Science Communication Review

FBD Insurance predicts fusion, bets it will go horribly wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:05:00 +0000

I love it when hard science shows up in the weirdest and most unpredictable places. So I was delighted to read the updated "radioactivity exclusion" clause FBD insurance have added into my home insurance policy and that they sent me earlier today.

They must know something the rest of us don't if they've gone to the bother of excluding damage caused by:

"any weapon or device employing atomic or nuclear fission and/or fusion".

In south county Dublin? Those scientists at ITER must be working harder than we thought...

RTÉ's science TV plans

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

There's a lively discussion about RTÉ's science TV plans over on The Frog Blog.

There are some great ideas in the growing comments thread on the site already - and here at Agtel we'll definitely be submitting a few of our own ideas to RTÉ ahead of the deadline at the end of the month. If you've any ideas that you'd like to discuss with me yourself then feel free to send me an e-mail at diarmaid.mac@agtel.ie...

Dublin City of Science 2012 call for ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The Dublin City of Science 2012 call for ideas for its Public Engagement Programme was launched this morning by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mr. Richard Bruton T.D.

It's a great opportunity for all of us involved in science communication...

The full press release is below and
more details are on the dublinscience2012.ie website at http://www.dublinscience2012.ie/pep

Press Release:

Bruton seeks bright ideas for Dublin City of Science 2012

Minister launches call for proposals for prestigious event to showcase Irish expertise and creativity

6 April 2011

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mr. Richard Bruton T.D., today [Wednesday] announced a call for proposals for the Dublin City of Science programme of events in 2012.

‘Rebuilding Ireland’s international reputation for excellence in science and technology will be crucial to achieving growth and getting people back to work. I am developing a plan to put science, technology and innovation at the centre our growth and jobs policies. Part of this will involve showing to the world that we are a creative, innovative, scientific nation.

‘Dublin City of Science 2012, a highly prestigious event which was won in the face of stiff competition, offers a perfect opportunity to show the world what we can do. I think we should all get involved in this programme and help promote Ireland to the world as a centre of innovation and creativity in science and technology,’ the Minister said speaking at the launch.

The call, which will remain open until 30 June 2011, is seeking proposals for a year-long programme of events to engage the citizens of the island of Ireland in science. It is hoped to devise a programme of events that will demonstrate the reach of science into almost every aspect of our lives - education, business, the arts, sports and our communities.

Partnerships will also be sought with organisations and individuals who wish to develop events that will encourage the public to engage with science.

Dublin City of Science 2012 will showcase Irish expertise and creativity that will firmly place Ireland on the map for science excellence.

Speaking at the launch, Professor Patrick Cunningham, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government said that: ‘the primary purpose of this call is to identify events that creatively engage with science and the public.

‘This could be by way of promoting an existing event, activity or idea. It could be something completely new, something you’d like to develop within your own organisation or institution, or in partnership with others. I would welcome activities in any format, indoor or outdoor, through the medium of theatre, film, exhibitions, workshops, debates, interactive dialogues, online events, the list is endless,’ Prof. Cunningham concluded.

Also at the launch today was the Dublin City of Science 2012 Project Director, Mr. David Fahy. He highlighted the importance to include events from a wide and varied reach.

‘While it is Dublin that is the City of Science, it is central to us that a programme is developed that stretches to include the whole island of Ireland.

‘I would urge those with an interest in science and technology and their impact on art, literature, music, sport, communities, the economy, society in general to submit proposals, Mr. Fahy concluded.
The call is available at www.dublinscience2012.ie/pep

See Ernest Walton's Nobel medal first hand!

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:34:00 +0000

Just got word of this really interesting looking exhibition in Trinity's Long Room featuring Ernest Walton's Nobel medal. Here's an edited version of the press release...

TCD Exhibition Celebrates Nobel Laureate Dr Ernest Walton

Dublin, Wednesday, November 3^rd, 2010 – Physicist and Nobel Laureate Ernest Walton is remembered in an exhibition which opens this week in the Long Room in Trinity College Dublin where his Nobel citation and medal along with personal and academic papers donated to Trinity will be on display for the first time.

