Nature // Current TV

Amazing! NASA Spacecraft Offers Detailed View of Saturn's Great White Spot

Los Angeles Times... NASA spacecraft offers detailed views of Saturn's Great... more

EthicalVegan
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11 months ago
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11 comments

Thomas Jefferson and the food revolution

Our freedom was just as much about agriculture in Colonial America as it is now part... more

JanforGore
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11 months ago
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21 comments

Could dirt help heal the climate?

Seems to me we are so busy looking backward, we forgot to look up to the sky and down... more

JanforGore
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11 months ago
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10 comments

Organization - International Union for Conservation of Nature

interesting group worth taking a look into what they up to

frankpatton
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11 months ago
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The tree shall swallow the cross

This tree at old Elitch Gardens in Denver has been growing around what I assume was... more

hoosierdaddy
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11 months ago
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Conservationists discover more than 1,000 species in New Guinea

Treasure trove of unknown varieties of animal, bird, fish, insect and plant have been... more

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11 months ago
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Chile court blocks Patagonia dam project

A Chilean court Monday ordered the suspension of a project to build a complex of giant... more

JanforGore
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11 months ago
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2 comments

Article: Nature to Get Legal Rights in Bolivia

If corporations why not trees - "In the United States, the idea of legal rights... more

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11 months ago
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Article: Emergency ‘Call to Action to Protect Earth’ by UN, Pope, Scientists and Indigenous

Following Bolivia’s passage of their domestic law “Recognizing Mother... more

frankpatton
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12 months ago
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World Oceans Day: Celebrating the source of all life on Earth

Today is World Oceans Day which is a day of celebrating the oceans of our planet and... more

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12 months ago
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13 comments

Edge Of Extinction - Ethiopian Wolf

One of the most endangered species in the world, the Ethiopian wolf is on the edge of... more

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12 months ago
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Thousands evacuate, ashes spread after Chilean volcano erupts

Parts of southern Chile remained on red alert and schools in some areas of neighboring... more

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12 months ago
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FermiLab's Mystery Signal Appears Real --Has It Discovered a New Force of Nature that will Revolutionize Our View of the Universe?

Physicists of the world are getting excited about the news of a possible particle... more

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12 months ago
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We want more science, said the American public || EarthSky

Image Credit: Paige Brown

Paige Brown is currently a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. She also holds an M.S. degree in biological and agricultural engineering from Louisiana State University, where she plans to return in 2012 to pursue an advanced degree in journalism. Paige is the author of the popular science blog From The Lab Bench hosted on Nature Network. Although a scientist by trade, she is a writer at heart.
Email: paigekbrown(at)go.wustl.edu
Twitter: (at)FromTheLabBench

Via nature.com From The Lab Bench
So what are we doing to bring the voices of scientists to the public? What are we doing to help scientists translate into simple language both the facts AND the uncertainties pertaining to their work? There is even more public trust in the scientific community, and more (~65 percent) public distrust in elected officials, than just five years ago, as determined by recent polls in Maryland. The American public trusts and wants scientists and medical experts to be advising our political representatives. With that great trust comes great responsibility. More scientists need to be reaching out to the American public, in transparent, plain English communication. And let’s face it, such outreach endeavor is not as easy as it sounds. It’s well known that good scientist does not equal good communicator. Laying aside egos and scientific jargon, let those of us better at and enthusiastic about communicating reach out to the people whom we are intended to be caring for with our medical research and advances in diagnostic technologies, the people who make much of our research possible in the first place.

In a time of reduced public exposure to science through our familiar newspapers and favorite news channels, where do scientists and science writers/journalists turn to in order to spread news of groundbreaking research and lessons on science education to the lay audience, to the American and International public? The answer increasingly involves the internet, websites, and social media, and requires some out-of-the-box thinking in order to spread credible information and promote public trust in the scientific community. Scientists’ and journalists’ joint efforts will be needed to help the pubic understand, as “hot” experimental data is tweeted across the country in seconds, that published results are not absolute truths which progress in a linear fashion toward the advancement of human health and climate change solutions, but instead are the working products of validation and continuous retesting of scientific hypotheses. The answer to public science education invites intimate collaborations between scientists and science writers/journalists, between scientists and TV producers, and asks scientists to become new voices in the larger community through forum discussion, writing, blogging, and tweeting efforts aimed at non-scientist audiences. Many universities are beginning to look towards the convergence of science and journalism degree programs, populated by writers who enjoy covering science and public health related issues, as well as scientists who realize they have passions and talents outside of the physical laboratory (the niche I currently find myself in).

