Tag Archives: To Write To Think To Publish

NISENet (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) studies its own network and more in the June 2012 newsletter

Titled A Study of Communication in the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (PDF) and written by Jane Morgan Alexander, Gina Svarovsky, Juli Goss, Liz Rosino, Leigh Ann Mesiti, Jenna LeComte-Hinely, and Christine Reich, the 62 pp. study was published April 2012. The executive summary offers a description of the study parameters (p. 4 of the PDF),

A Study of Communication in the NISE Network (Network Communication Study), conducted during the sixth year of the grant, sought to learn how the four primary communication components that were developed in the first 5 years of NISE Net (NanoDays, face-to-face meetings, the regional hub structure, and the nisenet.org website) are functioning within the Network. In particular, the study explored how these components communicate information, ideas, and practices related to NISE Net between and within the three Network tiers.

Using a qualitative approach, 7 focus groups with 24 individuals in Tier 1 and 39 semistructured interviews with professionals in Tiers 2 and 3 were conducted. Only Tier 2 and 3 partners who were actively involved in NISE Net were selected to participate in the study so as to capture the “best case” description of communication within the Network to illustrate how this network optimally functions. Tier 2 and 3 partners were identified as actively engaged if they had hosted or participated in a NanoDays event in the past 3 years and had attended at least one NISE Net professional development offering. Due to these sampling constraints, the study does not draw conclusions about the experience of less involved Network partners.

Given those parameters, here are the conclusions as per the study (p. 4 of the PDF) and as per the description of the study on the NISENet website,

In particular, the following findings emerged from this study:

  • NanoDays makes nano content seem “doable.” NanoDays kits, acknowledged by involved partners in all tiers to be a useful representation of the professionalism of the Network, communicate messages about the accessibility of nano content.
  • Face-to-face meetings contribute to a sense of NISE Net community. Through face-to-face meetings held throughout the year, Network partners learn general information about NISE Net and develop personal connections with Network peers.
  • The regional hub structure provides a personal, go-to resource for professionals in Tiers 2 and 3. The regional hub structure serves as a central resource to disseminate Network updates and respond to partners’ needs.
  • The NISE Network website (nisenet.org) is used to convey general information about NISE Net.

In addition to the four primary communication components, some Network partners also use the Nano Bite (NISE Net’s monthly e-newsletter) and social networking groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

In other news, there are some opportunities for materials research scientists and writers,

MRS Fall 2012 Call for Papers
The MRS 2012 Fall Meeting in Boston November 26-30, 2012 is having an Educational Symposium ZZ – Communicating Social Relevancy in Materials Science and Engineering Education. The Call for Papers lists a deadline of June 19, 2012 for abstract submission. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding topics, ancillary events, panel sessions or invited speakers, please contact one of the organizers listed at the end of the Call for Papers announcement.

→ To Think, To Write, To Publish
This two-part, multi-day workshop will bring together emerging writers and early career science and innovation policy scholars – along with creative writing and journalism professors, museum professionals, and editors of mainstream publications to immerse themselves in the art and business of nonfiction storytelling.

Participants will attend workshops in Washington, DC and Tempe, AZ and will be guided for an entire year. Travel expenses to attend the workshops will be paid, along with an honorarium. For complete instructions and details, go to http://www.thinkwritepublish.org/.

Finally, there are two  June 2012 nano haikus,

Nanoparticles
A young man’s finest weapon
Cancer cannot hide

Sune Chunhasuwan of the Museum of Science created the above haiku in reference to the work of Jack Andraka, who developed a method to detect pancreatic cancer using carbon nanotubes.

Communication:
A Network-wide endeavor.
Here are our findings.

Gina Svarovsky of the Science Museum of Minnesota writes about the recently completed Network Communication Study that was highlighted above.

There you have some extracts, the full June 2012 newsletter can be found here.

Research and the 2010 Canadian federal budget; nanotechnology, hype, markets, and medicine; Visionaries in Banagalore; materials science and PBS offer a grant opportunity; To Think To Write To Publish for emerging science writers

It’s time for quiet appreciation as Rob Annan (Don’t leave Canada behind blog) points out in his breakdown of the 2010 Canadian federal budget’s allocation for research.  From the posting (Budget 2010 – A Qualified Success),

Last year’s cuts to the research granting councils, though relatively small, were magnified by their inclusion in a so-called “stimulus budget” full of spending increases in other areas.

This year, the opposite is true. Funding increases, though relatively small, are made more significant by the context of spending restraint evidenced elsewhere in the budget.

Rob goes through the budget allocations for each of the research funding agencies and provides a comparison with previous funding amounts. As he points out, it’s not time to pop the champagne corks as this is a modest success albeit at a time when many were expecting deep cuts. One comment from me, this increase is not a good reason to get complacent and run back to the research facilities effectively disappearing from the public discourse. After all, there’s another budget next year.