Ernest Walton (1903-1995) was born in Dungarvan in County Waterford and was educated at the Methodist College in Belfast and entered Trinity College Dublin in 1922. He became a Scholar in 1923 and graduated in mathematics and physics in 1926. After a year’s postgraduate work in TCD, Walton went to study in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge under the Nobel prize-winner Lord Ernest Rutherford. Working with John Cockcroft, he successfully split the nucleus of an atom in April 1932. They were subsequently jointly awarded the Nobel prize in 1951 for “their pioneering work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles”.

Provost Dr John Hegarty said that Trinity was deeply proud of its unique and lifelong association with one of Ireland’s greatest scientists.

‘The next two years mark significant anniversaries in relation to Ernest Walton and Science. 2011 will be the 60th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize to Ernest Walton and John Cockroft; 2012 will be the 80th anniversary of the seminal experiment by Cockroft and Walton in Cambridge which earned them the Nobel Prize. In 2012 Dublin will have the honour of being the European City of Science, an honour that Ernest as a champion of science education would be justly proud. The coincidence of all of these dates makes it very timely to begin a series of events to commemorate Ernest Walton, the scientist, the academic, and the proud Irishman.”

The exhibition will run from November to February 18th, 2011 in the Long Room, the Old Library, Trinity College.

Web video boom shown with cool graphics

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:33:00 +0000

Image Sources: Cisco estimates based on
CAIDA publications, Andrew Odlyzko
via Gizmodo via Wired

Video is taking over the web - but by how much exactly? This great infographic sums it up - that pink triangle on the right is the proportion of US internet traffic that's all online video. And the graphic shows how it's boomed since the year 2000.

One of the things I've noticed working at video production company Agtel is just how much people expect web video to be central on websites these days. Enterprise Ireland have just launched their new website and lots of high quality videos (produced by Agtel, by the way!) covering innovation and business are right there up front.

I'm a big fan of data visualisation techniques that show information we kind of know in a new and interesting way - for example, the US satellite images that showed the housing boom in Ireland as seen from space were really impressive.

Gizmodo updated their original story to include this extra bonus graph from Mr. Beschizza of BoingBoing too - basically because the diagram above is all above the proportion of web traffic that's video etc. but the actual amount of web traffic has shot up too. Maybe this would all make even more sense through 3D glasses?

"CSI Dublin" revealed in Sandyford Industrial Estate

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:04:00 +0000

[Picture credit: Kobukson via Gizmodo]

I've just read a really interesting report about Microsoft's CSI-style forensics lab - and it's right here in Dublin.

Why would a software company need a forensics lab I hear you ask? Well, to beat dodgy counterfeiters of course. They're using advanced microscopy techniques to analyse fake software CDs and trace them back to the counterfeiters. Pretty cool, eh? Here's more detail on it:

At a crime lab in Dublin, Microsoft's Donal Keating uses a custom-built microscope to take 72 high-resolution images of a counterfeit software disc. Just as police use ballistics to match bullets to a suspect's gun, Keating, the company's senior forensics manager, will use the abrasions and grooves on the stacking ring, a raised ridge around the disc's center, to match it to other fakes. He'll then try to trace the counterfeit disc to the factory and the crime syndicate that produced it.

It's always great when Irish scientific and technology stories show up in surprising places - this story was first published in US Magazine Bloomberg Businessweek and then picked up by tech news site Gizmodo.

Astronauts thrown from helicopter (Spoiler: they knew it was going to happen)

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:10:00 +0000

I always thought that being an astronaut was meant to be fun... but it turns out that's not always the case. Unless you like being thrown out of a helicopter, that is.

The latest European Space Agency (ESA) recruits got a bit more than they bargained for when they were forced off a helicopter into the sea as part of their survival training. But it's not the kind of survival they'll be expected to do if they crash land on Mars - foraging for food there is not expected to be a very successful activity apparently. And there's no sea there either. Nope, it's more about what to do if they crash land coming back to earth and there's no McDonald's (or Supermacs for that matter) in sight.

See the ESA site for more insight into how these poor astronauts survived their summer holiday from hell...

Wow! Now that's a cool sunrise photo!

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:20:00 +0000

The guys on the International Space Station have a great view - and one of the perks of the job is the 16 sunrises they get to see everyday. This has got to be one of the coolest photos of one of them...

It was taken by astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock and he posted it up on Twitpic (and I saw it up on Gizmodo). He's since posted this even more amazing one of the "Southern Lights" up on Twitpic as well... not a bad way to show some scientific stuff in an interesting way!

