Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:42 — 2.2MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS | More

I interviewed Diana Barbosa about COMCEPT, a Portuguese skeptics community.

Diana told me about events they will be at over the next two weeks. However, the full episode is scheduled for June 1st.

So I cut together a brief intro into COMCEPT and promo for two events!

For Saturday afternoon, May 5th, COMCEPT is invited to talk about their book ‘Não Se Deixe Enganar’ (Don’t fool yourself), a guide to skepticism, as well as other books and science communication at the livraria barata.

On May 12th, COMCEPT will have their monthly meeting. These meetings alternate between Lisbon and Porto. Diana was excited to announce that their guest this month, in Porto, will be João Júlio Cerqueira, the creator of the SciMed blog about scientifically supported medicine.

excitement makes our sciences accessible!

Lisa is a paleontologist from Canada, and was awarded a PhD in Biological Sciences by the University of Alberta. She currently runs a museum and research center for a non-profit organization. In this role she manages fossil collections (caring and advocating for British Columbia’s fossil heritage). But she also conducts her own research within the research center, in particular on fossilized tracks and traces (‘ichnology’) from birds of the ‘Early Cretaceous’ era (145-99 million year old).

(more…)

Guest Host: Hugo Bettencourt

“We face a dilemma in conveying the scientific process to the public, and even within academia: Real science doesn’t fit the elements of effective storytelling.”

Dennis had been vocal on topics surrounding academia, science and pseudoscience on social media for several years. Thus, he readily volunteered to co-organize the March for Science in Lisbon, in 2017. He wants to disseminate the understanding of science, humanities and academia by the public, but also systemic changes within academia.

(more…)

“I believe that science literacy is one of the most important determinants of sound public and political decisions. I also believe that public awareness of certain scientific fact can improve our relationship with and behavior towards nature, health, and the justice system.”

Jens is a PhD from Germany, who works at Florida State University as a research associate. He studies the neuroscience behind psychopathy and aggression. As a supporter of science communication, he co-founded the German language edition of ‘@realscientist‘, called ‘@realsci_DE‘, a rotating curation project, showcasing scientists on twitter.

(more…)

We wish everybody best of luck and success and a wonderful time at their local March for Science, today!

We are not having a march in Portugal, but I want to share with you a video we took of the rally following the march, last year.

It’s in Portuguese, of course 😉

cheers!

João Cão is a cultural activist and PhD student in Philosophy of Science. He studies social participation in scientific research, using the mediation of a citizen science project as his field work. This cooperative research of the coast line of the Tagus’ Estuary brings together geologists and the inhabitants of a self-built neighborhood. During his curation he wants to take a critical approach to social progress in science.

Before he got into citizen science, João left a neurochemistry lab to do European volunteer service with socio- cultural animation in Prague. He also worked in science communication for a while. He is keen on meeting people from other cultures, and is an active member of hospitality exchange. He is also a comic book nerd.

Jon is a paleontologist, originally from Leicester in the UK. In 2017, he received a PhD for his award-winning thesis work on dinosaurs, crocodiles and other animals, from the Imperial College London. He published scientific articles on the impact of environmental change on biodiversity and extinction in the fossil record, as well as the early evolution of the ancestors of crocodiles.

Jon is passionate about open science, and published articles on Open Access and Peer Review. For the last 7 years, he has been challenging the status quo in scholarly communication and publishing, and became the Communications Director of ScienceOpen for two years in 2015. He is currently building an Open Science MOOC to help train the next generation of researchers in open scholarly practices. Furthermore he is leading the development of the Foundations for Open Scholarship Strategy document, and is the founder of the digital publishing platform paleorXiv.

Jon is also an ambassador for ASAPbio, Figshare, and the Center for Open Science, a scientific advisor for Guaana and ScienceMatters, a Mozilla Open Leadership mentor, and the co-runner of the Berlin Open Science meetup. He is also a freelance science communicator and consultant, and has written a kids book called Excavate Dinosaurs, complete with pop-out DIY dinos. He has just won an Open Science travel award with IGDORE to work on Open Science in Bali, and is also Executive Editor of the newly launched Open Access journal, Geoscience Communication.

