Monthly Archives: March 2012

ASC National conference 2012 – three great days

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What happens when you have 250 science communicators in the same place at the same time? Going on observations from the recent national conference in Sydney you get an intense buzz of social networking. Every face to face gathering was busy with people talking, laughing, exchanging ideas and contact details, moving around to meet new people and to catch up with a wide range of colleagues. Cyberspace was filled with an intense stream of tweets which lasted well after the conference – and they are still coming although now at a trickle (see #ASC2012 for the latest). One tweeter during the conference pleaded for others to slow the pace as he couldn’t keep up with the flow and catch a moment of the sessions at the same time.

We are still digesting the results of the post-conference on-line survey. We had around 130 completed questionnaires – a great response rate. I’m happy to report overwhelmingly positive feedback. There were good suggestions for improvements which will be considered as we start planning for the next national gathering.

I look forward to developing the relationships with the federal and five state Chief Scientists and with all the Inspiring Australia representatives who featured at the conference. The ASC is growing its connections all the time.

My choices for conference highlights

Day 1: Ian Chubb’s talk provoked much ongoing discussion about several big topics and issues. One was that public interest in science developed countries is declining while the inverse is true in developing economies. Why is this? Is this a worrying trend (I say yes)? What do we do about it? Is there an inverse relation between celebrity appreciation and cerebrum use?

The cocktail function at the end of Day 1 gave us a look at UTS’s impressive new function space. Around 150 delegates got together for two hours of intense chatting and mixing in a most pleasant atmosphere. I thought this worked far better than a sit down dinner for networking. Also we didn’t have to charge for the event (thanks to UTS sponsoring this most hospitable function).

Day 2: The opening plenary about career possibilities for science communicators featured good energy and diverse jobs paths. It not only highlighted several talented early career sci-commers but revealed the Australian Museum was holding a ‘Jurassic Lounge’ event that night which added to delegates’ choice of social events for the evening. I enjoyed the ABC Café Scientific chat-fest but I noted the tweet stream from rapt Jurassic Loungers.

Day 3: Chris Fluke in the morning plenary said that he was satisfied with 85% accuracy in his astronomical animations (he sometimes exaggerates vertical scale for visual effect). This kicked-off a discussion topic that we won’t see the end of. In the afternoon plenary about science to policy I was interested to hear about how rallies of scientists were organised to get media attention and public support to pressure the government not to cut funding for medical research work. The threatened funding cut was a rumour at the time but timely action of getting scientists onto the streets may have been instrumental in preserving funds during a cost-cutting period.

Days 1-3: I was also impressed with the efforts exhibitors at the conference put into making their display areas look appealing. It enticed me to chat with a few of them and I would have visited all the stands if I had less running around to do.

The Science-As-Art exhibition seemed to be a big hit. More than 100 votes were cast for the People’s Choice winner and there was a lot of feedback that the exhibition should be a regular feature of future conferences.

Several teams of people worked hard and effectively to achieve a great conference. The ASC conference organising teams lead by Rod Lamberts are deservedly basking in the bright glow of congratulations for the high quality of the overall event. Our professional conference convenors ensured that all ran smoothly and made the most of the excellent venue.

So how do we do even better next time? I’ll leave that to you to send your suggestions.

Jesse Shore
National President

Member Profile: Susan Kirk

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Susan Kirk is a nationally published writer, with a degree in journalism and TAFE qualifications in horticulture.  She has written for many different publications but lately writes extensively for Rural Press publications including Good Fruit and Vegetables and Australian Horticulture.

She wrote a number of the Taste booklets (Global Food and Wine) which showcased Australian produce and producers and even did a stint as a restaurant critique. She loves growing, cooking and consuming food so over the years the interest in ornamental plants turned into an interest in food plants.

She has just recently started a herb nursery with her partner Bob on the Sunshine Coast hinterland, aptly named, Hinterland Herbs, concentrating on culinary and medicinal herb plants.

She is a member of the Media Alliance, Horticulture Media Association and is a member of and the Queensland web editor for the Australian Science Communicators.

Best Science Apps for iPhone/iPad:

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Thanks to Joe Hanson for posting his best science apps for iphone / ipod – for the science and technology obsessed – enjoy!

Best Science Apps for iPhone/iPad:

Space/Astronomy:

–       NASA has a great free educational app where you can track spacecraft and learn about projects.

