Tag Archives: Rob Annan

Science communication in Canada (part 2)

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Today I’m going to discuss science journalism. There’s not a lot of science journalism as the Science Day report notes,

In communicating science issues, the media fall far short. Science-focused stories rarely make the news in Canada, and when they do, often fail to adequately explain either the science or its significance. It seems that Canadian news editors and producers assume that the public considers science uninteresting or complicated. The European media, in contrast, appreciating that science can hold readers’ and viewers’ attention, routinely cover science news. Scientists, for their part, too often do not engage the world beyond their labs and institutes. When they do venture out, they sometimes fail to succinctly convey the gist or broader relevance of their research to the public, industry and government.

Contrary to the media’s assumptions, a surprisingly large number of Canadians share a keen interest in science. When conveyed properly, science news can capture the public’s imagination. And scientists are perfectly capable of conveying science to a wide audience.

I also found out recently that science journalism is not science communication; that field was described to me (by a member of the School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia) as public relations and marketing. Interesting, non? I view science communication more broadly but I can understand why it’s viewed that way. First, communication departments are often charged with public relations, media relations, and/or marketing communication initiatives. (Note: I don’t know if it’s still true but 15 years ago people in communication departments viewed their roles as distinct from public relations and/or marketing communication. Personally, I always found the lines to be blurry.) Second, there is a longstanding snobbery about public relations, communication, etc. in the journalism community.

Getting back to science journalism, I think pretty anyone will agree that there’s not much coverage of the science scene in Canada. You’re not going find many science stories in your local papers or on the radio and tv unless you make a special effort. In terms of general science magazines that are not being issued by a government agency, only two spring to mind. SEED and Yes Mag for Children and unfortunately I’ve never seen either magazine on the news stands. As for broadcast programmes,  there’s SPARK and Quirks and Quarks on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio and Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel (a Canadian offshoot station of a US television channel). SPACE: the imagination station (another offshoot of a US television channel [Syfy] which focuses on science fiction and fantasy) does cover the odd science story but they insert the news bits between programming and I’ve never been able to discern a schedule. Please let me know if  I’ve missed anything.

I’d like to note is that the term science story also includes medical stories, health stories, and environment stories which members of the news media believe are of much interest to the general public (and even they don’t get great coverage). The consequence is that other sciences tend to get short shrift in the competition for news coverage when there are so few outlets.

I will have more next week on this. In the meantime, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) has a new event coming up on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009 at 12:30 pm EST in Washington, DC. The event is titled, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology, and Biofuels: What does the public think? If you’re in Washington, DC and want to attend, you can RSVP here or there will be both a live webcast and a posted webcast after the event, no RSVP required.

Finally, Rob Annan (Don’t leave Canada behind) is digging deeper into the issue of entrepreneurship in Canada and how we can nurture it here. He also provides some resources that you may want to check out or you may want to let him know of your network.

Science Day aftermath and a Field of Dreams

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I had no idea that the organizers of the Science Day event (May 27, 2009 in Toronto, Canada) were going to generate a report.  Thanks to Rob Annan for digging it up (you can see his comments about the document here and you can find the document itself, here). Two items that got my attention were:

  1. Attracting and nurturing talented researchers and entrepreneurs
  2. Communicating science is essential

As Rob notes. the report is a little fuzzy about operationalizing these  fine ideas (and others mentioned in the report).  Notice this from the report,

Our education system must train people – scientists included – to be entrepreneurs, not employees, imbuing an ethos of creativity and risk-taking amongst all citizens.

There is already some sort of granting programme (CREATE) whereby graduate students are supposed to be developing their entrepreneurial spirits. I mentioned it here and the problem from my perspective is this: how does a graduate student learn to be entrepreneurial from a senior researcher who’s a tenured professor in an academic environment? Where did the senior researcher get their experience?