Pallab Chatterjee of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) recently made some comments (on EDN [Electronics Design, Strategy, News] about nanotechnology and commercialization focusing (somewhat) on nanomedicine. It caught my eye because Andrew Maynard (2020 Science blog) has written a piece on cancer and nanomedicine which poses some questions about nanomedicine hype. First, the comments from Chatterjee,

The Nanosys announcement heralds the arrival of nanotechnology products from other companies that will soon be entering the market and shows that the typical eight- to 10-year gestation period for breakthrough technologies to reach commercialization is now reaching an end. For example, nanomedicine is now emerging as a major topic of investigation. To help solidify the topics in this area and to determine the best direction for commercialization, the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) held the First Global Congress on NEMB (nanoengineering for medicine and biology), a three-day event that took place last month in Houston.

As nanomedicine products hit the commercial marketplace, you can expect hype. According to Andrew (Nanotechnology and cancer treatment: Do we need a reality check?), government agencies have already been on a ‘hype’ trail of sorts (from 2020 Science),

Cancer treatment has been a poster-child for nanotechnology for almost as long as I’ve been involved with the field. As far back as in 1999, a brochure on nanotechnology published by the US government described future “synthetic anti-body-like nanoscale drugs or devices that might seek out and destroy malignant cells wherever they might be in the body.” Over the intervening decade, nanotechnology has become a cornerstone of the National Cancer Institute’s fight against cancer, and has featured prominently in the US government’s support for nanotechnology research and development.

Andrew goes on to quote various experts in the field discussing what they believe can be accomplished. These comments are hopeful and measured and stand in stark contrast to what I imagine will occur once nanomedicine products seriously enter the marketplace. Take for example, Michael Berger’s (Nanowerk) comments about the wildly overhyped nanotechnology market valuations. From Berger’s 2007 article (Debunking the trillion dollar nanotechnology market size hype),

There seems to be an arms race going on among nanotechnology investment and consulting firms as to who can come up with the highest figure for the size of the “nanotechnology market”. The current record stands at $2.95 trillion by 2015. The granddaddy of the trillion-dollar forecasts of course is the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) “$1 trillion by 2015”, which inevitably gets quoted in many articles, business plans and funding applications.

The problem with these forecasts is that they are based on a highly inflationary data collection and compilation methodology. The result is that the headline figures – $1 trillion!, $2 trillion!, $3 trillion! – are more reminiscent of supermarket tabloids than serious market research. Some would call it pure hype. This type of market size forecast leads to misguided expectations because few people read the entire report and in the end only the misleading trillion-dollar headline figure gets quoted out of context, even by people who should now better, and finally achieves a life by itself.

The comments and the figures that Berger cites are still being used ensuring commentary is still relevant. In fact, if you apply the psychology of how these claims become embedded, these comments can be applied to nanomedicine as well.

On a not entirely unrelated note, MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Technology Review Journal has organised a meeting in Bangalore which starts on Monday, March 8, 2010. From the news item on Business Standard,

Nearly a hundred of the world’s leading business and tech visionaries will discuss next generation technologies that are ready for the market in the annual Emerging Technologies Conference (Emtech) in Bangalore next week.

The two-day conference begining March 8 is being held in India for the second year in succession in association with CyberMedia.

The conference, organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review journal, will cover a variety of cutting edge topics ranging from green computing techniques, clean transport alternatives and smarter energy grid to the role that wireless can play in connecting India.

Special sessions on innovative diagnostics and neglected diseases will draw attention towards unheralded health care fields. A session on the future of nanotechnology will touch on new capabilities, giving people new ways to make things and heal bodies.

Finally, I got my monthly NISENet (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) newsletter and found a couple of opportunities (from the newsletter), one for materials scientists,

Making Stuff Grant Opportunity
The Materials Research Society and WGBH will be premiering Making Stuff, a four-part PBS series about materials science, in fall 2010 and are looking for outreach partners to organize and host events, demos, workshops, and science cafes in connection with the premiere.  They’ll provide outreach partners with a stipend as well as a resource toolkit.  One of the four episodes is focused on nanotechnology, and nano will be a common thread throughout the episodes. You can find lots more information, as well as the application form, here.  Applications are due April 1st.

and one for emerging science writers,

Calling all “next generation” science and tech writers!

Our partners at ASU asked us to pass along this writing and publishing fellowship opportunity to all of you. They’re now accepting applications for To Think-To Write-To Publish, an intensive two-day workshop followed by a three-day conference in Arizona for early career writers of any genre with an interest in science and technology. The deadline is March 15th, click here to download the flier.

If you are interested in NISENet or want to submit a haiku about nanotechnology (sadly the newsletter doesn’t feature one this month), their website is here.