Tag Archives: scientists

Scientists, outreach and Twitter research plus some tips from a tweeting scientist

I have two bits today and both concern science and Twitter.

Twitter science research

A doodle by Isabelle Côté to illustrate her recent study on the effectiveness of scientists using Twitter to share their research with the public. Credit: Isabelle Côté

I was quite curious about this research on scientists and their Twitter audiences coming from Simon Fraser University (SFU; Vancouver, Canada). From a July 11, 2018 SFU news release (also on EurekAlert),

Isabelle Côté is an SFU professor of marine ecology and conservation and an active science communicator whose prime social media platform is Twitter.

Côté, who has cultivated more than 5,800 followers since she began tweeting in 2012, recently became curious about who her followers are.

“I wanted to know if my followers are mainly scientists or non-scientists – in other words was I preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops?” she says.

Côté and collaborator Emily Darling set out to find the answer by analyzing the active Twitter accounts of more than 100 ecology and evolutionary biology faculty members at 85 institutions across 11 countries.

Their methodology included categorizing followers as either “inreach” if they were academics, scientists and conservation agencies and donors; or “outreach” if they were science educators, journalists, the general public, politicians and government agencies.

Côté found that scientists with fewer than 1,000 followers primarily reach other scientists. However, scientists with more than 1,000 followers have more types of followers, including those in the “outreach” category.

Twitter and other forms of social media provide scientists with a potential way to share their research with the general public and, importantly, decision- and policy-makers. Côté says public pressure can be a pathway to drive change at a higher level. However, she notes that while social media is an asset, it is “not likely an effective replacement for the more direct science-to-policy outreach that many scientists are now engaging in, such as testifying in front of special governmental committees, directly contacting decision-makers, etc.”

Further, even with greater diversity and reach of followers, the authors concede there are still no guarantees that Twitter messages will be read or understood. Côté cites evidence that people selectively read what fits with their perception of the world, that changing followers’ minds about deeply held beliefs is challenging.

“While Twitter is emerging as a medium of choice for scientists, studies have shown that less than 40 per cent of academic scientists use the platform,” says Côté.

“There’s clearly a lot of room for scientists to build a social media presence and increase their scientific outreach. Our results provide scientists with clear evidence that social media can be used as a first step to disseminate scientific messages well beyond the ivory tower.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper (my thoughts on the matter are after),

Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops? by Isabelle M. Côté and Emily S. Darling. Facets DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2018-0002 Published Online 28 June 2018

This paper is in an open access journal.

Thoughts on the research

Neither of the researchers, Côté and Darling, appears to have any social science training; so where I’d ordinarily laud the researchers for their good work, I have to include extra kudos for taking on a type of research outside their usual domain of expertise.

If this sort of thing interests you and you have the time, I definitely recommend reading the paper (from the paper‘s introduction), Note: Links have been removed)

Communication has always been an integral part of the scientific endeavour. In Victorian times, for example, prominent scientists such as Thomas H. Huxley and Louis Agassiz delivered public lectures that were printed, often verbatim, in newspapers and magazines (Weigold 2001), and Charles Darwin wrote his seminal book “On the origin of species” for a popular, non-specialist audience (Desmond and Moore 1991). In modern times, the pace of science communication has become immensely faster, information is conveyed in smaller units, and the modes of delivery are far more numerous. These three trends have culminated in the use of social media by scientists to share their research in accessible and relevant ways to potential audiences beyond their peers. The emphasis on accessibility and relevance aligns with calls for scientists to abandon jargon and to frame and share their science, especially in a “post-truth” world that can emphasize emotion over factual information (Nisbet and Mooney 2007; Bubela et al. 2009; Wilcox 2012; Lubchenco 2017).

The microblogging platform Twitter is emerging as a medium of choice for scientists (Collins et al. 2016), although it is still used by a minority (<40%) of academic faculty (Bart 2009; Noorden 2014). Twitter allows users to post short messages (originally up to 140 characters, increased to 280 characters since November 2017) that can be read by any other user. Users can elect to follow other users whose posts they are interested in, in which case they automatically see their followees’ tweets; conversely, users can be followed by other users, in which case their tweets can be seen by their followers. No permission is needed to follow a user, and reciprocation of following is not mandatory. Tweets can be categorized (with hashtags), repeated (retweeted), and shared via other social media platforms, which can exponentially amplify their spread and can offer links to websites, blogs, or scientific papers (Shiffman 2012).

There are scientific advantages to using digital communication technologies such as Twitter. Scientific users describe it as a means to stay abreast of new scientific literature, grant opportunities, and science policy, to promote their own published papers and exchange ideas, and to participate in conferences they cannot attend in person as “virtual delegates” (Bonetta 2009; Bik and Goldstein 2013; Parsons et al. 2014; Bombaci et al. 2016). Twitter can play a role in most parts of the life cycle of a scientific publication, from making connections with potential collaborators, to collecting data or finding data sources, to dissemination of the finished product (Darling et al. 2013; Choo et al. 2015). There are also some quantifiable benefits for scientists using social media. For example, papers that are tweeted about more often also accumulate more citations (Eysenbach 2011; Thelwall et al. 2013; Peoples et al. 2016), and the volume of tweets in the first week following publication correlates with the likelihood of a paper becoming highly cited (Eysenbach 2011), although such relationships are not always present (e.g., Haustein et al. 2014).

