Anyone that lives on or beyond West Campus would appreciate the article, "Fastest Way Up Hills: Zigzag" I found it off of one of Yahoo's featured Science articles the other day and was attracted to it because of my daily hike up the slope. While the article itself isn't really noteworthy I thought it was interesting where it came from, a website called LiveScience.
At the bottom of the article there is a description of the site, "Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. "
Hmm, "made simple.. for people on the go." Who would have ever thought that science communication would be approached this way. Science communication is usually considered as lengthy articles and scholarly lectures yet this website is making the latest science news accessible for their fast paced world.
As the article prompted me to, I visited the site and saw that I couldn't take my eyes off of the home page. I didn't know where to click first, should I go to the tab for "Strange News", click on the photo of twin babies with the title "Identical Twins' DNA varies" or see what that video on gamblers is all about? This site definitely caught my attention and sparked my interest. I found myself spending almost 20 minutes (almost as much time as I spend on facebook) on this site reading over the quick snippets of their articles and scrolling through pictures. I love this site and I think that it is a provacitive way to attract people to science, what do you think? Who knows, I may even add this site to one of my favorites....
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When I first read this post regarding LiveScience.com, my interest was peaked, yet at the same time I was skeptical. A science site that discussed “Strange News” and was for “people on the go”…Interesting. Initially looking at the website, it’s layout and design was reminiscence of that used in the website put out by the New York Times, which immediately bolstered its credibility in my eyes. Looking around the site, I might not categorize it as something for individuals on the go, solely due to the extensive topics to read about, however, it did blend nicely both the hard sciences and discussions of popular interest. Good find!
I also found this website very interesting! Just on its homepage, it's not only interactive and colorful, but it does have that "credible look" to it and the information that it talks about is scientific but not too scientific that you need a background in science to understand any of it. However, I wonder, when making the information easier to access and understand, is there something lost in, well, translation? Sometimes by not including everything, the truth is distorted.
However, I think on this site, the games and many interactive features attract the people who normally wouldn't have taken the time to find out anything about science. In this way, the website is somewhat of a necessity for public knowledge.
Besides the tab that indicates "strange news", I would say that the format of the site is very credible. It is clearly tabbed, and easy to access, much like any other news site. Because of this, I think whoever accesses it will believe the information that is being presented. I also think that the way it is worded and communicated does help make it easier for people on the go, because it is easy to understand, and the concepts and terms are not hard to grasp. But it may also draw another group of people, like those who may not be as "sciency", and are just purely interested in learning about what is going on. The language and content is very interesting and would catch anyone's attention (it caught mine!), and seems easy to understand, which is good for people who are browsing through or looking for entertainment. I think it's a cool site!
I think this is a great website, thanks for posting!
Basically, I think this a great site because it provides both useful and informative stories, but also stories purely for fun and entertainment, neither of which lacks in detail or scientific fact. I scrolled through quite a number of articles upon visiting the site and each one seemed to contain some kind of shocking or exciting bit of information to pull the reader in, but then made sure not to leave out the facts and important scientific concepts behind the stories they were telling. The site also has some amazing photographs, particularly in the “space” section. While I am always slightly skeptical of pictures, (currently taking comm. 130 has unfortunately made me skeptical of basically any visual), these photos seemed authentic and I know I’ve seen similar ones before on news sites or in well known newspapers, which only further increased this site’s credibility. The layout also helped increase credibility, its not flashy or childlike, it seems like any other news website, yet with more interesting headlines. This site is a great way to inform and teach the public about important scientific issues and findings, but without lecturing or sounding like a textbook. I also liked the fact that while many of the articles were simple and easy to understand, they still accurately explained complicated subjects, particularly in article I read about the future of the sun and how it will expand toward the Earth as it dies (though this won’t happen for about 7 billion years). I remember taking an astronomy class where we were lectured for almost two hours about this subject, however, this article presented the highlights and most important facts from that lecture in under a page- and in a way that makes it easy for anyone with basic scientific knowledge (i.e. the Earth travels around the sun), to understand.
I clicked on this article: http://www.livescience.com/environment/080220-trawling-effects.html. I was surprised how easily I could read the information, and it was really cool to have all those hyperlinks in the text. I can see how one may literally get lost in this site for a long time. That tabs are well labeled, and it is ridiculously easy to find things on this site. I agree with everyone else, this website LOOKS credible with its clean cut layout and interactivity, as well as hypertexuality. The site actually makes science more interesting. However, I think the center image (the one that changes and you can click on) could be larger. Likewise, the ads on the web page take a bit away from the site, but I guess this is how the site is able to set up.
This website is super cool. I like that they have a history section. It is also really interactive with the different videos, quizzes, and articles. The parent website of this, Imaginova.com deals with the advertising end of things. I thought this website was also interesting, as it has a tab named "Our Brands" which includes lifescience.com I just think its interesting that scientific websites are being treated like commodities.
I was going through this post and the comments, and I noticed that a lot of people were talking about the layout and how it made it more interesting, credible, and organized. Keeping that in mind, I visited the site and agreed that the information was neatly organized, it was attractive (small thumbnails accompany almost every link), and it was just all around, easy to look through. We've seen a lot of websites in class, so I looked at a bunch of other websites (AAAS, NY Times: Science, Science.gov, etc...). One thing I noticed was that this 'attractive' format was more similar to news websites than the more official and journalistic types and it should. Journals are typically for fellow scientists and institutions that add information to a collective network. Newspapers, however, are printed for people on the go. They can pick and choose which sections or articles they want, and journalists try to write them as though they are telling someone with no background information. So, their claim, "Science made simple...for people on the go" makes sense. This website is easy to navigate, you can pick and choose which articles you want to read, and you really don't need background knowledge to understand the writing.
It is clever that they use the slogan, “made simple for people on the go.” If you had not pointed it out to me, I would not have recognized the irony of that phrase because science communication is always thought to be long, complicated, and at times confusing. However, the way this site approaches science makes science seem a little less scary or intimidating to read. It makes science news very appealing and interesting. LiveScience talks about science in a smart way to attract people with all different types of interests to read and learn about science. The website is great for exploring many different areas of science!
After looking through the site and reading the previous comments about how the site is set up similar to a news site, I can see how livescience.com really emphasizes current news. It not only highlights new scientific findings and current events in the science world, but links issues such as the disputes in Iraq with science. When I visited the site, there was a picture of the Dalai Lama with the title, "How the Dalai Lama keeps his cool." The article talked about how a neurobio study on how meditation may improve focus and concentration. By making the articles applicable to current events and daily lives, it sparks more science interest in the general public.
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