–       GoSkyWatch, which is inexplicably free for the iPad only version (and a very underpriced $3.99 for iPhone/iPad compatible version). Seriously, it will change your life. Point it at something, it tells you what it is. It even draws constellations and has a red low-light mode.

Biology/Chemistry:

–       Molecules lets you input any Protein Data Bank or PubChem molecule identifier and then renders a 3-D version that you can rotate, zoom and space-fill. Must-have for molecular noodling on the fly.

–       The Elements is pretty pricey for an app at $13.99, but it’s bar none the best app for exploring the periodic table.

In The Lab:

–       Life Technologies has a useful app called DailyCalcs that will calculate solution concentrations, convert units, figure out dilutions and give you cell culture plating tips. Nothing you couldn’t look up or figure out on a paper towel, but nice to have it handy for free.

–       If you’re like me and you have to keep track of a lot of PDFs and research papers, I’m still torn on whether Mendeley or Papers is better. I use both, and I like both. One is free, of course.

Math/Misc.

–       WolframAlpha: There’s Wolfram reference support built into Siri, but the full app is like a math search engine/calculator/reference guide all in one. Very cool.

–       Skeptical Science will help you refute climate deniers right from your pocket!

[Extracted from Joe Hanson’s Blog: It’s Okay to Be Smart – post link here]

If you know of or use any great science apps, share it! (email: editor@asc.asn.au )

 

Book Review: Genome Generation

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By Daniella Goldberg, Gene Genie Media.

This year marks the tenth anniversary since the epic task of sequencing all three billion letters of the human genome. The Genome Generation by Dr Elizabeth Finkel, molecular biologist turned science journalist, reveals the impact of the genome revolution and how it affects everyone in some way, whether it’s predicting your genetic destiny as in the movie Gattaca, designing genetically engineered foods to feed the third world, curing serious genetic diseases or understanding your ancestors.

And even the author found a few surprises when conducting her research. “When I started this book, I thought I knew it all,” says Finkel. “But in the end, nothing that I knew ended up in the book. When relying on media you get a very different view of science than when you drill down asking your own questions.”

Finkel has gathered the latest evidence about the impact of the genome from visiting doctors from hospitals in the developing world, where they are researching the genetics of AIDS-resistance. She also met with farmers and agricultural researchers in developing countries that are desperately in need of sustainable crops to feed the exploding population.

“Writing a book is like a marriage. You have to sustain the passion for a long time and I knew I could do this in three areas, medicine, agriculture and evolution,” says Dr Finkel, worked on the book for three years.

Central to Dr Finkel’s research was her annual visit to Lorne’s scientific conferences in Victoria, where she spoke to and quoted leading scientists and learned the latest findings about the human and other genomes.

“Today we have really moved into a new era and our old paradigms have shifted,” she says. For example, we used to believe that 98.5 per cent of our DNA was ‘junk.’ Now we know most junk DNA is producing RNA and has functions we never would have anticipated, such as acting like proteins or enzymes or even like genes.

Queensland genetics researcher Professor John Mattick was one of the first true believers that junk DNA really has an important function. Today, we have tools to investigate DNA to support this theory, although the verdict is still out on this complex topic.

Another paradigm that has crashed since the human genome was sequenced is the Lamarckian theory. Dr Finkel says that when she first heard of epigenetics studies showing that the environment could impact our genetic program she did not want to write a chapter about it because it went against what she was taught at university.

What is revealed in this book is very compelling and could directly impact the way pregnant mothers behave. Epigenetic researchers have shown that inter-uterine environment may have long terms genetic programming effects on the foetus. For mothers around the world, this type of data could have far reaching implications.

Dr Finkel says she wrote this book to reveal the impact of the human genome, ten years after it was sequenced. Many questions about the human genome still remain unanswered however one fact is clear: the genome is a powerful tool that will impact everyone in some way in their lives.

This is an excellent yarn.. Well worth reading!

Daniella Goldberg, Gene Genie Media.

Outreach where they least expect it – Guerilla Astronomers

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Thanks to Kirsten Gottschalk from ICRAR for contributing this post:

I have a confession – I love astronomy. Something about it has fascinated me ever since I can remember. Understandably then, it’s something I am very passionate about. This is why I was quite taken aback when I heard “People aren’t interested in looking through telescopes anymore,” during a session at the recent ASC National Conference.  From a respected astronomer no less! Luckily for me and my love of astronomy, her experience couldn’t be further from my own.

