Nude as the News: How important is it to follow Science news?

My cousin decided to study Biology just like I did (same university, hence same program). While she wants to go on a different research subject, so far she also wants to follow an academic pathway, and so she has asked me a lot of questions to subjects I wished I knew more about when I was starting. These will be a series of posts based on that premise. Please keep in mind all these posts will be based on personal experiences

How important is it to follow science news?

The short answer is, off course, very important. But allow me to elaborate. 

Just as it is important for you to follow the “general” news, as part of general knowledge, it is important for you to follow science news if want to work in science. As you will notice, there is a LOT of news and new sites and it can get overwhelming to know what to read/listen to.

Independent of the field you might want to work in, it is important that you know about the big developments in science in general. A relative good method to follow this is actually the science section of your local paper, just because usually the BIG developments will make it out specialized media. That said, take this reports with a pinch of salt. Unfortunately, many of this newspapers do not have a science writer on staff and might give the coverage to someone that could not be properly informed on the subject. I discussed this on a previous post. 

If you want a broad image but with a more focused angle, I would suggest podcasts or science blogs. These sources can give you the highlights and are produced by people with scientific backgrounds. I personally listen to Nature’s and Science’s podcast every week; they are short and will give you a good idea of what happened that week in several fields. Another podcast I enjoy is The Naked Scientist; now they also have specialized podcasts in Astronomy, Genetics and others. They will give an even more relaxed view of the developments in each field, but they will have all the supporting information. All these podcasts also have their own blogs, where you can get more information as well as the link to the studies they are referring to.

Something that can be very interesting as it will allow you to see different point of views is following science blogs, and you can do so through different methods. I personally love Science Borealis because it gathers a lot of different blogs which helps me to keep up to date and to hear different arguments on Canadian Science developments. And off course, there is social media. Twitter can be a source of news off course, just be sure you read the whole post before you retweet, and even then, don’t forget to fact check when possible.

As you’ll continue moving on your career, chances are that your interests will also become more specialized. While this doesn’t mean you won’t be interested anymore in the type of news discussed above, it does means that you’ll have a bit less time to follow EVERYTHING. Once again, specialized blogs or podcasts can help, but you’ll notice that it might not be enough when you start focusing on that specific side of your research only you and that other group in another continent are working on (I might be exaggerating just a bit here, but you get the gist). So, you’ll have to start looking for news, or rather papers about it quite often. Every once in a while, I do a PubMed search for certain keywords. While this doesn’t assure I won’t miss a particular article it helps to know what else is going on my field.  Through NCBI you can also set up alerts (like Google Alerts) for your specific keywords. Once again, you have to learn how to filter the information you’ll get and to set aside the documents that might be pertinent immediately and those that, while interesting, can wait a bit before you tackle them.

Nude as the News--Cat Power

But why is it important?

Unless you really, really don't care, you know by now that gravitational waves have been detected, hence proving one of Einstein's theories. It was all over news, in any form: TV, podcasts, blogs, you name it. That day as I was watching the news the anchor very casually said to the scientific reporter: This is obviously very interesting...but why is it important?

I was baffled at first. I am not that big in physics, is one of those subjects that I find very hard to dive in. But for me, questioning the importance of such event was ludicrous. Then off course, it hit me: I'm part of the community that gets exited about this, but that's not everyone. The anchor was doing (on purpose or not, doesn't really matter) something extremely important: opening the dialogue with the Sci reporter to explain, to vulgarize, to make this discovery exiting to the rest of the people that might've been at home thinking "yeah, so what?".

We keep talking about how important it is to share scientific news. A lot of people, me included, wonder how come there isn't more people getting exited about this or that development in science. But we don't necessarily take into account that while we might keep on babbling why it is FASCINATING (to us, most of the time) we seldom explain why this is a game changer, or simply why is it important to the rest.

It's not easy, off course, to put into words things that might feel as obvious. But when scientific news makes it to mainstream news, we should make our best to explain the heck out of it. While is great that this particular piece of news made it, we should push for more. What about memory cells and blood cancers? Or a new form of ice? Or a four neutron nucleus? Everyone of us, in the science community, see every day a new piece of the puzzle. Why not share it? And more importantly, explain why we find it important, relevant, interesting. Let’s make those doors for dialogue constantly open. 

You might argue that all these examples I gave imply having to explain much complex subjects to others. And I say: so? The more we explain, the easier it would be for more and more people to know and hopefully understand said subjects, hence increasing the chances of them getting exited about science news. Little by little, we could see more science being shared and loved, instead of hidden and feared, and wouldn't that be nice?

What piece of science news do you want to share today? and why? Tell me, or better yet, tell everyone you know.

"Science" news

Last week, while reading the local paper I saw this article about Sarah Brightman postponing her trip to space. The article goes on to say that she refers to "family reasons", how much she was supposed to pay for the trip and who was the last person to take such trip. But, why am I bringing this article to your attention? Because the article was (and still is 5 days after) in the Science section, more specifically under the Astronomy and space news of the newspaper. This is not the first time that I see this type of news being presented as science, but it's the first time I talk about it here.

You see, I have no problem with this being considered news, for they are after all, pieces of new information. I even understand the intention of (maybe) trying to use such subjects to lure readers with into a more science oriented article or even an article that gives a bit more info (in this case) about the International Space Station (ISS). But often all it ends up being is yet another gossip like article, with nothing to do with the section it has been placed on.

The increase of this type of articles is not due to the lack of scientific news. On the same day alone, there was news about 3 astronauts that will have to stay at the ISS for at least a month more. This article (on the website of the same local paper) was shared 2 times; Brightman's article was shared 98 times.

So it would look like the reason why articles such as Brightman's keeps spreading, not only in the science section, but others too is that people seem to be more interested by a soprano canceling a trip than news of people already there, with actual information on ISS. But then the next question would be: why not use her article to give people more information?

We or rather the newspaper assumes then, that people don't care about said information and hence gives them less actual science news. And so people see even less science news and more about people's vacations. It is a vicious circle. The general public is offered less and less scientific input and whit less offer there is no higher demand, or at least not yet. The problem becomes not just that the public seems to not be interested on science news, but the fact that the newspaper answers by offering even less science news.

This is one of the reasons why news with "stars" giving their personal opinions as scientific advice has so much momentum. We are putting this type of news to the same level, and then it's no wonder that the general public will take scientific studies and voices from "The View" as having the same weight. Once again, this problem doesn't only apply to science, also to politics and economy. People taking advice about very important subjects (vaccination, mortgages, laws passing) from others that have as much or even less knowledge than they do, but that somehow have become revered for their screen time.

We cannot just blame the general public being misguided on the voices of "famous people". We have to also consider, how much real information is being shared with the public, and more importantly, how this information is being presented. We need more real science news in the science section but we should also work on making them as appealing as vedette's news have become. This shouldn't be that hard, when you think how amazing and mind blowing science can be. Let's put more science out there people!, let's make it more accessible! Let's work on not letting real science news being drown by yet more celebrity news about their latest diet or vacation misshapen.