Irish science communicators take over web

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:05:00 +0000

There's a great buzz around science communication in Ireland these days and it can be hard to keep up with everything. It's even hard to keep up with the on-line resources aimed at making it easier to keep up with everything.

LinkedIn is fast becoming a focus for active discussions and information sharing on a whole range of topics, and a new group has been set up on LinkedIn called "Science Communicators Ireland" that will help us all keep in touch with what's going on - including Irish funding opportunties from the Institute of Physics and the Wellcome Trust.

Between this group and the active Communicating STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Maths) forum and even the Facebook page for DCU Science Communication MSc people, it does feel like we're taking over the web. It's great that there's so much going on on-line, and all this means there's no better time for the 2010 Communicating STEM Conference which will take place in Armagh Planetarium on May 13th 2010 - the theme is "Communicating STEM - Make it Happen" - you can register on-line now.

Taoiseach shows Agtel video at Innovation event

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:34:00 +0000

I was delighted to be involved with the launch of the Innovation Taskforce report - and the video we produced for the event was a central part of An Taoiseach Brian Cowen's speech.

It features lots of interviews with the taskforce members and it was great to interview them and hear their opinions first hand. The important role of innovative science and technology startups is one of the key messages that comes across as well as the role of R&D by multinationals.

An opinion piece in the Irish Independent on Friday, 12 March 2010 gave the production a nice mention too:

"There was even a slick PR video, which had executives from companies like Facebook and Bell Laboratories saying nice things about what a great place Ireland was to do business in."

The video is now up on the Innovation Taskforce section of the Department of the Taoiseach's website ...

EU e-Skills Week and Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Engineers Week has been a big success and has gotten lots of media attention - and it's interesting to hear that it won't be long before the next Irish event that will focus people's minds on careers in the STEM area...

EU e-Skills week in Ireland, from 1^st -5^th March [is] aimed at encouraging students to think about taking science/maths/technology subjects and to explore careers in ICT and also creating links with ICT organizations.

EU e-Skills Week -1^st -5^th March 2010

EU e-Skills Week highlights the growing demand for skilled ICT users and professionals to drive a competitive and innovative Europe. This exciting campaign seeks to inform students, young professionals and SMEs about the vast range of opportunities that ICT-related jobs present.

The launch event ‘Smart Futures’ will take place on 1^st March and we are looking for ICT professionals or Engineers who would be interested in attending to find out more about the ‘ICT Champions’ programme run by ICT Ireland and Engineers Ireland.
Details of EU e-Skills week - http://eskills-week.ec.europa.eu or contact katecannon@fit.ie for details of what is happening in Ireland.

Do Irish scientists need to fight climate change sceptics?

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:58:00 +0000

The climate change discussions in DCU on Friday were really interesting, and IPCC scientist John Sweeney's presentation was particularly thought provoking. He lifted the lid on the sometimes unsavoury working methods of the climate change sceptics who have been making the headlines recently - and issued a call to arms for scientists to get out and engage with their detractors before they lost they argument.

Coincidentally, Climategate is in the news in the Guardian again today, and the UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has issued a briefing note on “Climate Change: Engagement and Behaviour”. It makes for very interesting reading - including a critique of the mixed results of the communication campaigns run by the UK government.

Given the high profile role being played by UK climate secretary, Ed Miliband who featured in the Observer at the weekend, it'll be interesting to see what our own Green Party government ministers think of all this... Ministers John Gormley and Eamon Ryan have been been surprisingly quiet on these huge issues so far.

How do you tackle climate change sceptics?

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:56:00 +0000

I'm looking forward to the upcoming "Sustainability – where Science and Society meet" workshop in Dublin City University later this month on Friday, 29th January 2010.

I'm especially looking forward to the session by John Sweeney on "Communicating the science of climate change: tackling scepticism after Copenhagen". John is a professor at NUI Maynooth and a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - it'll be really interesting to hear what he thinks about Climategate and to get an insight into the behind the scenes negotiations at Copenhagen / Hopenhagen last December.

There are lots of other interesting talks too in this workshop organised by the DCU Celsius research group as you'll see from the list below...