In addition to any academic benefits, scientists might adopt social media, and Twitter in particular, because of the potential to increase the reach of scientific messages and direct engagement with non-scientific audiences (Choo et al. 2015). This potential comes from the fact that Twitter leverages the power of weak ties, defined as low-investment social interactions that are not based on personal relationships (Granovetter 1973). On Twitter, follower–followee relationships are weak: users generally do not personally know the people they follow or the people who follow them, as their interactions are based mainly on message content. Nevertheless, by retweeting and sharing messages, weak ties can act as bridges across social, geographic, or cultural groups and contribute to a wide and rapid spread of information (Zhao et al. 2010; Ugander et al. 2012). The extent to which the messages of tweeting scientists benefit from the power of weak ties is unknown. Does Twitter provide a platform that allows scientists to simply promote their findings to other scientists within the ivory tower (i.e., “inreach”), or are tweeting scientists truly exploiting social media to potentially reach new audiences (“outreach”) (Bik et al. 2015; McClain and Neeley 2015; Fig. 1)?

Fig. 1. Conceptual depiction of inreach and outreach for Twitter communication by academic faculty. Left: If Twitter functions as an inreach tool, tweeting scientists might primarily reach only other scientists and perhaps, over time (arrow), some applied conservation and management science organizations. Right: If Twitter functions as an outreach tool, tweeting scientists might first reach other scientists, but over time (arrow) they will eventually attract members of the media, members of the public who are not scientists, and decision-makers (not necessarily in that order) as followers.

I’m glad to see this work but it’s use of language is not as precise in some places as it could be. They use the term ‘scientists’ throughout but their sample is made up of scientists identified as ecology and/or evolutionary biology (EEMB) researchers, as they briefly note in their Abstract and in the Methods section. With the constant use of the generic term, scientist, throughout most of the paper and taken in tandem with its use in the title, it’s easy to forget that this was a sample of a very specific population..

That the researchers’ sample of EEMB scientists is made up of those working at universities (academic scientists) is clear and it presents an interesting problem. How much does it matter that these are academic scientists? Both in regard to the research itself and with regard to perceptions about scientists. A sentence stating the question is beyond the scope of their research might have been a good idea.

Impressively, Darling and Côté have reached past the English language community to include other language groups, “We considered as many non-English Twitter profiles as possible by including common translations of languages we were familiar with (i.e., French and Spanish: biologista, professeur, profesora, etc.) in our search strings; …”

I cannot emphasize how rare it is to see this attempt to reach out beyond the English language community. Yes!

Getting back to my concern about language,  I would have used ‘suspect’ rather than ‘assume’ in this sentence from the paper’s Discussion, “We assume [emphasis mine] that the patterns we have uncovered for a sample of ecologists and evolutionary biologists in faculty positions can apply broadly across other academic disciplines.” I agree it’s quite likely but it’s an hypothesis/supposition and  needs to be tested. For example, will this hold true if you examine social scientists (such as economists, linguists, political scientists, psychologists, …) or physicists or mathematicians or …?

Is this evidence of unconscious bias regarding wheat the researchers term as ‘non-scientists’?  From the paper’s Discussion (Note: Links have been removed),

Of course, high numbers, diversity, and reach of followers offer no guarantee that messages will be read or understood. There is evidence that people selectively read what fits with their perception of the world (e.g., Sears and Freedman 1967; McPherson et al. 2001; Sunstein 2001; Himelboim et al. 2013). Thus, non-scientists [emphases mine] who follow scientists on Twitter might already be positively inclined to consume scientific information. If this is true, then one could argue that Twitter therefore remains an echo chamber, but it is a much larger one than the usual readership of scientific publications. Moreover, it is difficult to gauge the level of understanding of scientific tweets. The brevity and fragmented nature of science tweets can lead to shallow processing and comprehension of the message (Jiang et al. 2016). One metric of the influence of tweets is the extent to which they are shared (i.e., retweeted). Twitter users retweet posts when they find them interesting (hence the posts were at least read, if not understood) and when they deem the source credible (Metaxas et al. 2015). To our knowledge, there are no data on how often tweets by scientists are reposted by different types of followers. Such information would provide further evidence for an outreach function of Twitter in science communication.

Yes, it’s true that high numbers, etc. do not guarantee your messages will be read or understood and that people do selectively choose what fits their perception of the world. However, that applies equally to scientists and non-scientists despite what the authors appear to be claiming. Also, their use of the term non-scientist is not clear to me. Is this a synonym for ‘general public’ or is it being applied to anyone who may not have an educational background in science but is designated in another category such as policy makers, science communicators, etc. in the research paper?