As for an “… ethos of creativity and risk-taking …” we do have that, sort of. Generally speaking it gets knocked out of you by the time you’re 40 or, in too many cases, before graduating from grade school. The report does note the lack of substantive support for this grand new ethos but there is scant (no) attention paid to how it will be achieved. Perhaps they imagine a Field of Dreams situation whereby, if you think it, it will happen.

The second item that caught my attention, Communicating science is essential, is a concept I am in sympathy with when taken in its broadest sense. However, my experience, admittedly not vast, of talking to scientists about communication suggests that scientists tend to believe science communication is unidirectional (“I will tell you about my fabulous work and you will listen devotedly and then you will support it”). In fact, the examples used in the report illustrate my point,

Consider just two examples. Public lectures about theoretical physics, held monthly at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, draw standing-room only crowds. A recent ad campaign on Toronto public transit, featuring photos and factoids about the cosmos, generated so much interest that the Astronomy department at UofT [University of Toronto], which developed the campaign, plans to run a similar promotion in Montreal. In a society dominated by rapidly advancing technology, science stories – told well – naturally resonate with the public.

I like this model and, in some situations, it works very well. The problem is that it’s incomplete. Communication is multi-layered and multi-leveled and the science literacy model that’s being touted in this report is limited as it fails to take into account complexity.

I’m glad to see a science policy discussion brewing even if my comments are critical.

Videos about how nano will change the world; NISE Net Annual Meeting; catch up mode (innovation in Canada)

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The American Chemical Society held a 2nd NanoTube Video contest (mentioned in my July 22, 2009 posting) about how nanotechnology will change the world and has announced the winners. The top prize of $500 was awarded to Natalie Herring, et al (University of North Carolina) for NanoGirls about solar nanotechnology. You can see the top winning video and get more details on Nanowerk News here.

I don’t know how I missed it but NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) is having its 2009 annual meeting in San Francisco, Sept. 14 – 16, 2009. I caught the notice on Andrew Maynard’s website, 2020 Science, where he gives a preview of what he will be discussing at the meeting, ‘The low down on nanotechnology safety, 10 helpful resources‘.

I also checked out his entry on Helter skelter nanotechnology which is a comment on a news release (from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies where Andrew works) which appears to have been translated and retranslated with some interesting results as the original makes its way back to English. It reminded me of my favourite (to date) CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) online news item.  It’s a 2008 announcement for a new nanotechnology-type centre in Alberta and the writer decided to provide an explanation of nanotechnolgy. From the news item,

Nanotechnology, which is Latin for “dwarf technology,” [emphasis mine] has medical and industrial applications. It is the science of building machines on an atomic and molecular scale, or the making or manipulating of tiny particles such as atoms and molecules on the scale of a nanometre, which is one-billionth of a metre.

Yes, nano is from classical/ancient Greek (I blush to admit I missed that in my delight with ‘dwarf technology’). If you want to see the phrase in its native habitat, go here. It’s in one of the final paragraphs.

As for innovation in Canada, I’ve been catching up on Rob Annan’s Don’t leave Canada behind postings. His latest, Why funding for basic research is essential, provides some interesting statistics (which he sources) on Canadian academic research. In short, we do well by our academic research; it’s the industry research which is a problem (Canadian business does not do much of its own research and, these days, is doing less, see the statistics Rob presents) so tying academic research to industry does not solve the problem.

Replacing Asimov’s Laws of Responsible Robotics?; more thoughts on innovation in Canada

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David Woods, professor of integrated systems engineering at Ohio State University, and Robin Murphy of Texas A&M University propose three new robot laws in the current issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems in the media release on Science Daily. According to Woods,

“When you think about it, our cultural view of robots has always been anti-people, pro-robot,” … “The philosophy has been, ‘sure, people make mistakes, but robots will be better — a perfect version of ourselves.’ We wanted to write three new laws to get people thinking about the human-robot relationship in more realistic, grounded ways.”