“The population says, ‘this external funding lowers the trust in science!’ “ – Tanja Gabriele Baudson

“I think our task as citizens and as people interested in science, and in truth, and in freedom, [is] to prevent that something like what happened in the United States is going to happen in Germany aswell.” – Claus Martin

Mark the date! The March for Science 2018 is on April 14th! Last year, the March for Science in Germany was the largest (in terms of number of marches) outside the USA. Dr. Tanja Gabriele Baudson, giftedness researcher and visiting professor at the University of Luxemburg, and Claus Martin, a director and composer from Mühlheim, brought local organizer teams together, and coordinated them! In our first external interview, the two describe how they decided to take the initiative. We also cover what they identified as the issue underlying the spread of anti-science sentiments in Germany: a lack of trust in science in the population due to the influence of third party funding. And finally we talk about activities planned for this year’s March for Science in Germany.

further information

(more…)

“How was I supposed to explain what I study to my mother, who went to a vocational school and didn’t even have a clear idea what a molecule, a cell, or DNA actually is?”

Stephanie Kainrath is a molecular biologist who is working on her PhD at the Institute of Science and Technology, in Austria. She wants to spend her life learning new things, and a PhD seemed like the perfect opportunity to turn learning and discovery into a full-time job.

Stephanie is particularly passionate about communicating science to lay audiences. She has no other scientists or academics in her family. Thus, it’s a necessity to her to be able to explain her work in simple terms. She realized that science communication reaches its limits where primary education had already failed.

We are constantly bombarded with ‘facts’ and have to decide whether they are true or not. In order to deal with this situation, people need a basic grasp of the sciences. This is why Stephanie tries to give lay people a better idea of what our world is made of and how it works. Stephanie used to spend a lot of time, for example, on social media arguing with people who don’t ‘believe’ in the existence of antibodies, viruses, or even infectious diseases. Her goal wasn’t primarily to change the minds of these people. More importantly, she challenged these misguided believes publicly, to convince silent readers of the scientific evidence.

On @SfProcur, Stephanie will discuss the necessity and impact of early science education, and how ‘science outreach’ could actually reach those who aren’t already interested in science. She doesn’t have a solution to these problems, but wants to identify the core problems.

Stephanie believes that lay audiences without a scientific background, need to be reached, most of all. Thus, she wants to motivate other scientists to do science communication as part of their daily lives. More scientists should feel encouraged to explain their work to people without a background in science.

background

(more…)

“Scientists, make yourself visible, audible, and approachable!”

Lars (@Dittrich_Lars) is a German neuroscientist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease. There he studies links between sleep and ‘prion diseases’, that include, for example, ‘mad cow disease’. He uses his Facebook site “Lars und die Welt”, as well as his youtube channel to share his passion for mind-blowing secrets of nature, and to inform about cognitive biases. He is concerned that so many people fall victim to their own cognitive biases. Lars is convinced, that everybody can learn to avoid many such mistakes by learning to think scientifically

Lars is also concerned about the public view of animal research. A majority of people seems convinced animal research could (and should) be abandoned without loss. The reason for this lack of understanding stems from a lack of communication from research scientists in the past. To change this situation, Lars joined Pro-Test Deutschland e.V., a small group of professionals in animal research who are determined to speak up and inform.

Lars takes part at science communication competitions such as ‘Science Slam’ and ‘FameLab’. He also appeared in ‘Bill Nye Meets Science Twitter’, a short segment at the end of each ‘Bill Nye Saves The World’ episode.

Update March 15, 2018: Lars just won 2nd place at the FameLab Germany SciComm competition, and received the prize for the audience’ favorite performance! Congratulations!

background

(more…)