In any event, ‘policy makers’ absorb a great deal of the researchers’ attention, from the paper’s Discussion (Note: Links have been removed),

Under most theories of change that describe how science ultimately affects evidence-based policies, decision-makers are a crucial group that should be engaged by scientists (Smith et al. 2013). Policy changes can be effected either through direct application of research to policy or, more often, via pressure from public awareness, which can drive or be driven by research (Baron 2010; Phillis et al. 2013). Either pathway requires active engagement by scientists with society (Lubchenco 2017). It is arguably easier than ever for scientists to have access to decision- and policy-makers, as officials at all levels of government are increasingly using social media to connect with the public (e.g., Grant et al. 2010; Kapp et al. 2015). However, we found that decision-makers accounted for only ∼0.3% (n = 191 out of 64 666) of the followers of academic scientists (see also Bombaci et al. 2016 in relation to the audiences of conference tweeting). Moreover, decision-makers begin to follow scientists in greater numbers only once the latter have reached a certain level of “popularity” (i.e., ∼2200 followers; Table 2). The general concern about whether scientific tweets are actually read by followers applies even more strongly to decision-makers, as they are known to use Twitter largely as a broadcasting tool rather than for dialogue (Grant et al. 2010). Thus, social media is not likely an effective replacement for more direct science-to-policy outreach that many scientists are now engaging in, such as testifying in front of special governmental committees, directly contacting decision-makers, etc. However, by actively engaging a large Twitter following of non-scientists, scientists increase the odds of being followed by a decision-maker who might see their messages, as well as the odds of being identified as a potential expert for further contributions.

It may due to the types of materials I tend to stumble across but science outreach has usually been presented as largely an educational effort with the long term goal of assuring the public will continue to support science funding. This passage in the research paper suggests more immediate political and career interests.

Should scientists be on Twitter?

This paper might discourage someone whose primary goal is to reach policy makers via this social media platform but the researchers seem to feel there is value in reaching out to a larger audience. While I’m not comfortable with how the researchers have generalized their results to the entire population of scientists, those results are intriguing..

This next bit features a scientist who as it turns out could be described as an EEMB (evolutionary biology and/or ecology) researcher.

How to tweet science

Stephen Heard wrote a July 31, 2018 posting on his Scientist Sees Squirrel blog about his Twitter feed,

At the 2018 conference of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, I was part of a lunchtime workshop, “The How and Why of Tweeting Science” – along with 5 friends.  Here I’ll share my slides and commentary.  I hope the other presenters will do the same, and I’ll link to them here as they become available.

 

I’ve been active on Twitter for about 4 years, but I’m very far from an expert, so my contribution to #CSEETweetShop was more to raise questions than to answer them.  What does it mean to “tweet to the science community”?  Here I’ll share some thoughts about Twitter audience, content, and voice.  These are, of course, my own (roughly formed) opinions, not some kind of wisdom on stone tablets, so take them with the requisite grain of salt!

Audience

 

Just as we do with blogging, we can draw a distinction between two audiences we might intend to reach via Twitter.  We might use Twitter for outreach, to talk to the general public – we could call this “science-communication tweeting”.  Or we could use Twitter for “inreach”, to talk to other scientists – which is what I’d call “science-community tweeting”.  But: for a couple of reasons, this distinction is not as clear as you might thing.  Or at least, your intent to reach one audience or the other may not match the outcome.

There are some data on the topic of scientists’ Twitter audiences.  The data in the slide above come from a recent paper by Isabelle Coté and Emily Darling.  They’re for a sample of 110 faculty members in ecology and evolution, for whom audiences are broken down by their relationship (if any) to science.  The key result: most ecology and evolution faculty on Twitter have audiences dominated by other scientists (light blue), with the general public (dark blue) a significant but more modest chunk. There’s variation, some of which may well relate to the tweeters’ intended audiences – but we can draw two fairly clear conclusions:

  • Nearly all of us tweet mostly to the science community; but
  • Almost none of us tweets only to the science community (or for that matter only to the general public).

The same paper analyzes follower composition as a function of audience size, and these data suggest that one’s audience is likely to change it builds.  Notice how the dark-blue “general public” line lags behind, then catches, the light-blue “other scientists” line*.  Earlier in your Twitter career, it’s likely that your audience will be even more strongly dominated by the science community – whether or not that’s what you intend.

In short: you probably can’t pick the audience you’re talking to; but you can pick the audience you’re talking for.  Given that, how might you use Twitter to talk for the science community?

I particularly like his constant questions about audience. He discusses other issues, such as content, but he always returns to the audience. Having worked in communication(s) and marketing, I have to applaud his focus on the audience. I can’t tell you how many times, we’d answer the question as to whom our audience was and we’d never revisit it. (mea culpa) Heard’s insistence on constantly checking in and questioning your assumptions is excellent.

Seeing  Coté’s and Darling’s paper cited in his presentation, gives some idea of how closely he follows the thinking about science outreach in his field.

Both Coté’s and Darling’s academic paper and Heard’s posting make for accessible reading while offering valuable information.

