So this is my catchup post - the internet was being stupidly slow the other night, so I gave up. And so I'm catching up now.

This post is a warning - check your sources. Multiple sources. This is something I am not very good at. I'm a bit lazy in that. But sometimes one source, even though it is normally reputable, is wrong.

Example number one of this: my last Newsflash. The hair solar panel? Apparently it's a scam. Thanks to annon who pointed this out - I had not heard, I had only heard that it was right. Now my reasons for believing this were as follows:
1. It sounded nice and would save the world.
2. It was on the Daily Mail website. I thought that was reputable. I was wrong.

The comments at the bottom of the article do discuss this briefly, however I did not scroll down that far initially and did not read them.

This blog also reported on it and was corrected. The discussion is very good though.

Another good debunking site for this myth is this.

Another good example is this story about dead fish exhibiting brain activity. Of course they don't normally and they are not alive, but if we twist what we find, or only report some of the results, this is what happens.

This is a big trap for reporters - if they don't understand the science, then it is easy to believe fake science, or at least mistaken science, and report on it. Which in turns leads others who also don't understand the science to false knowledge. Leading to widespread untruths.

It kind of comes down to what I said about being science ambassadors - we have a responsibility to ensure the science we pass on is correct and true. If it involves asking experts, or reading different sources to ensure its right, then that is what we need to do. People trust communicators, they trust the media, to give them the truth. So communicators need to ensure they are passing on the real truth, not psuedo-truth.

*Sigh* Me included. No more just trusting news sites.

Although this story is 10 days old, it is an amazing one.

An 18-year old from a small village in Nepal has invented a solar cell which uses human hair instead of silicon. It is cheap, easy to mass produce and, most importanly it works.

This is a great example of how a young person has seen a need (Nepal has very poor access to electricity) and created a wonderful solution.

Check out the article here.

What makes this story even more amazing is that the village that Milan Karki comes from was skeptical of his inventions, and of science in general. Milan says, "They believe in superstitions, they don't believe in science. But now they believe."

That's pretty cool that he was able to show the people that science is not something to be afraid of. It could be bad if science went barging in to other people's cultures and just threw out all their beliefs. And it's happened before. But Milan is from the village, and has showed, by example, that science can help the village. His motivations were not just progress for the sake of progress, but simply to address a need in his community.

(Internet is being slow. I'll attach a pretty picture later.)

Ok, Ok, after all my promises, I skipped a post. And didn't bother to catch up on it. I am lazy and slack and I apologize. The main reason is uni is getting a little hectic at the moment (it being almost the end of semester: next week is the last week of term, the two weeks "holidays" - as if - then only three week, then SUMMER HOLIDAYS! Did you get the excitement and enthusiasm in that?? Particularly because it means that before uni goes back I'll be married. :D ) So I'm going to realistic and not promise to never do it again. Because I will. But maybe it's a good thing because it will make you very eager for my next post! Here's hoping...

So, enough of my lame excuses. To the science!

To be honest, I haven't had a massive brainwave of what to write for this post. I think I'm getting to the point where all my initial brilliant ideas have been used and I need to put in more thought to what I post. The quality of thoughts doesn't seem likely to increase until uni finishes, but I shall try. I will.

There really is alot of science out there. Like soo much. It boggles my tiny insignificant brain. How does one really get a message out there to people who care? If you're only reaching people who don't care, then it doesn't matter. It might influence them to look into science in the future, maybe, but your effect is overall quite small. So one must be thoughtful in selecting an approach to publicising your message.

(Now our guest lecturer last week told us never to use the 'T' word: target. As in target audience. If it is to be a two way communicative relationship, then the audience is no target. They are a 'communication partner'. But I'm going to stick with just audience.)

You are never going to reach everyone, so pick the audience you would like to reach. Now, I would love to run/be involved in science programs in schools. My strategy for approaching this is:

1. Get a science/arts degree. And most likely a Diploma of Education and a Diploma of Science Communication for added experience.
2. Make contacts in the industry. I'm trying to do this now, through uni and Questacon. And I figure if I do a Dip Ed, I can make contact with schools.
3. Get experience. Work for other organisations in a similar role.
4. Find people with the same vision as me to work with.
5. Develop a program of my own to take to schools.
6. Use my contacts to start my program.
7. Promote my program.

I guess my main strategy is contacts. Face to face publicising. But that is for publicising my program. See, my real form of publication is my program itself. I want to market my program, but only so I can 'market' science through it. Show the excitement of science in a live environment. In a face-to-face manner. So face-to-face is my real strategy. (Unless I did a TV program. Now that would be cool...)

But for another aim, another message, a strategy might be using media. But which sort of media? Main-stream media? Industry media (newsletters, etc)? Are you currently using a communication strategy? Is it the right one for your intended audience.

This blog is a strategy to promote science communication. A slightly ineffective one at the moment, as I don't have many readers. I'm trying though. I am. The internet is a hard market to break into.

So take home message: (sorry if it was hard to distinguish from the ramble...) is think, plan, before you do. Evalute your current communication work. Is it working? If not, how can you improve it? Do you need to start a new plan altogether? This works for all areas to, not just science.

What can I do to better my communication?

Last night on A Current Affair they ran a story of a man who had a phobia of swallowing solid food. It had come on in the last 18 months, and now he couldn't eat anything, and was practically living on nutrient shakes. My fiance, and my sister's husband were very dubious about the whole thing, although my sister and I thought it was semi-plausible. People do have some very curious phobias.

But then they brought on an expert who sat with the man for a morning, and just by working his way up from liquids to gradually more solid food, he was able to overcome the phobia. In one morning. A severe phobia that had lasted 18 monthes of not eating. Even when he claimed he really wanted to eat, but just couldn't. Cured in one morning.

That was the part we didn't find so plausable. If it had taken a few months, or even weeks, then sure.

They tried to make the segment scientific, by showing diagrams of the brain, highlighting where phobias operate from, and where normal eating function should come from. I thought it was good that they were slotting science into it, although they could have used science in a more legit story. If the public realises how unrealistic the story sounded, and associate that with the science content, then in gives science a bad name.

As science communicators we are responsible for responsible science. (Double word use intended). We are ambassadors for science - so be careful little mouth what you say.

Firstly, most sincere apologies for not posting on Friday. My brain was, well, elsewhere. I shall try hard not to get distracted so much again without warning. Hopefully as I get into a rhythm it will be better.

I would like to post about interesting and intriguing science news when I hear it, as it is important to keep on top of current science as a science communicator. So, for today:

The first picture of a molecule has been released!

Scientist have taken a photo (sort-of) of a pentacene molecule. Its sort of a shady image, that looks like an x-ray.



Have a look at the article here at the UK Daily Mail.

They use a very fine point - a carbon monoxide molecule, to detect the molecule underneath. An image is created from the information that the tip gathers.

So it's not really a picture, as advertised. Its a computer image, but generated from the real molecule, not just from assumed molecular structures. Regardless, it is very cool to have advanced to this level. Technology has come so far, and this technique may be able to show us if we have other molecules exactly right. Who knows what we might discover?

This is what science is about: discoveries to further our knowledge of the wonderful world around us.