Rewritten by machine and new technology

Bonus points if you know why this picture is here

     We now return to your regularly scheduled program of topics being discussed in the graduate seminar titled "Effective communication of science to the public". This week we are approaching the topic of science presented on that old thing that kids today don't even recognize: the radio.

     Listening to three selections of radio science made me realize how variable this medium can be. The first clip, about stem cells, was aired on my favorite radio science program, Science Friday. The speaker does a nice job avoiding the treacherous jargon of the field and distills the message down to its essential components. In doing so, he covers important background information for the topic (what are stem cells?), interprets recent findings, discusses the consequences of these findings, how it all applies to our lives, and where the field will be going in the future. This includes everything the mildly curious listener would want to hear without childlike over-simplification or unwarranted over-intellectualization.

     The second piece about the potential dangers of plastics, was decidedly less scientific and more focused on policy. Presenting scientific findings as tenuous conclusions is important (if only my students would appreciate that!), as misinterpretation of extremes (plastic is ALL GOOD or ALL BAD) is one of the major problems scientists have to deal with when communicating to the public. I was puzzled by the fact that the conclusions were tempered by the fact that rat and mouse models were used for the research. I was under the impression that most of the pharmaceutical, developmental, and disease research relevant to human health was conducted with these rodent models.

     The final segment dealt with ice, and was about as exciting as it sounds. An author about the wonderful world of ice was incredibly boring, poorly prepared, and didn't even seem to be an authority on the subject. Her professorial counterpart was distracting and committed the crime of talking down to his audience. I felt insulted by the simplicity of his metaphors, which may have been due to the fact that the subject is not too complex to begin with. When I listen to science shows on the radio, I don't need to hear about how much people think ice is pretty or fun to touch. Very atypical of my normal behavior, I turned off this clip before it even finished.

Some brief notes on the topic of radio science presented in an interesting book:

- The challenges of effective communication via radio are also present when delivering a talk at a professional meeting or presenting a lecture to students

- I'm not sure if every researcher would have interesting sounds to fill in the background. What would yours be?

- I think the reason that most scientists need this kind of advice in the first place is because we are trained to remove excessive description from our writing. Plus, too many of us are left-brained thinkers, who are inept when it comes to poetic things like using imagery or metaphors that evoke the senses. Bah!