Know any Canadian scientists (Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs) who’d like to meet with Members of Parliament and Senators?

The folks at the Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) have just announced a pilot project heavily influenced by a successful Australian initiative matching scientists and lawmakers for a day. This is going to cost the participant money and the application deadline is August 31, 2018.

If you’re still interested, from a July 10, 2018 CSPC announcement (received via email),

The Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC), in partnership with the Chief Science Advisor of Canada [Mona Nember], is launching a new and exciting pilot program: Science Meets Parliament. This is a unique opportunity that invites scientists and engineers of various disciplines to spend one day on the Hill, shadow an MP or senator, explore their role in modern political decision making, and develop an understanding of the parliamentary process.

For more information about the program, eligibility and the application process, please visit the page on the CSPC website.

CSPC is looking for sponsors for this unique and exciting program. We invite all academic institutions to partner with CSPC to support this program. Please check out the sponsorship page.

I found this on the CSPC’s Science Meets Parliament webpage,

Background

This program is modeled on the acclaimed program run by Science and Technology Australia, now in its 19th year. You can find more information about the Science and Technology Australia’s Science Meets Parliament event by clicking here. We are grateful to our Australian colleagues for allowing us to adopt the name and model.

Objectives

Scientists and politicians desire a mechanism to build close and resilient connections. Strengthening evidence-informed decision-making requires systematic connectivity between the scientific and legislative communities. This program will help to create an open and ongoing channel between the two communities.

This program aims to facilitate a crucial dialogue between scientists and political leaders. Selected scientists from across the country will have the rare opportunity to spend a full day on Parliament Hill shadowing an MP or Senator, attending House committee meetings and Question Period, and sharing your passion for science with Parliamentarians.

The program includes exercises and teleconference workshops leading up to the event as well as an orientation and training session on the day before, hosted by the Institute on Governance in Ottawa’s Byward Market.

Benefits

For Parliamentarians and Senators:

  • Interact with researchers driving science and innovation in Canada
  • Build lasting connections with scientists from diverse regions and specialties
  • Discuss the intersection of science and decision-making on the Hill

For Scientists:

  • Meet with MPs, Senators, their staff, and the Federal political community.
  • Showcase their research and discuss the impact of research outcomes for Canadians
  • Learn about the organization, rationale, and motivations of decision-making in Parliamentary procedures.

Eligibility

For this pilot year, the program is open to researchers who currently hold a Tier II Canada Research Chair and are affiliated with a Canadian post-secondary institution. [emphases mine]

The researchers should come from diverse range of science and engineering disciplines  including all social, medical, and natural Sciences.We expect that 15-20 candidates will be selected. We hope to open the application process to researchers from all career stages in future years.

CSPC will oversee the application process and will base final selection of the Delegates on applicant diversity in terms of geography, language, gender, discipline, and visible minority.

Program

The one day event will include:

  • An informative orientation session that includes information about the business of Parliament and exercises that prepare Delegates to speak with politicians
  • Meetings with Members of Parliament and Senators, the Chief Science Advisor of Canada, and possibly the Minister of Science (subject to her availability)
  • Shadowing a Member of Parliament or Senator during the day
  • Networking reception with MPs, Senators, and staff that will include a closing speech by a guest of honour.

The program will be held on the hill on November 6th [2018]. [emphasis mine] The mandatory orientation session will be in the late afternoon of Monday Nov. 5th. Delegates are highly encouraged to stay in Ottawa for the 10th Canadian Science Policy Conference, CSPC 2018, held from Nov. 7-9. In this unique forum, delegates will have the opportunity to discuss the most pressing issues of science and innovation policy in Canada. For more information about the CSPC 2018, please visit the website: www.cspc2018.ca

The detailed event agenda will be made available in the upcoming weeks.

Mandatory requirements

  1. Registration fee: Accepted delegates will be required to pay $250.00 , which will include breakfast, lunch, the evening networking reception, and admission to the program. All delegates will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs. [emphases mine]
  2. Scientists who attend this session are required to either present a lecture at their host institution, and/or write an editorial for the CSPC’s editorial page about their experience, interactions with Parliamentarians, and insights they gained during this experience.

For more information on any of the above please contact info@sciencepolicy.ca

If you are a current Tier 2 Canada Research Chair affiliated with a Canadian institution and would like to apply for this program please click here.

Deadline to apply: Friday, August 31, 2018 at 11:59 PM (PST).

For the curious, here’s a definition of a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (from the Canada Research Chair Wikipedia entry),

  • Tier 2 Chairs – tenable for five years and renewable once, are for exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field. Nominees for Tier 2 positions are assistant or associate professors (or they possess the necessary qualifications to be appointed at these levels by the nominating university). For each Tier 2 Chair, the university receives $100,000 annually for five years.

Good luck! And, CSPC folks, thank you for giving those of us on the West Coast a midnight deadline!