I am very excited to be entering the realm of science journalism in such an era as we are now entering, already deep in the age of the Internet. The age of the human genome and now the epigenome, heritable patterns of gene expression governed by factors that affect access to the underlying DNA sequence. The age of Twitter and instantaneous spreading through social media and the blogosphere of not just hot-off-the-press, but increasingly hot-out-of-the-lab research.

Yet there are problems associated with the way science news coverage, and indeed perhaps all news coverage, is changing. As the spreading of news through mass media grows in sophistication with the advent of blogs and tweets, the risks of information distortion and widespread promulgation of misinformation also increase. Scientists and science writers, bloggers and tweeters alike have a responsibility to clearly delineate what we know and what we DON’T know according to current scientific knowledge in all fields of study (Gardiner Harris, reporter, The New York Times). People tend to “cluster around anomalies” in public health findings (Mr. Kevin Klose, dean, Philip Merrill School of Journalism, University of Maryland), for example spreading a report showing marked absence of lung cancer or related diseases in individual life-long smokers, or a report of reasons why climate change is nonexistent. The lightning-fast spread of both fact and opinion over the internet makes this “anomaly effect” even more of an issue for members of the scientific and medical communities who want and need the public to recognize widely accepted scientific truths, for the sake of our health and our environment.(Tell it sister...more from this Scientist/Journalist at link!)Image Credit: Paige Brown Paige Brown is currently a Ph.D. student in biomedical... more

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12 months ago
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3 comments

Nature and Beauty

Nature has created beauty i.e. woman and it is because nature is the most beautiful... more

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12 months ago
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Should We Be Testing Weapons of War on Animals?

A report in the British Daily Mail last year focused on how military scientists test... more

AngelAlina
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12 months ago
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The Animals are Outside Today

“Animals are Outside Today” is a fascinating collection of photographs by the Chicago photographer Colleen Plumb. Plumb’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography; the Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago; and the Beijing Natural Cultural Center in China. Her photographs are part of the Midwest Photographers Project at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Chicago Project at Catherine Edelman Gallery. Recent exhibitions have included shows at the Jen Bekman Gallery in New York City; group shows at Santa Monica Art Studios, California; Humble Arts Foundation, New York City; Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago; Chicago Cultural Center; and the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington D.C.

Plumb describes “Animals Are Outside Today” as a visual journey offering us the chance to contemplate our intersections with animals and to consider the multi-layered impact that humans have on other living beings. According to Plumb, “Contradictions define our relationships with animals. We love and admire them; we are entertained and fascinated by them; we take our children to watch and learn about them. Animals are embedded within core human history, evident in our stories, rituals and symbols. At the same time, we eat, wear and cage them with seeming indifference, consuming them, and their images, in countless ways.”

Our relationships with animals today are often developed through assimilation and appropriation; we absorb them into our lives, yet no longer know of their origin. Most people are cut off from the steps involved in their processing or acquisition, shielded from witnessing their death or decay. This series of photographs moves within and between these contradictions, questioning whether the notion of the sacred and primal connection to Nature that animals convey and inspire will survive alongside our evolution.

This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a photo-gallery and a documentary short film.

http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/the-animals-are-outside-today/“Animals are Outside Today” is a fascinating collection of photographs by... more

disembedded
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12 months ago
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A Day With The Horses

S_H_Photography
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1 year ago
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Cheeky Baby In Action – Go Baby, Go!!

Baby is always funny and sweet. They makes love stronger, days shorter, nights longer,... more

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1 year ago
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4 comments

The Milky Way over the desert in Utah: pictures by Bret Webster (13Pics)

singhbharti
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1 year ago
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4 comments

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