Sustainability and interdisciplinarity (John Barry, Institute for a
Sustainable World, Queens University Belfast)

Ethical dimensions of sustainability (Donal O Mathuna, School of Nursing,
DCU)

Promoting sustainability research (Shane Colgan, Environmental Protection
Agency)

Sustainability as a philosophical standpoint (Fiachra O Brolchain, DCU and
Queens University)

Food systems and sustainable development (Ciara Aucoin, VOICE of Irish
Concern for the Environment)

Social sustainability: the case of wind energy (Hilary Tovey, Dept of
Sociology, Trinity College Dublin)

Climate change and sustainability (Owen Lewis, Sustainable Energy Ireland)

Renewable energy research (Stephen Daniels, School of Electronic
Engineering, DCU)

Communicating the science of climate change: tackling scepticism after
Copenhagen (John Sweeney, NUI-Maynooth)

Sustainability-proofing in prospective technology assessment (Padraig
Murphy, School of Communications, DCU)

Technology assessment – is consensus possible in a pluralist society?
(Massimiano Bucchi, University of Trento, Italy)

Ireland's housing boom as seen from space

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:27:00 +0000

Ireland's housing boom can be seen clearly in this very impressive visualisation based on satellite images which I came across the other day:

This image shows the change in surface lights in Ireland between 1992 and 2008 - and the growth of towns dotted all over Ireland can be seen clearly in red, as well as the expanding motorway network (especially on the east coast between Dublin and Drogheda).

According to the image's creator Chris Elvidge at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who has kindly given me permission to show it here...

The red and orange areas had large growth in lighting from 1992 to 2008. The black areas saturated the sensor in both years - no change in lighting can be detected. Gray - blue/gray areas had dim lighting detected in both years.

He goes on to explain that...

I made the image here using data from the DMSP archive. DMSP is the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. These satellite carry an instrument called the Operational Linescan System (OLS), which collects low light imaging data at night for the detection of moonlit clouds.

I first saw this image in the January 2010 issue of the BBC Sky at Night magazine where they were talking about mapping "dark sky" areas which would make good spots for star gazing. As one of the many people who got a telescope for Christmas I've been reading the magazine for hints and tips - not a bad way to round off the International Year of Astronomy. But one mystery remains - I can't quite understand how Ireland has been historically strong in astronomy given the amount of cloudy nights we have here!

Career paths for PhD graduates

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:19:00 +0000

There's a lot of discussion about the career paths open to Irish PhD graduates - with some commentators arguing that there isn't actually much of a "path" available at all with people being forced into negative feedback loops of short term PostDoc contracts.

That's why this report that's just been released on PhDs going into business and industry is particularly interesting. It's been put together by the Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (ACSTI) - and some of their headline recommendations seem to make a lot of sense...

Structured PhD programmes should embody the “Inverted T” shaped model whereby they develop PhD students’ understanding of the discipline as well as in-depth knowledge of research approaches, techniques and methods which are critical to the value of PhDs for enterprise.
A user-friendly, centralised system should be developed to allow employers or potential employers to access information on the number of PhD students in the pipeline and the broad theme of the research
Ireland should develop an Enterprise PhD programme building on the model of the DanishIndustrial PhD programme whereby an employee earns a PhD based on research relevant to their company.

These suggestions - if implemented - wouldn't change much for people who have a PhD already, but for those who are about to embark on the rollercoaster that is postgraduate research they might just make the whole thing that little bit more worthwhile...

What do you think? E-mail me or comment to let me know...

Climategate, Hopenhagen and the Meedja

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:43:00 +0000

With the "Hopenhagen" climate change summit in full swing, and our own Minister John Gormley now in Copenhagen, I've found it really interesting to go through some of the leaked "Climategate" e-mails on-line.

They make pretty compelling reading if you're into that kind of thing, and there's a really strong editorial in SciDev.Net about the "Lessons about science from 'Climategate'" by David Dickson (Director of SciDev.Net). He argues that:

"The hacked emails of climate researchers offer an opportunity to show how science is really done — instead of a rearguard defence of scientific 'objectivity'."

... and he says ...

"The media, too, must improve its understanding and description of science. It often demands a black-and-white picture of scientific evidence, rather than a more nuanced description based on the social nature of scientific inquiry. This undervalues the true robustness of the scientific process and undermines the strength of political decisions based on conclusions emerging from it."

Online science talks

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:58:00 +0000

It was great to film the Science Week 2009 lecture series for Discover Science & Engineering (DSE) this year - here's a trailer for them, and have a look at the DSE YouTube channel for the full length videos...

...and here's a summary about them too...