Beakerhead’s Big Bang (art/engineering) Residency in Alberta, Canada

I am sorry for the late notice as the deadline for submissions is Oct. 9, 2015 so there’s not much time to prepare. In any event, here’s more information about the Big Bang Residency Program call for proposals,

Every September, Beakerhead erupts onto the streets and venues of Calgary with cultural works that have science or engineering at their core. This is a call for proposals to build a creative work through an initiative called the Big Bang Residency Program. The work will be built over the course of a year with a collaborative team and will premiere on September 14, 2016, at Beakerhead in Calgary, Canada.

About the Big Bang Residency Program

The Big Bang Residency Program is funded by the Remarkable Experience Accelerator; a joint initiative of Calgary Arts Development and the Calgary Hotel Association. The program is led by Beakerhead with partnership support from the internationally renowned Banff Centre.

The program will support the creation of a total of three major new artworks over three years that will premiere internationally in Calgary during Beakerhead each year. This residency program will support:

  • One team per year each consisting of no less than four and no more than five individuals (additional support members are possible; however, the maximum size of the core team in residence will be five).
  • Two weeks in residence total; one week in the late fall and one week the following summer, with exact dates to be arranged with The Banff Centre and the selected team in residence. The production of the work is expected to take place in-between these two residency periods in Calgary.
  • Call for Proposals

    Beakerhead and The Banff Centre will support the design and build of a work to be shared with the world during Beakerhead, September 14 to 18, 2016. It will be created over the course of the year, which will include two weeks in residence at The Banff Centre with an interdisciplinary team of collaborators.

    Who is Eligible?

    This Call for Proposals is open to international artists, engineers, architects, designers, scientists and others. In addition to meeting the requirements for team composition below, the team must have a connection to Calgary so that the building of the work takes place in Calgary, the work is developed in Banff, the work premieres in Calgary and calls Calgary its home base. The proposal need not be submitted by a complete team: individuals may apply. The team can be assembled with support from The Banff Centre and Beakerhead to ensure that the collaboration of artists and engineers will result in a project that is created in Calgary/Banff over the course of the year.

    Team Composition 

    Each team must include:

    1. At least one individual who has received specialized art training (degree from a recognizing art institution) and has developed and exhibited a body of work;
    2. At least one individual who has received specialized engineering training (degree from an accredited engineering school), and previous experience in any artistic medium;
    3. Other members of the team should bring additional art and design skills, technical skills and project management skills. They may include emerging and professional roles.

    Staging and Exhibition

    The engineered artworks produced during the residency will be presented during Beakerhead in an unprecedented spectacle of performance and public engagement. The staging of the premiere may be developed in partnership with other venues, as dictated by the artworks. Many Beakerhead events take place in partnership with existing venues, such as theatres, galleries, public spaces, business revitalization zones, universities and libraries. The artistic disciplines may include installation, performance, visual art, music or any other media.

    The Details

    Design Criteria

    The successful proposal will meet the following criteria.

    • Location: The installation will be in a public location or available venue in Calgary, Alberta, from September 14 to 18 2016, and can be toured afterwards. Park-like settings and public roadways may be possible.
    • Dimension: There is no limit on dimension. However, proposals for works that can engage larger numbers of people at the scale of public art will be given preference.
    • Scope: Preference will be given to works that are both arresting to view and interesting to experience first-hand.
    • Install and De-install: Up to four days can be provided to install and de-install. The successful team must be capable of completing this work with volunteer crews.
    • Material: All materials must meet North American and European building and fire safety codes.

    Budget                                     

    A budget of CAD 24,000 is available for materials and supplies. The artist/collaborator fee is CAD 5,000 per team member up to CAD 25,000. Two weeks in residence will be provided for a five-person team, including accommodation and meals at The Banff Centre. Support for venue rental over the winter for build space will be provided, as well as heavy equipment costs.

    The budget may include:

    • All additional materials costs
    • Equipment services/rental for installation and de-installation
    • Contracted labour for specialized services
    • Documentation expenses
    • Stipend per team member (CAD 5,000 per member up to CAD 25,000)
    • Workshop and fabrication space rental in Calgary

    The budget may not include:

    • Travel costs
    • Salaries and wages

    If the budget proposed exceeds the amount of funding available, please detail your plans for acquiring additional funds to make up any projected shortfall.

    Additional

    Preference will be given to projects that consider:

    • Delightful and thought-provoking experiences at the crossroads of art and engineering
    • Use of public space
    • Assembly, strike and touring ability
    • Engagement of a large volume of viewers
    • Durability for multiple days of high volume public interaction

    Timeline

    Important 2015/16 Dates

    • Aug 6, 2015:  Call for proposals
    • Oct 9: Deadline for submissions
    • Nov 6: Announcement of the successful proposal
    • Dec 6: Presentation of the successful team at the annual Beakerhead partners meeting
    • Dec 7-12*: Residency Week 1 in Banff: Detailed production plan completed
    • Jan 20, 2016: Concept unveiled to public and build volunteers engaged
    • Feb-August: Build period in Calgary
    • Aug 22-27*: Residency Week 2 in Banff: Presentation planning and rehearsals
    • Sept 14 – 18: International premiere at Beakerhead!

