In July 2013, a 21-year-old man died of leukaemia in the Spanish city of Valencia. Mario chose to dismiss his doctor’s advice, turned to a so-called expert in 'natural and orthomolecular medicine' and abandoned chemotherapy, choosing instead to fight his illness with alternative medicine. Mario was not, as some might conclude, an uneducated young man who did not know better. He was studying to become a physicist, but even this background did not prevent his believing a charlatan's claims. Tragedies like this beg the question: What can journalism do to better encourage trust in scientific evidence? The 4th European Conference for Science Journalists held on 26 to 30 June 2017 aimed to answer such questions in a series of sessions that examine the roles of policymakers, citizens, scientists, and science journalists in making scientific facts great again. Read more [...]
Five years ago, the World Economic Forum declared that the spread of misinformation through social media was one of the greatest global risks to our future and prosperity. At that time, the future scale of the threat was still unclear, even to media experts. However, for anybody with the slightest doubt about how rapidly social networks are changing news consumption and its effects, last year was eye-opening and overwhelming. Misinformation and fake news have influenced every major voting process and strengthened science-denial movements — consider how ubiquitous anti-vaccine and climate change scepticism propaganda is. But what are the consequences and the remedies to this? On the 29th of June, this and other questions are the subject of discussion in the 'Science journalism in a post-truth world’ session of the 4th European Conference for Science Journalists (ECSJ2017). Read more [...]
On 22nd April 2017, scientists will march through the streets of cities across the world. This will be a unique opportunity for our community to explain their work to the public and outline how scientific research affects lay people. But how do you condense years of research into a compelling, accessible story? EuroScientist has some tips. Read more [...]
Thanks to YouTube it’s never been easier – or more entertaining – to learn about science. The EuroScientist team has browsed some of YouTube’s most popular and emerging science channels to bring you a list of our their ten favourites. This list is by no means exhaustive, so feel free to share your favourites in the comment box below! Read more [...]
Science communication cannot simply be scientists lecturing from a soapbox using graphs, statistics, and facts, but sharing facts and data isn’t the same as connecting with people. Read more [...]
NuitDebout (Standing Night) is an occupation of the République square that gathers hundreds to thousands of people each day. #SciencesDebout is an initiative from a few scientists who took a felt and a cardboard and wrote “I’m a physicist/historian/anything, ask me your questions!”. Read more [...]
There is an increase in popularity of Anglo-Saxon films and TV series featuring many kinds of scientists. In an opinion piece Kevin Grazier and Stephen Cass, authors of a recently published book on the topic, called Hollyweird Science, explain how Hollywood and major TV series representing scientists have come a long way. Scientists have never been portrayed more positively. Read more [...]
Noa Haim is a designer and an architect based in The Netherlands. She is the founder of the Collective Paper Aesthetics initiative, to create participatory construction toys. Her idea is to let anybody become a designer, thanks to simple shapes that can be assembled at will. In this opinion piece she reveals her philosophy at the interface between science and art. She shows how anybody can become an designer with no prior training—perhaps one of the best introduction to engineering and architecture the next generation could have. Read more [...]
Portraying the lives of famous scientists for the big screen is a challenge very few directors manage without tweaking the truth for dramatic effect. Is such creative license justified by the need to convey the achievements of illustrious minds to those unfamiliar with science? Find out in this EuroScientist article exploring the mysteries of Hollywood. Read more [...]
Could using naked boobs help attract people's attention to science? The Tumblr blog Boobs for Science has just proved it’s no joke. It asks volunteers to send photos of themselves naked or wearing underwear, attaching a scientific statement of their choice. Some pictures are then published together with a concise scientific explanation on the chosen topic. The initiative was born in Italy, where the parent blog Tette per la Scienza has already made a splash and the Facebook page has gathered more than 20,000 fans since late October 2014. Read more [...]
How did we get involved in such an ambitious European project as RRI Tools? It all started when we were first approached by the European network of science centres and museums, Ecsite, to participate to a tender over a call pertaining to the production and use of a training and dissemination toolkit on responsible research and innovation. Read more [...]
Science is more politicised than ever. And its communication, in an increasingly diverse media environment, has become highly complex, often relying on dozens of experts in a single institution alone. As a result, science communicators need new management qualifications such as governance and controlling, public affairs and crisis management, risk communication and public engagement. It is about time that science communication training programmes catch up with the new science context. This is why, in September 2014, the first students will attend the newly launched undergraduate course in Science Communication at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (RWU), in Kleve, Germany. Read more [...]
European science conversations by the community, for the community