 

As part of my role in the Outreach and Education team at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) I take a lot of telescopes to a lot of places and people are always interested to look through them, at them, or just talk about them.

 

One of my favourite outreach strategies is the idea of ‘Guerilla Astronomy’ – taking a telescope somewhere people will least expect it and introducing them to astronomy with no advertising or attempt to gather an audience.

 

Myself and a band of ICRAR’s professional astronomers take a small (but still impressive looking) telescope or two out to the side of a bike path, to the middle of the CBD shopping precinct, or to another outdoor event and simply stand next to our telescopes talking to anyone that comes near. People always come near, and the result is something that never ceases to remind me why I do what I do.

 

From the woman on her evening jog who got straight back in the car after seeing the Moon to go get her kids; to the children who wont let anyone else have a turn because they are so mesmerised by the Orion Nebula; through to a member of the public helping his elderly mother take her first close up look at Jupiter and its moons, and her gasp when the image became clear to her through the eyepiece. Talking with the astronomers who join me on these evenings, we have so many more positive engagement stories like these. To me, this kind of work is the most important and most interesting part of science communication – engaging with the unengaged and giving them a positive experience of science to take away.

 

There’s probably a large combination of things that make these events so successful – the unexpected experience, and therefore no expectations of what will happen, us being conveniently located where people are already, and in the evening when there’s sometimes a bit more time to spare. But I like to think that the telescopes themselves play a big part in it – they’re an ingeniously simple piece of machinery (just a couple of mirrors and a lens when you get down to it) that pack a big punch and make the previously invisible, visible.  Nothing beats seeing the red spot on Jupiter in person ‘for real’ and knowing that the light has travelled from the depths of the Sun where it was created in a nuclear reaction, all the way out to Jupiter (741 million kilometres) and then bounced off right back into this telescope and then your eye. Or maybe that’s just me?

 

I’ll admit, sometimes it is frustrating the first question is ‘How much is it worth?’ but there are always more questions, and I like to think that they’re only asking because they think it’s so cool they want one too!

 

Nevertheless, the benefits to me, to ICRAR, and our astronomers stemming from Guerilla Astronomy are numerous. It never ceases to inspire a researcher to be told their life’s work is utterly fascinating by either a 5 or 75 year old, and they get told often and emphatically at these impromptu events. We’ve also had so many people follow up for more information, attending our other larger events, or even organising us to visit their school or club for a talk stemming from one simple interaction by the Swan River on a Wednesday night.

 

Our last Guerilla Astronomy event had over 150 people look through our telescopes over the course of two hours, without us even having to put a sign out!

 

Kirsten Gottschalk
Outreach and Education Officer
ICRAR: Discovering the hidden Universe through radio astronomy

 

Science [Rewired]

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Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education partners with media140 Australia, to launch a new Digital Science event exploring the impact of social and digital technologies on science communication.

ʻscience [rewired]ʼ on the 30th May at Luna Park, Sydney explores the impact of social media, crowdsourcing and digital technologies on science communication and citizen science in developing international collaboration on major social and scientific issues of our time.

Focusing on a key theme of “Connect, Collaborate and Communicate for Change” the event will bring together science communicators, academics, media professionals and digital visionaries for one day conference of debate, insight and education.

The event is designed for science communicators at a variety of levels including: science practitioners of all specialities from environmental conservation to nanotechnology; science journalists; science educators from primary school to University level; digital innovators; public relations professionals; not-for-profit campaigners; and community groups.

ʻscience [rewired]ʼ is an inclusive forum for anyone wanting to find out how science and digital technology can be used to create positive change in the world.

science [rewired] is a media140 philanthropic initiative.

media140 Australia Ltd. Registered Office: 48 South Street, Alderley Edge, Cheshire SK9 7ES ABN 91 929 200 347. Registered in Australia.media140 Australia – press release

Event themes

Communicating science across borders

• Master class on online science communications (from beginner to intermediate) • Conservation science communications for practitioners • Dialling down the jargon – how to talk science to non-scientists • What is the relationship between science and online journalism?