This view contrasts somewhat with Mary King’s work on the differences between Japanese and Western perspectives on robots. She acknowledges the fascination and anti-people perspectives in the West but notes pervasive fears while contrasting them with Japanese perspectives on robots where they are viewed in a more purely beneficial way and as being related to nature. You can read her work here or you can check out my previous posts about Mary King’s work in my series on robots and human enhancement, July 22 and 23 2009 are particularly relevant.

Before looking at the new laws, here’s a refresher of Asimov’s three:

  • A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  • A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  • A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Woods points out that Asimov was a writer and his laws were developed as a literary device. Woods’ and Murpy’s proposed laws are these,

  • A human may not deploy a robot without the human-robot work system meeting the highest legal and professional standards of safety and ethics.
  • A robot must respond to humans as appropriate for their roles.
  • A robot must be endowed with sufficient situated autonomy to protect its own existence as long as such protection provides smooth transfer of control which does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

I see Rob Annan at Don’t leave Canada behind has written some more on innovation in Canada. He highlights a couple of articles in MacLean’s magazine, one focusing on John Manley, former Liberal deputy Prime Minister in Jean Chretien’s cabinet, and a two-part series on Canada’s big five universities. Manley who’s in the process of becoming president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives has some rather pithy (compared to the usual) things to say about innovation and Canadian business. What makes this interesting is the group he will be leading has 150 members, the chief executives of Canada’s biggest corporations, who claim $3.5 trillion in assets and $800 billion in revenues.

Meanwhile, the presidents of Canada’s big five universities point out that Canadian business does not develop and promote its own research and development labs relying instead on university research. Do read Rob’s blog for more discussion about this.

And since it’s Friday, I’m going to mention Raincoaster’s upcoming 3-day novel workshop on Bowen Island (Vancouver, Canada) which will be held on the Labour Day Weekend. I don’t have any details but will post them as soon as I get them. If you’re curious about Raincoaster, you can check out the regular blog here or the blog that has information about other courses here.

Alberta welcomes a new nanotechnology product and research centre plus some news on a kissing phone

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The new facility will be called the Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Development Centre (HEMiC) at Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. From the media release (on Azonano),

“Alberta’s strength in nanotechnologies, and the province’s coordinated strategy for nanotechnology made our decision to seek a partnership here easy,” said John Cole, President of Hitachi High-Technologies Canada, Inc. “This initiative engages Hitachi with Alberta’s nanotechnology community at the leading edge of research while contributing to commercial opportunities.”

…

The Centre will house three new electron microscopes valued at $7 million, including the first-ever Hitachi environmental transmission electron microscope Model H-9500 in operation outside of Japan.

There are many quotes in the media release, surprisingly, none from Dr. Nils Petersen, NINT’s  Director General.

Fast Company is featuring an article by Kit Eaton about phones that won’t require buttons for control (more touch screen-type technology but introducing a new level of innovation). As it turns out, these phones will be coming from Nokia. Kissing the phone as a gesture that you want to contact a loved is just one of the ideas being explored. More here including a Nokia video about the project. The product designers are looking at how people gesture and, depending on your culture, the meaning behind gestures can vary greatly as the Nokia designer notes in the video. Anyway, this type of project relates to my interest in multimodal discourse and my suspicion that we won’t be writing (or for the matter reading) as much as we do now.

Rob Annan over at Don’t leave Canada behind has picked up on my series of last week’s about innovation in Canada, in his posting Canada not simply hewers and drawers.

Happy Canada Day!