    *dates may change

    Timeline Details

    The program will lift off with an announcement in August 2015, and the first major artworks premiered in September 2016. A second round will be announced in the summer of 2016, and a third in the summer of 2017.

    Interested applicants are encouraged to attend Beakerhead 2015 (September 16 – 20), or have an associate attend, to fully understand the presentation opportunities. The final team will be announced in the fall, and will commence the term with a one-week period “in residence” at the Banff Centre (a week to work full-time on the project) to develop the detailed design and production plan. The partnership with The Banff Centre will support the development of design drawings and a business strategy.

    The build will then take place over the winter and summer in Calgary. Beakerhead will support the successful team by making introductions to local resources and facilities.

    The team in residence will be strongly encouraged to engage an expanded team of volunteers in the building process to create a community of support around the spectacle element.

There are more details here including the information on how to make a submission.

International art/science script competition ceremony will be hosted by Trinity College Dublin’s nano centre and STAGE

CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices) at Trinity College Dublin has announced that it will be co-hosting the winner’s ceremony (and a reading of the winning script) for an international scriptwriting contest featuring science- and technology-inspired plays. From the Jan. 11, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

CRANN, the SFI [Science Foundation of Ireland] funded nanoscience centre based at Trinity College Dublin, today announced that it is bringing the STAGE International Script Competition to Ireland during Dublin City of Science 2012. The competition judges will include a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Nobel Laureate.

The STAGE International Script Competition is a unique collaboration between art and science that awards a prize of $10,000 for the best new play about science and technology. STAGE – Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration – began as an alliance between the Professional Artists Lab, a dynamic artistic laboratory, and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Through CRANN’s relationship with CNSI, Dublin has beaten off stiff international competition to bring STAGE to Ireland.

As the 2012 City of Science, Dublin will host a programme of science-related events and activities throughout the year. The city will host Europe’s largest science conference, the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2012 from July 11-15, 2012, at which the winner of the 5th STAGE International Script Competition will first be announced to the public.

Later in the year, STAGE and CRANN will collaboratively host the award ceremony, at which the winning playwright will receive their STAGE Award from a science Nobel Laureate. In tandem with the ceremony, there will be a staged reading of the winning play, performed by professional Irish actors. Nancy Kawalek, Founder/Director of STAGE, will direct the reading.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for interested parties to submit their plays for this cycle (the 5th); submissions were closed as of Dec. 1, 2011.

The competition certainly seems to have attracted some high profile interest in past years (from the news item on Nanowerk),

Each cycle, the winner of the STAGE International Script Competition is chosen by a stellar panel of judges. Judges for the last cycle were Pulitzer Prize and Tony-Award winning playwright David Auburn; Tony, Olivier, and Obie Award-winning playwright John Guare; Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger; Nobel Laureate and KBE Sir Anthony Leggett; and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. In addition to Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, who has shown his support for STAGE by signing on as a judge ‘in perpetuity’, the judges for this 5th cycle of the competition will include two science Nobel Laureates and two additional distinguished writer-artists from the theatre world. The names of these jurors will be announced in early 2012.

The 3rd cycle winner was a play about Rosalind Franklin; I’ve long been interested in her story and  I mentioned it in a July 28, 2010 post about science-inspired knitting (there’s a ‘Rosalind’ scarf),

For anyone not familiar with Franklin (from the San Diego Super Computer Center at the University of Southern California web page),

There is probably no other woman scientist with as much controversy surrounding her life and work as Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was responsible for much of the research and discovery work that led to the understanding of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. The story of DNA is a tale of competition and intrigue, told one way in James Watson’s book The Double Helix, and quite another in Anne Sayre’s study, Rosalind Franklin and DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for the double-helix model of DNA in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death at age 37 from ovarian cancer.

Here’s a bit more about the 3rd cycle STAGE winner, Photograph 51, from the news item on Nanowerk,

A film version of third STAGE Competition winner Photograph 51 is being produced by Academy Award-nominated director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Academy Award-winning actress Rachel Weisz, and Ari Handel. Playwright Anna Ziegler will adapt her play for the screen. Photograph 51 was featured at the 2011 World Science Festival in New York City; the play has also enjoyed prestigious productions in New York City and Washington, D.C.

 

About the Play: What does a woman have to do to succeed in the world of science? It is 1953 and Dr. Rosalind Franklin, brilliant, passionate and ambitious, pours herself into her work at King’s College Lab in London. When fellow scientists Watson and Crick find out about her discoveries in the field of DNA, her work is suddenly not her own – and shortly thereafter they claim credit for a major breakthrough. A compelling drama about a woman’s sacrifice for professional success, Photograph 51 asks how we become who we become, and whether we have any power to change.

I checked the playwright’s, Anna Ziegler, website for more information about the upcoming movie and found this,

Anna has been awarded [April 2011] a Tribeca Film Festival / Sloan Grant to adapt her play PHOTOGRAPH 51 into a film. Rachel Weisz, Ari Handel, Audrey Rosenberg and Darren Aronofsky are producers.

