To help us do this our (double) class will be based in the Science Museum.

Please don't forget that we are meeting at 12 just inside the main entrance to the Science Museum, rather than our normal classroom.

Class 14: Documentaries

This week's class was given by a guest lecturer - Bob Sternberg from the Science Communication Group. We were given a whirlwind tour of TV documentary over the last century, from the 1920s Nanook of the North, through the different forms that emerged in the '60s with the introduction of new technology, to the mixes of different approaches often found in science documentary today.

We heard about four basic types of documentary: expository (where an argument is followed through), observational ('fly on the wall'), interactive (or interventionist, making use of interviews), and finally a reflexive form that acknowledges the constructed nature of the reality a documentary presents.

Bob left us thinking about how all documentary actually creates the 'reality' that we are presented with. This is a key idea that we'll be considering over the next few weeks as we look at other media for science communication. The close analytical work we started doing today - asking how a particular effect is created, who has done it, and why - will be repeated on other media such as museums, websites, and science books.

Bob's handout, and one from us giving some extra advice on assignment four, are both available on WebCT.

Sciencehorizons

A new government funded "PEST" programme, Sciencehorizons, was launched yesterday. A series of events will run nationally over the next 6 months, aiming to get people discussing their hopes and fears for future technologies. The discussions will be fed back to the government and could help shape future science policy.

Sciencehorizons aren't just running events at places like Dana, but have provided interactive packs to download, so you can run their own dialogue events. The BBC news story's spin on them is "science by cartoons". To spark discussion, the packs use cartoon characters of "everyday folk" living in the future.

(click on the image to see a bigger version if you want to read the text)

Personally, I think the resources look more like something aimed at people in their early teens than adults. Which I'm sure isn't the (patronising?) tone they'd want to go for. But that's just my view, maybe it is a great way of engaging people with science policy. I'll keep an open mind, at least till the results come out.

Class 13: presentations

Seeing as the students provided the content today, there isn't much for me to report.

But thanks to everbody for their great presentations - I don't think I've seen a year with such a great collection of props! Special thanks to those who agreed to attend outside of time-tabled hours so we could fit you all in. Thanks also to Giskin for helping us mark.

ucl seminars

UCL's Science and Technology Studies seminars this term. The one on the 26th Feb might be relevant to this course.

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

opportunities for budding writers

If anyone is even slightly interested in science writing should enter this competition.

Also, Nature have an opening for a summer intern. It'll be very competitive, but if anyone's interested, then email me and I'll forward you the details.

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

please note...

...there is a change to the published class schedule this term. Monday 5th February will now be the session on museums and science centres (involving a trip to the Science Museum; more details to come), and Monday 12th will be the class on popular science. Both are double sessions.

Class 12: Speaking on science

Today was an informal class designed to help you prepare for the assignments next week. We discussed some of the places in which science is spoken about - coming up with a surprising range, from pubs to the radio. Next came some personal top tips for speaking: the power of pauses and preparation, being a lighthouse, signposting, and using comedy, amongst others. Much of what was said is repeated on the class handout, now on WebCT.

You then got a chance to try out speaking at the front of class and to get some feedback. Overall themes were probably a need for volume, being careful about body language, and avoiding 'um's and 'er's as much as possible.

Next week you are expected to come to at least one hour (out of four) in order to give your talk, give feedback to someone else, and to support your colleagues. Check your inboxes for your time slot!

science and the public conference

There aren't many places that talk about science communication in an academic way. So if you're interested in the theory as well as the practice, you might want to know about the conference we run here at Imperial. I'm posting our call for papers below - I doubt any of you would want to submit, but it might be worth sticking the date in your diary. We use MSc students as runners on the day - maybe you'd like to volunteer as well?

Call For Papers - Science & the Public Conference, Imperial College London, 19th May 2007

Science studies research tends to focus on "the lab", being chiefly concerned with the internal workings of the scientific community. This conference aims to bring together the strands of academia that consider science as it intersects with non-scientific cultures.

The conference title's dichotomy between "science" and "the public" consciously references the approach often taken by the scientific community. We are aware of the variety of problems of referring to the "the public"; research problematising the term may form part of the conference programme.

Other topics covered may include:
* Science and the arts (including science fiction)
* Innovation studies and science policy research
* Popular science
* NGOs, science and development
* The continuing application of the "deficit model"
* Public programmes aiming at "Engagement with Science"
* Boundary work
* Specific media: films, the internet, museums, radio and others
* Science and education: young vs. old, formal vs. informal

There is no especially contemporary focus and historical work on any of these areas would be most welcome. Neither do we limit submission to those within the science studies community, or only from the UK.

We would particularly like to encourage those who take a critical approach to the topics described above to submit abstracts. Moreover we should stress this is an academic - rather than practitioner-focussed - conference. The conference will focus on, but not be limited to, early-career researchers.

Abstracts (no longer than 300 words) for a 20-minute presentation should be emailed to scienceandpublic@googlemail.com by 1st March 2007. Enquires also to this address.

class 11: rhetoric

Although today's lecture was officially entitled "rhetoric" we spent a lot of it talking about coursework. You can now download the assignment 3 details on WebCT. Also please note that Humanities is now level three of Sherfield, not Mech Eng or level 5.

My focus on coursework was party because there are other humanities courses where you learn about rhetoric, such as the Saying True Things UG module, or the MSc in Science Communication. What I emphasised today was that much of science communication (including technical scientific communication) is about persuasion, or at least we can read it as such.

I also talked about Fahrenstock's focus on the way the audience of a piece effects the content, as well as suggesting the idea that the medium itself might "make" the message. The wikipedia entry on rhetoric might give you some further overview of the academic field, and there is a short bibliograpahy in the reading list, to which I'd like to add this:

• Prelli, L (2001) Topical Perspective and the Rhetorical Grounds for Practical Reason in Arguments About Science, in Stocklmayer, S et al (eds) Science Communication in Theory and Practice (London, Kluwer) pp 63-82.

Despite my link to wikipedia above, I did also emphasise that we expect you to read more than what is on the web for your assignments. Although wikipedia and similar resources might be useful to get a first-glance hold of a topic (in fact, it's pretty good on science studies), it would not normally be appropriate to cite it in an essay. Wikipedia is, as members of the class mentioned, "policed". But this not the same as peer review.

Like lecture notes, dictionary definitions and most encylopedia entries, use it to get an idea of a topic but don't cite it in coursework. If you have any questions about using a particular source or want advice on further reading just ask. Normally the best place to start is the bibliogrpahy of the textbook and our reading list (including bibliographies in the books we suggest).

tomorrow's world

Tomorrow's World to return

Jan 1st, not April 1st

Only days into 2007 and already I have a contestant for weirdest piece of science communication of the year.

PUS campaigning group Sense about Science have published a "science for celebrities" leaflet. This will be placed in "VIP hangouts" such as VIP lounges at airports, Premiership football clubs, exclusive restaurants and clubs, aiming to catch the attention of those foolish celebs who ignorantly expose the dangers of MMR or the wonders of eating sprouting beans. BBC story here, The Guardian here.

I assume they are taking the mickey as a PR stunt, but (a) it's hard to tell with Sense About Science and (b) I'm still not entirely sure of what they are trying to achieve.