• Communicating science to communities in developing countries – Climate Witnesses

The democratisation of science

• Strategies to facilitate better collaboration between science and the public • Data visualisation • To share or not to share – strategies and policy

Gamification

• How to create your own ʻgame for changeʼ • Interactive: Online gaming room session involving people across the globe • The theory of gaming and application in a science context

Best Practice in online science communications

• Using online tools for enhancing global civil society movements e.g. Earth Hour • Workshop: How to use YouTube to further scientific aims • Interactive: Podcasting for the People • Blogging for science, using video and audio effectively

Citizen Science

• Citizen Science projects changing the world • Using Crowd sourcing techniques, strategies and tools • Maintaining communities and growing them • How to make online science entertaining • Online science as an education tool

Future science

• What is next for online science communications?

media140 Australia Ltd. Registered Office: 48 South Street, Alderley Edge, Cheshire SK9 7ES ABN 91 929 200 347. Registered in Australia.

media140 Australia – press release

Event details

For more information and to pre-register for event updates visit

www.sciencerewired.org

Event to be held at The Crystal Palace, Luna Park, Sydney on the 30th May

http://www.crystalpalacesydney.com

Tickets available from the 12th March 2012 priced at $295 or $195 earlybird special if purchased before 30th April 2012.

To join the event as a speaker, sponsor or media partner please contact Andrew Gregson at ande@media140.com

What do Victorians think about science?

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New research from the Department of Business and Innovation’s Science and Community Unit.

Time: 5.30-7pm
Date: Tues 3 April 2012
Place: Melbourne Museum
Read the findings: http://www.business.vic.gov.au/communityresearch

The 2011 report, “Community Interest and Engagement with Science and Technology in Victoria” provides the clearest and most detailed survey yet of public attitudes and behaviour. Its findings should inform and provoke individual professionals and organisations committed to engaging with the public.

Come along to Melbourne Museum on Tuesday 3 April and hear answers to these questions:

  • Are Victorians becoming more active seekers of science and technology information?
  • How much trust do Victorians put in science information from different sources?
  • How well informed do Victorians feel about impacts of new developments and how these are being regulated?
  • Have things changed since the 2007 survey?

Come and:

  • Meet the research team,
  • Hear how others in your sector are responding to the survey findings,
  • Drill down into the data using using an online interactive data tool developed by Sweeney Research.

Presented by the Department of Business and Innovation, Australian Science Communicators and Melbourne Museum.

Time: 5.30-7pm (please bring your laptop or ipad and buy a coffee on your way at IMAX, Rathdowne St Carlton, next to Melbourne Museum)
Date: Tues 3 April 2012
Place: Melbourne Museum Theatre, entry via Plaza
Cost: Free
Enquires: Georgie Meyer, Public Programs Manager, Melbourne Museum

RSVP: discoverylectures@museum.vic.gov.au
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/394048883940283/

 

ASC assistant treasurer appointed

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The National Council has appointed Pete Wheeler for the ASC assistant treasurer position.

Pete is the treasurer of the ASC WA branch, has been treasurer for another society and manages the sizable budget for outreach and education activities in his job for an astronomical centre.

David Ellyard, our national treasurer, and Pete will soon start working together to bring Pete up to speed with the national accounts and to divide up the financial tasks. Pete will become a non-voting member of the Executive and National Council.

Pete joins Sarah Lau, our national secretary, as WA members on ASC national committees.

Jesse Shore
National president

NSW Branch AGM and Reel Science Communication by Derek Muller

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26 March 2012
6:30 pmto9:30 pm

Derek Muller

It’s that time of year again… time for the annual NSW AGM.

This year we are fortunate enough to hear from the very engaging Derek Muller before getting down to the business end of things.

Derek brings a unique view on the how much the public really know about science. Backed by a PhD in Physics Education Research, high school and university education may be what he does as his ‘day job’, but his speciality is in communicating science via video. His much frequented http://www.Veritasium.com/ is a verit-able treasure trove of accessible bite sized pieces of science yum. With other claims to fame including spots on Catalyst, being the ‘Why Guy’ on Channel 10’s Breakfast show and winning the Cyberscreen Science Film Festival and Science Online 2012, this is something you won’t want to miss!

Come join us at:

The City of Sydney RSL
565 George Street, Sydney

Monday, 26th March – 6.30pm – Derek Muller; 7pm AGM

The night will include a Year in Review talk by our very own National President, Jesse Shore with an update on the recent ASC conference. We will then roll on to the AGC where we will open up for re-allocation, the following committee positions: Chair / Secretary / Treasurer /Other committee members – including web support. Snacks and a drink included for members

RSVP: ASCNSW@gmail.com
Don’t miss out!
https://www.facebook.com/events/395598913783461/