Science Week Lecture Series 2009
To celebrate Science Week 2009 Discover Science & Engineering (DSE), in association with the Science Gallery, brought together a group of lectures. They included Damini Kumar, European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation, Donagh O'Mahony from the Tyndall National Institute discussing the logistics of space exploration, Dr. Cian O Mathúna, a CLARITY Principal Investigator, talked about the world of sensors and finally a talk on behalf of Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) from UCD students on Energy the challenges and opportunities.

Tweeting about the Space Shuttle and ISS

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Amazing to see the space shuttle, the International Space Station, the moon and Jupiter all at once over Dublin today (Wednesday, 25 November 2009).

It was such a spectacular sight that as soon as I got back into the (warm) office I went on Twitter to see how other people were reacting - and it was equally amazing to see immediately what people in Strasbourg and London thought of the whole thing too. One person had even posted a photo they'd just taken (see above from "barnybug").

With people in the US only getting ready to view it, it was nice for Europe to be ahead of the game in space science for once!

It'd be really interesting as a visualisation to see a mash up of the tweets combined with geographic location of the people who were tweeting - maybe layered onto Google Earth. It'd be a bit like the "green wave" of Spring travelling across Europe, only you'd see a "space wave" of people tweeting as they saw the ISS and shuttle from across the globe.

Although some people were tweeting about seeing the ISS, the most surprising thing to me was how few people were actually doing it - I would've thought that this kind of event was perfect for tweeting. Plus when you search Twitter for "ISS" it's mostly people who've spelt the word "is" wrong that come up. There's a lesson for us all in there somewhere.

Space science in Irish schools

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:41:00 +0000

I'm just back from the launch of the ESA / Discover Science & Engineering "European Space Education Resource Office" in Ireland by Minister Conor Lenihan. It was familiar territory for the minister seeing as he was once a student in the school himself - and he did confess to having done a few unorthodox "flame thrower" experiments with the bunsen burner gas in the labs as a student! It was a really interesting event and there was even a snazzy scale model of the Herschel Space Observatory on show.

The aim of the European Space Education Resource Office is to use student's interest in space as a way to encourage them to study science in school - and to pursue science careers too. Talking to the students in Belvedere College themselves afterwards, it was very interesting to hear that the science message was being heard and that they knew they needed to do at least one science subject to get into many third level university courses.

Science in Schools
It's been a busy couple of days when it comes science education in Ireland - with the Science in Schools event yesterday in Engineers Ireland being really interesting too. And the lively discussion afterwards showed that there's no lack of passion in the whole area of science education. A couple of the "take home" messages from the discussion that struck me were:

(a) we need to coordinate the science activities that are directed at schools so that students and teachers aren't overwhelmed every September

and

(b) we should focus energy on the basics of scientific literacy and content knowledge among both students and teachers

What do you think of these suggestions? Are you involved with science education? E-mail me at diarmaid.mac@agtel.ie or comment on this post to let me know...

Big changes due in BBC science

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:11:00 +0000

BBC science programming has always been impressive and there'll be big changes next year with these staff changes reported in Broadcast today - it'll be interesting to see how this effects the commissioned programming especially on BBC 3...

BBC science head bows out after landmark series
12 November, 2009 | By Katherine Rushton
BBC head of science John Lynch is to step down at the end of this year, and will leave the BBC altogether in 2010 after delivering a major landmark series about the history of science.
Horizon editor Andrew Cohen will take over Lynch’s role and is looking to beef up BBC3 science in particular.
Lynch, who has headed the science unit for nearly a decade, has yet to decide his next move, but is likely to mix “passion projects” for television with writing books and other roles that “bring media and science to a better mutual understanding”.
He will remain with the BBC into the spring to executive produce the 6 x 60-minute BBC2 series Science Story.
“It looks at the great questions we’ve always asked - Who are we? Where do we come from? What’s out there? - and our changing attempts to answer them,” he said.
The series will air later in 2010 as part of the BBC’s ‘Year of Science’ and was ordered by science and natural history commissioner Kim Shillinglaw. Aiden Lafferty is the executive producer.
About his departure, Lynch added: “I feel like I have achieved a hell of a lot, but there comes a time when you have to say, ‘Ok, I’ve done my stint’. I feel that this is the right time for me to hand over the reins of a revitalised unit. Andrew has a clear, strategic vision for its future.”
Lynch’s tenure spanned the launch of CGI science formats such as Walking With Dinosaurs and the revival of the Tomorrow’s World-style science magazine show with Bang Goes The Theory.
Cohen has edited Horizon since 2005 and is credited with making the science strand more “relevant” to a mainstream audience and forging closer links between the BBC and the UK science community.
He told Broadcast he wants the unit’s output for BBC3 to match its provision for the other BBC channels, and to bring medicine “back to the main channels”. He also wants more physics and cosmology.
During 14 years in the science unit, Cohen has worked across Tomorrow’s World and blue chip landmarks such as Brain Story.