You can find out more about STAGE and other winners of the competition here.

Scientists learning to speak and engage

I’ve come across a couple of US projects designed to help scientists speak and engage with the public. The Scientist (online journal) highlighted an acting workshop for scientists led by Alan Alda (known for the MASH tv series, Woody Allen films, and as the host for Scientific American Frontiers tv series). From the article (you do have to register for free access) by Daniel Grushkin,

This is what happens when you cross doctoral work with improvisational acting: A line of fifteen PhD students face each other in an imaginary tug-of-war. “Make sure you’re all holding the same rope,” says Valeri Lantz-Gefroh, their drama coach and a theater professor at SUNY, Stony Brook. “You don’t want to hold a shoelace when the person in front of you is holding a python.”

The students are part of a daylong seminar on communicating science to non scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Prior to the imaginary tug-of-war exercise, they stood before each other and delivered short, off the cuff, introductions to their research meant for public consumption. Their talks were stilted and confused. Some swallowed their voices as they spoke. Others talked at the wall behind their audience.

Asked to describe their emotions during their presentations, one researcher complained, “It felt like I was almost insulting myself by dumbing it down.” Others nodded in agreement. The doctoral students were playing out Alda’s criticism of the science community. Alda believes scientists have been unable to make themselves understood by lay audiences. And as a result are failing to inform the public and policy.

A 2009 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center reflects Alda’s concern. Though the public ranks scientists third after military personnel and teachers in their contribution to society, only half of Americans believe in global warming and a mere 32 percent believe in evolution. Meanwhile, scientists complain that they’re not being heard. Half say that news media oversimplifies their findings, and 85 percent say the public doesn’t know enough about science. The numbers show a clear gap between the esteem that scientists hold in the public and the knowledge they’re able to transmit.

The other project highlighted by Matthew Nisbet at the Age of Engagement blog is a fellowship program for training in leadership and public engagement for scientists.  Pop Tech, an organization which focuses on social innovation and problem-solving ideas, is behind this effort. From the Sept. 15, 2010 posting,

PopTech is perhaps best known for its annual PopTech conference held every October in Camden, Maine. Called by Wired magazine a “must-attend for intellectual heavy weights…,” the conference features a line up of interactive talks by social innovators, scientists, researchers, and problem-solvers, with the goal of identifying new ideas and brokering collaborations.

PopTech … has announced its inaugural class of 20 Science Fellows. The fellows are early to mid-career leaders in fields such as energy, food supply, sustainability, water, public health, climate change, conservation ecology, green chemistry, computing, education, oceans, and national security.

The fellows were chosen based on their scientific credentials but also for their innate communication and leadership skills. As PopTech describes, the program is designed to provide the Science Fellows with long term communication and leadership training, mentorship, and access to thought leaders across sectors of society including those from the fields of media, business, social innovation, and education.

These projects provide an interesting contrast to the furor which greeted a paper that Chris Mooney wrote about scientists needing to pay more attention to the art of listening (my June 30, 2010 posting). I can certainly see how the acting class could lead to better listening skills (or paying better attention to your audience) but am not so sure about the Pop Tech fellowship project (a bunch of really interesting people getting together and getting excited means they tend to proselytize to the uninitiated for at least a short period afterwards).  Despite my reservations about the fellowship project I find these efforts encouraging.

Scientists as thieves

The movies tend to portray scientists as naïve fools/hapless pawns or villains. There is a little bit of truth in these portrayals, at least for the villains, as Sarah Rose’s new book about Robert Fortune, For All the Tea in China, makes clear.

Previewed in an article by Jenara Nerenberg on Fast Company, the book lays out the means by which the British government got its hands on the tea plant and secret to producing to tea. From the article,

Sarah Rose is the author of For All the Tea in China, which tells the true story of how tea and industrial espionage fueled the great expansion of the British Empire and the East India Company in the 1800s. The book focuses on one central character, Robert Fortune, who was a scientist sent by the British government to literally steal the secret of tea production from China, plant the Chinese tea in Darjeeling, and thus make the British Empire less reliant on trade with the Chinese and more self-sufficient by harvesting its own tea in colonial India.

Rose, in response to a question about contemporary as opposed to 19th century industrial espionage had this to say (from the article),

The vast majority the microchips for computers in America are manufactured in China–including those for the U.S. military. This creates a ridiculously high risk of espionage. Those circuits are just too small for us to know how really bad it might be, but from what I understand from the defense and trade communities, it’s a top worry. Meanwhile, the US’s relationship with China is thoroughly interdependent, as was Britain’s in the 19th Century. China owns a lot of our debt, so it loans us the money to buy the stuff China needs to export as it manufactures its way out of the poverty cycle. The two countries don’t necessarily like each other, but they need each other. When each player is so suspicious, it multiplies the competitive advantages of espionage and secrecy.

