Science cafes go mainstream

For several years, "science cafes" have been all the rage in "public engagement" activities. There are books about them, newsletter articles about them.

But now that they've made the "Sunday Styles" section of the New York Times, I think we can safely say they've hit the mainstream!

These Scientific Minds Think (and Drink) Alike - New York Times

We do have one here in Ithaca: the "Science Cabaret."

There's general information available at http://www.sciencecafes.org/ (for the US) and http://cafescientifique.org/ in the UK.

Making science understandable

Is science too specialized? Can scientists themselves understand research outside their own specialty? For more than a generation, scientists have been making that claim. They've made various attempts to address the problem. In the 1970s, for example, the New England Journal of Medicine once published a "rewritten" article (rewritten by a science journalist) immediately following the original technical article. (Gutterman, J. U., Rossen, R. D., Butler, W. T., McCredie, K. B., Bodey, G. P., Sr., Freireich, E. J., et al. (1973). Immunoglobulin on Tumor Cells and Tumor-Induced Lymphocyte Blastogenesis in Human Acute Leukemia. New England Journal of Medicine, 288(4 (25 January)), 169-173, 173-175 (revised version). The experiment was not repeated.

For the last few years, PLoS Biology, an open-access peer-reviewed journal, has included an "Authors' summary" in addition to the standard abstract. And some articles in PLoS Medicine include an "Editors' summary" that includes sections like "Why was this study done?" and "What did the researchers do and find?" (See http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040323 for an example.)

Now the general science journal Science is trying a monthlong experiment of including a summary in front of every article (Approaching Science -- Kennedy 318 (5851): 715 -- Science). My own take on the first attempts is that they're still pretty hard to read. But look ahead to the following weeks to see what happens.

Frames in media coverage of science

Matt Nisbet, a former Cornell student (now teaching at American Univ.), published an essay in SCIENCE this week about the images of science.

Read it at http://encompass.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/checkIP.cgi?access=gateway_standard%26url=http://dx.doi.org/DOI:10.1126/science.1142030

(if this link doesn't work, go to Cornell Library, go to the magazine SCIENCE, go to 6 April 2007 issue, look for Nisbet's name)

Then, read his blog to see how people have been responding to the piece:
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/04/dont_be_a_dodo_bloggers_weigh.php

Mixing science and art

At least twice in the last couple of weeks, I've run across articles that address the links between science and art.

In this morning's NYTimes is an article about recently found paintings that may -- or may not -- have been made by Jackson Pollock. The art experts believe that Pollock made them, but the scientists who have analyzed the paint say that he couldn't have, as the paints weren't made until after he died. As the article suggests, there's a conflict between different kinds of knowledge.
Drip Wars - A Pollock, in the Eyes of Art and Science - Randy Kennedy - New York Times

The second article appeared a few weeks ago, in Science. It was a review of music that has been explicitly inspired by, informed by, composed according to mathematical principles. The reviewer brings along some musicians and mathematicians to a performance, and decides that the music really is useful for understanding math.
MUSIC: Riffs on Numerical Themes -- Bohannon 315 (5811): 462 -- Science

So, the question is: How do we talk about art and science at the same time?

And then there's fiction....

What about promoting public understanding of science through fiction? Here's a review of a recent book that's based on changes in the ocean as a result of global climate change:
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5805/1546>

How many hobbies involve math?

Daina Taimina, a visiting professor in Cornell's Math Department, has developed a variety of crochet projects involving mathematical figures:
<http://www.math.cornell.edu/%7Edtaimina/>
While hunting for her website, I also found a whole page of links to mathematics and knitting:
<http://www.toroidalsnark.net/mathknit.html>
And then there's the online Museum of Neuroscience Art:
<http://neuroscienceart.com/>

Cooking and science

So, if we want to understand where most people encounter "chemistry," isn't it obvious that it's in the kitchen? One person's answer to popularizing -- here's a story about a scientist who popularizes the chemistry in cooking:
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5803/1235>

Getting science info from the Internet

In various "science literacy" studies over the last decade, there have been references to how people use the Internet for science information. Now there's a good, thorough, single study on the topic. I haven't gone through it in detail yet, but I want to capture it now while I think of it. It's from the Pew Internet and American Life project.
<http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/191/report_display.asp>

Science education -- what is "science literacy"?

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several efforts to reform the science education system led to new understanding that students might learn science "better" if they actually learned less. Teachers should focus on key ideas, and not try to get students to stuff their heads full of facts, went the argument. In addition, students should have the opportunity to engage in "hands-on" or "inquiry-driven" science themselves.

Two key publications:

• National Research Council. (1996). National Science Education Standards. Washington: National Academy Press <http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/>
• American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy. New York: Oxford University Press <http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/bolintro.htm>

Now there's a new push to reform science education, reducing even further the key ideas. The goal, again, is that by communicating "less," students will actually retain "more" -- they'll get the key ideas: Mervis, J. (2006). SCIENCE EDUCATION: Doing More With Less. Science, 314(5804), 1374-1376. <http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5804/1374>


What do you think?