Upcoming science tv and new media festival

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:41:00 +0000

I'm looking forward to heading over to London on a red eye flight early on Monday morning (2 November 2009) to be on the jury for this year's EuroPAWS science tv & new media festival. The panel discussions look particularly interesting, and here's some background info on the event:

The Environment in European TV and New Media Festival 2009
2 November, 2009
The Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1

Screenings of TV Documentaries and Drama from across Europe, with panel led discussions geared to a teenage audience, but open to all.

Programmes are featured in the following categories:

Environmental science and technology in:

TV Documentaries and Drama
TV General Programming (i.e. magazines, politics shows, natural world etc) - an item in context or a complete programme
New Media Productions (including WEB, iPOD, Promotional Video etc)

The follow up Awards Ceremony will be happening soon too:

The Environment in TV and New Media Awards Evening 2009
On the theme:

LAST STOP BEFORE COPENHAGEN

Monday 23 November
at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Savoy Place, London WC2

Minister puts emphasis on "promoting science"

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:33:00 +0000

I'm just back from an SFI event announcing funding for "early career researchers" - it's great to see postdocs getting support so that they can start putting together their own independent research groups.

The comments by Minister Conor Lenihan were really interesting too - especially his emphasis on the importance of promoting science to "parents, citizens and taxpayers". He really put it up to all the people who'd just been awarded funding that they had to go out and "campaign" for science to encourage young people to study it - and for taxpayers to fund it.

Frank Gannon also made some very interesting points - and elaborated on his recent blog entry about the thought-provoking parallels between Irish science and Irish soccer.

For the background on today's announcement, here's an extract from the official press release:

“It is vital that we have in Ireland the mechanism to keep and attract to Ireland highly skilled, early-stage career researchers,” Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Mr Conor Lenihan T.D., said today (Tuesday, October 20^th, 2009) as he announced Government funding of €7.9million under a new Science Foundation Ireland initiative that will help 15 highly-talented researchers at an early stage in their profession to progress towards a fully independent academic research career.

Announcing the first SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG) awards, Minister Lenihan said “These 15 outstanding individuals are among the brightest working in Irish laboratories today, and SIRG provides them with the necessary support to enable the transition from team member to independent and accomplished innovator in their respective fields. It will also allow them to recruit 15 postgraduate students”.

[snip]
The 15 award recipients are based in the following seven Higher Education Institutions:

Tyndall National Institute, Cork (4 awards); Trinity College Dublin (4 awards); NUI Galway (3 awards); Dublin Institute of Technology (1 award); University College Cork (1 award); University College Dublin (1 award); and Waterford Institute of Technology (1 award).

Looking for Science in Society FP7 partners?

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:43:00 +0000

I really enjoyed the Science in Society FP7 brokerage event in Dublin yesterday (October 7, 2009) and it was great to hear the Irish success stories from previous calls.

Here at Agtel, we're delighted that media groups like ourselves feature so prominently among the types of organisations that are recommended for projects. We've a very strong track record in pan-European science communication and eLearning and we're very interested in teaming up with other partners and working on a project together.

If you're working on a proposal for the Science in Society FP7 work programme why not get in touch? The best way to contact me is by e-mail at diarmaid.mac@agtel.ie

And by way of background information here are some notes from my short presentation yesterday...

AGTEL RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

European Space Agency DVDs – Four-part series of educational science DVDs
Discover Science & Engineering –Awareness-raising media initiatives & Filming
Your Science Your Say –With Dublin City University, looking at ethical issues of nanotechnology
Plus audio-visual projects for the European Parliament, European Commission etc...

AGTEL CORE AREAS...