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This will be a short one. My recent paper, ‘Nanotechnology, storytelling, sensing, and materiality‘, gave me a chance to explore the impact that various sensing technologies used for the nanoscale might have on storytelling. In one of those happy coincidences that can occur, I came across a new sensing technique (although strictly speaking it’s not applied at the nanoscale) that incorporates light and sound on Nanowerk News here. The new technique has allowed researchers to create three-dimensional whole body visualizations of zebra fish. From Nanowerk News,

The real power of the technique, however, lies in specially developed mathematical formulas used to analyze the resulting acoustic patterns. An attached computer uses these formulas to evaluate and interpret the specific distortions caused by scales, muscles, bones and internal organs to generate a three-dimensional image. The result of this “multi-spectral opto-acoustic tomography”, or MSOT, is an image with a striking spatial resolution better than 40 micrometers (four hundredths of a millimeter). And best of all, the sedated fish wakes up and recovers without harm following the procedure.

This new technique, MSOT, has applications for medical research.

In tangentially related news, Rob Annan’s posting on the ‘Don’t leave Canada behind‘ blog (June 30, 2009) features a few comments about a recent article in the New York Times that suggests current funding structures inhibit innovative cancer research. The report was written about US funding but Annan offers some thoughts on the matter and points the way to more Canadian commentary as well as the New York Times article.

That’s it. Happy Canada Day.

Ununbium and ‘The Elements’ and an update of science policy doings in Canada and UK

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A new element, ununbium, is being added to the periodic table. There’s more about it here on Nanowerk News. Seeing the media release this morning reminded me of Tom Lehrer’s song, ‘The Elements‘ so I searched and found an animated version of the song here. Just scroll down and pick your connection type (dial-up or broadband).

On the science policy front, there was an announcement that a UK parliamentary  Science and Technology Committee has been approved/reinstated last week on the BBC News (online)

The committee will be made up of the same members as the existing Innovation, Universities, Skills, and Science Committee (IUSS).

Some MPs recently raised concerns that government science policy would be marginalised in the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

I commented on the new department and reporting structure on my blog here earlier this month. This comes at a time when Canada’s Minister of State for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear, seems to be fading out of the picture. You can read Rob Annan’s post about it here on ‘Don’t leave Canada behind’. As Rob points out, this comes on the heels of the SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humantities Research Council) situation regarding their approved funding for a joint Queen’s University and York University conference titled, ‘Israel/Palestine Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace‘. Goodyear apparently requested that in addition to the peer-review the proposal had already received before being approved that it be subjected to a second peer-review after the fact. There’s more here on Rob’s blog, starting June 10, 2009 and, for another viewpoint, you can check out Jacob T. Levy’s  blog here.

I got a comment from Andrew Maynard where he clarified a statement he made in his screencast and a few things about the Twitter science visuals that he offered in some of his latest postings. Thanks Andrew.

Yeah, that “classic” sort of crept into the screencast – by the time I had made ten botched attempts to record it, I guess the bubble charts were beginning to look a little old!

To be honest, I’m not sure how widespread they are. I used them here because it’s a convenient way to summarize data covering a large span – because the plotted area is related to the data being visualized, it is easier to compare very large with very small numbers.

In this way, I think the display offers some intuitive insight into what might be relevant. But I’m not convinced it provides much of an analytical insight. Which is one reason why it’s useful to have access to multiple visualizations I suspect. And probably more importantly, why I prefer to allow access to the root data.

My comments are in my June 23 and 24, 2009 postings and Andrew’s posts are here.

Friday, June 26, 2009, I got an update and other comments from Victor Jones (consultant and former chair of Nanotech BC) about Environment Canada’s plan to have Canadian businesses report on the nanomaterials they use in their products.

interesting summary on nanomaterials and yes the Canadian plan is working its way through the bureacracy. Similar issues of definitions and classifications make the effort far from simple. If ever there was a case of the devil in the small details – nano materials has it. Remember to to check out http://www.goodnanoguide.org for a community dedicated to prototcols for the safe handling of nanomaterials. For an intriguing look at this sub micro world check out http://www.gogetpapers.com/Papers/nanomaterials_lecture

Thanks Victor. I haven’t had a chance to check out Victor’s recommendations for other sources of info. but I will report back on them soon. If you are interested, there is a three part interview with Victor on this site, May 14, 15, and 19, 2009.