Tag: Science
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Digging for the roots of the deficit model
According to my twitter feed, the deficit model (also known as the knowledge or information deficit model of science communication or of public understanding of science) has been discussed yet again, this time during the 2017 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the midst of current soul searching about facts,…
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Something for nothing
This is a blog post about nothing in particular. It’s more a stream of thoughts and associations… But in the end I’ll be talking about Kepler and snowflakes and Pluto and its moon. Nix The other day I was talking to my sister. She asked in German whether I had an idea for my next…
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Hybrids and chimeras: Mythology, history and science
Last week two papers were published about human and other chimeras, one in Cell on ‘Interspecies chimerism with mammalian pluripotent stem cells’ and one in Nature entitled ‘Interspecies organogenesis generates autologous functional islets’. The first one caused a bit of a stir in the newspapers. About 70 newspaper articles covered this potential scientific breakthrough in All…
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Making Science Public: 2016 blog round-up
This has been a weird and momentous year. For me personally and, even more so, for the world. In June this year we celebrated the almost end of the Making Science Public programme, which I directed between 2012 and 2016. At the end of September I retired, after working for more than 25 years at the University…
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The Carbon Neutral Lab: Science, culture, values
This week we held our yearly Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC) Strategic Advisory Board Meeting. The meeting took place in the Carbon Neutral Laboratory which houses the Centre for Sustainable Chemistry. This building has become quite famous because it burned down last year, was rebuilt and opened this year. I should say from the outset…
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Crowdfunding Science
This is guest post by Mike S. Schäfer, Professor of Science Communication at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IPMZ) and Director of the Center for Higher Education and Science Studies at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. Heather Richards was short of $3000, and she could still not realize her research project. The…
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Molecular machines
As the BBC reported today: “The 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded for the development of the world’s smallest machines. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa will share the 8m kronor (£727,000) prize for the design and synthesis of machines on a molecular scale. They were named at a press conference…
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Radhika, Kim and the quantum cat: Graphic nanoscience
Some months ago I wrote a blog post about a physics project I am involved in here at the University of Nottingham, led by Professor Philip Moriarty which we call for short: 3D printing with atoms. I am engaged with the project as a social scientist interested in examining how such difficult research is being…
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Broken science, broken record?
The phrase ‘science is broken’ recently popped back into my head. I had read it quite often in the past, but in the context of current debates about the place of science in society I began to ask myself: What does this phrase actually mean? And why do people use it? ‘Science is broken’ To…
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Science, utility and responsibility
The value of science for society and the role of scientists in society has been debated for a long time (and in this context the word ‘science’ generally refers to the natural, physical, biological sciences). Just recently the topic has crept up on us yet again. Some have argued that, in the context of climate…
Making Science Public 