Science Communication
eLearning
TV programmes
Digital / Web
Video
Films

SELECTED OPPORTUNITIES

1.0-1 Mobilisation and Mutual Learning Actions
2.2.1-1 Teacher training on inquiry based teaching methods on a large scale in Europe
2.2.2-1 Reinforcing links between science education and S&T careers in the private sector through reinforcing the partnership industry/education
3.0.3-1 Science and the Arts: an experimental approach

AND HERE ARE SOME OF THE CONCEPTS WE'RE DEVELOPING...

eLearning with international video case studies

Teacher training and reaching parents with motivational video content

Career showcasing using filmed scenes and engaging stories

Interactive video narratives that unfold in real time in real places

If you're interested in having a chat about any of these ideas and/or your own projects just e-mail me at diarmaid.mac@agtel.ie...

Let's all go to Australia!

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:33:00 +0000

It's raining in Dublin this morning and so every Irish person's thoughts are naturally turning to emigrating to Australia... And the good news is there's a science communication conference you can go to there too - granted it's in December but still... at least the sun will be shining!

The World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP) will hold its 17th annual conference December 1-4, 2009, at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne. The most interesting thing for me about this conference is that they'll have plenty of discussion with some of the key protagonists behind the controversial documentary "The Link – Uncovering our Earliest Ancestor". Here's the preview from the website:

THE MISSING LINK: IDA COMES TO THE WCSFP IN MELBOURNE

Just announced for the 2009 Congress in Melbourne, delegates will meet the team behind this year's blockbuster, The Link – Uncovering our Earliest Ancestor. When the world was first introduced to IDA the fossil this past May the headlines screamed "extraordinary find is missing link in human evolution."

Following the news conference was the book, the website, the television program and then – controversially – the scientific paper. No documentary in history had such pre-launch publicity, and the phenomenal ratings on History Channel, BBC and ZDF reflected that impact. Nor has any documentary so blatantly preempted the accepted system of peer review in such science journals as Nature.

The man who masterminded the deal, CEO of Atlantic Productions and producer of the documentary Anthony Geffen, as well as the key scientists and broadcasters, will appear in Melbourne. The team will take delegates through all stages of the production, executed over two years under a tight blanket of secrecy, and will confront the critics who questioned whether the whole process was an incredible coup or incredible hype.

Well worth the trip I think! Especially if it keeps raining here in Dublin...

Nature launches online-only journal

noreply@blogger.com (Diarmaid) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:30:00 +0000

The Nature publishing team have just announced that they're making the leap into the world of online-only "Nature-branded" journals.

It'll be interesting to see how this news is received in the science world - especially with the talk of an "article processing charge" being one route to publication, and Creative Commons licensing being an option as well.

There is also some talk of "including interactive browsing and enhanced metadata" for readers, but I wonder if the interface will be as ambitious as Elsevier's recent "Article of the Future" initiative?

Nature Communications will be accepting submissions from October 2009 and the journal goes live online in April 2010. In the meantime, here are some of the most interesting points from the Nature press release:

Announcing Nature Communications — a multidisciplinary, online-only journal with an open-access option

Nature Communications will publish high-quality peer-reviewed research across the biological, chemical and physical sciences, and will be the first online-only Nature-branded journal.
“As a born-digital publication, Nature Communications will provide readers and authors with the benefits of enhanced web technologies alongside a rapid, yet rigorous, peer-review process.” says Sarah Greaves, Publisher of Nature Communications. “Nature Communications will offer authors high visibility for their papers on the nature.com platform, access to a broad readership and efficient peer review with fast publication. For readers, the journal will offer functionality including interactive browsing and enhanced metadata to enable sorting by keywords.”
To ensure Nature Communications responds to changes in journal publishing, authors will be able to publish their work either via the traditional subscription route, or as open access through payment of an article processing charge (APC).
Authors who choose the open-access option will be able to license their work under a Creative Commons license, including the option to allow derivative works. Authors who do not choose the open-access option will still enjoy all of the benefits of NPG’s self-archiving policy and manuscript deposition service.
The journal will begin accepting submissions in October 2009, with the first issue published online in April 2010. More detail, including pricing, will be available ahead of launch. Institutional subscriptions will be priced to reflect the uptake of the APC — demonstrating NPG’s continuing commitments to author service alongside flexible publishing models and quality customer service.
The Nature Communications editorial team will be based in NPG’s London office, and editorial enquiries should be sent to: natcomms@nature.com.