Most of the article is about tea and Robert Fortune who apparently dressed up as a Chinese Mandarin and fought off pirates in his pursuit of the plant. The focus for the book is on an adventure story and I haven’t seen any mention yet of the ramifications this theft might have had on China’s (nor for that matter India’s) economy and subsequent history.

The Wikipedia essay on Robert Fortune offers a far less colourful story,

Robert Fortune (16 September 1812 – 13 April 1880) was a Scottish botanist and traveller best known for introducing tea plants from China to India.

While the essay goes on to mention his exploits and makes it clear that he obtained the tea plants illegally, it stops short of accusing the British government and Fortune of theft and industrial espionage.

If you’re interested in Rose’s book, there’s a video trailer where she describes the story,

There’s more at Rose’s website.

This all reminds me of a course about technology transfer taught by Pat Howard (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada). We spent a fair amount of time talking about agriculture and seeds which surprised me mightily as I expected to be talking about computers and stuff.

Amongst other tasty tidbits, Pat mentioned that the Dutch burned out islands they didn’t own so they could destroy specific species of plants and retain control of the trade in spices that grew in their own territories.

Science and scientists in the movies and on tv

I find it easy to miss how much science there is in the movies and on television even though I’m looking for it. Here are a few recent examples of science in popular culture.

Inside Science of Iron Man 2, an article by Emilie Lorditch on physorg.com explains some of the background work needed to create a giant particle accelerator with a new way to power the reactor pumping Iron Man’s heart. From the article,

“I went to Marvel Studios to meet with one of the film’s producers (Jeremy Latcham) and even brought a graduate student along,” said Mark Wise, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who served as a technical consultant for the film. “There was a specific set of scenes that I was consulting on; the story had to get from this point to that point.”

Wise was surprised by Latcham’s and the film crew’s interest in the actual science, “I attempted to present the science in a way to the help the movie, but still get a little science in,” said Wise. “They wanted the scenes to look good, but they also wanted elements of truth in what they did, it was nice.”

The producers for the film found their scientist through The Science and Entertainment Exchange (which is a program of the US National Academy of Sciences). From Lorditch’s article,

“Scientists can offer more than just simple fact-checking of scripts,” said Jennifer Ouellette, director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange. “Get them involved early enough in the production process and their input can be invaluable in developing not just the fundamental scientific concepts underlying a scene, but also — since film and TV are a visual mediums — scientists can help filmmakers more fully realize their visions on screen.”

I have blogged before about Hollywood’s relationship with science here although my focus was largely on mathematics and the Canadian scene.

Dave Bruggeman at the Pasco Phronesis blog regularly highlights science items on television. Much of his focus is on late night tv and interviews with scientists. (The first time I saw one of his posts I was gobsmacked in the best way possible since I’d taken the science element of these talk show interviews for granted.) There’s another Pasco Phronesis posting today about the latest Colbert Report and a series Colbert calls, Science Cat Fight.

All of this is interesting fodder for thinking about how scientists (and by extension science) are perceived and Matthew C. Nisbet at the Framing Science blog has some interesting things to say about this in his posting ‘Reconsidering the Image of Scientists in Film & Television‘,

Contrary to conventional wisdom that entertainment media portray science and scientists in a negative light, research shows that across time, genre, and medium there is no single prevailing image and that both positive and negative images of scientists and science can be found. More recent research even suggests that in contemporary entertainment media, scientists are portrayed in an almost exclusively positive light and often as heroes.

Nisbet goes on to offer four ‘archetypes’ and ask for feedback, (Note: I have removed some of the text from these descriptions.)

Scientists as Dr. Frankenstein: …  Examples of this image include Gregory Peck as Dr. Mengele in Boys from Brazil, Marlon Brando as Dr. Moreau in The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Jeff Goldblum as the scientist in The Fly.Scientists as powerless pawns: … Examples include Robert Duvall as Dr. Griffin Weir in the 6th Day and several of the scientists in Jurassic Park who work for Richard Attenborough’s character John Hammond, CEO of InGen.

Scientists as eccentric and anti-social geeks: … Examples of this image include Christopher Loyd as Doc in Back to the Future, the nerdy boys in John Hughes 1985 film Weird Science who use science to create the perfect woman, and Val Kilmer and his fellow grad students in the 1985 film Real Genius who serve as graduate students to a professor who is determined to master a Star Wars-like satellite technology. [my addition: The characters in The Big Bang Theory.]

Scientists as Hero: …  Examples include Dr. Alan Grant as the main protagonist in Jurassic Park, Spock in the new version of Star Trek who takes on leading man and action hero qualities to rival Captain Kirk, Jody Foster’s character in Contact, Sigourney Weaver’s character in Avatar, Denis Quaid as the climate scientist hero in The Day After Tomorrow, Chiwetel Ejiofor as the geologist hero in 2012, Morgan Freeman in the Batman films as inventor Lucious Fox and CEO of Wayne Industries, and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in the Iron Man films.

Serendipitously, I’ve returned to where I started: Iron Man. As for all this science in the media, I think it’s a testament to its ubiquity in our lives.