Science Chat 1 (02/05/2014) – Recap

Our first #Sciencechat was an outstanding success. Special thanks to Experiment who hosted the event from their handle @lets_experiment.

There were over 2K Tweets with the hashtag #sciencechat on this night. Special thanks to @brianglanz for crafting up some quick data on the chat participation.

3,483,453 Impacts

839,330 Reach

555 Contributors

250 Links & pictures

#1 Trending topic on Twitter for the night

 

Below are the members of our experts panel, this could not have happened with out them. Once again, many thanks! More to come..

 

Elizabeth Iorns

Elizabth is an Australian scientist, entrepreneur and researcher, and the founder and CEO of Science Exchange(@ScienceExchange) a Silicon Valley start-up which operates a platform to allow scientists to outsource their research to scientific institutions such as university facilities or commercial contract research organizations. She tweets @elizabethiorns

Brian Glanz

Brian founded and directs the Open Science Federation, and is the Director of Technology for SciFund Challenge. Brian herds the open source cats who make it work for SciFund and through OSF, hundreds of other science blogs, sites, and networks. He tweets @brianglanz and with the other cats @openscience.

Ethan Perlstein

Ethan spent five years creating a sub-field of research that he calls evolutionary pharmacology. He is now an entrepreneur as founder and CEO of PerlsteinLab(@PerlsteinLab) and an aspiring orphan drug discoverer/indie scientist. He shares his wisdom @eperlste

Unidan (Ben Eisenkop)

Ben is a biologist who is known for providing pertinent scientific information in Reddit threads regarding biology or ecology, often introducing himself with the declaration “biologist here!” He is so popular users created a subreddit dedicated to him! He Tweets @UnidanBiology

Naveen Jain

Naveen is an entrepreneur and CEO of SparkArt as well as CMO and co-founder of the “Immunity Project” developing the first free HIV/Aids vaccine in the world. Catch him @NaveenSpark

Benjamin Higginbotham

Ben is Video Admin at SpaceX and Executive Producer of SpaceVidCast a live weeklyHD video podcast making Space Commonplace. Talk space with him @bencredible or @Spacevidcast

David Shiffman

David is a shark scientist based out of Miami. His time is divided between educating the public about sharks, spending days at a time at sea playing with sharks, and eating horribly unhealthy foods. Ask him sharks questions @WhySharksMatter

Adam Taylor

Adam Taylor teaches biology, zoology, and physical science at John Overton High School in Nashville TN. He loves using instructional technology to engage students. Adam is also the lead coordinator for Teachmeet Nashville & founder of SciStuChat a monthly Twitter chat between scientist and highschool students. You can reach him at @2footgiraffe

Tricia Shelton

Tricia is a NSTA Distinguished Teacher Award Winner and part of the NGSS Implementation team. Her mission is to provide opportunities for students to communicate beyond the classroom walls – encouraging students to think and act like scientists. She Tweets @TdiShelton

Peter Binfield

Pete has worked in the academic publishing world for almost 20 years. Since gaining a PhD in Optical Physics, he has held positions at Institute of Physics, Kluwer Academic, Springer, SAGE and most recently the Public Library of Science (PLoS). At PLoS he ran PLoS ONE, and developed it into the largest and most innovative journal in the world. He is passionate about academic publishing and believes that publishing needs to be in service to the academic community to best facilitate the rapid and broad dissemination of research findings. @p_binfield

Chris Gunter

Chris is a Geneticist & master science communicator. She is founder of Girl Scientist Consulting Services providing science editing at all levels, social media and communications. She assists authors with submissions and revisions as well as press preparation. She is holds various posts for Genome Research, American Society of Human Genetics and Double X Science.  @girlscientist

Science Chat

Sciencechat starts with the premise that science is intrinsically fun.

We should communicate it as such. There is no reason for science not to be fun. There should be room in the discourse of science for it to appeal to all kinds of audiences. Our future is highly dependent on attracting the brightest minds of our generation to science. Kids need to have the ability to get involved in scientific endeavors from an early age. Many people have worked on this in recent years but there is still more that could be done.

As our scientific knowledge has grown, its nomenclature has become ever more complex. A disconnect between the general public and the scientific community has formed. The feeling of awe and mutual discovery as a society feels ever more distant.

However, we are fortunate enough to live in an era where the internet and technology have opened up exciting new avenues for collaboration. With them, they have brought an ever more existent tendency to democratize knowledge. The scientific community has been slow to adapt to these changes as a whole but there are pockets of scientists who have showed us that it is possible to spark a movement towards a more open and accessible scientific community.

It is with openness and collaboration that we can begin to make science “cool” again. It has been interesting to see the popularization of science by media “Myth Busters” and  “Bill Nuy the Science Guy” come to mind. Similarily, personalities like “Elon Musk” and “Neil Degrass Tyson” have played their part in inspiring a new generation of science enthusiast.

While many may conclude that this degrades the integrity and professionalism of science. We must realize the tremendous consequences that not adopting a more welcoming tone to our scientific communication might bring about. Scientists and engineers have always been the backbone of innovation. Without them progress becomes magnitudes more difficult. Democratizing science and communicating science more effectively will play a large role in whether our biggest and brightest minds choose to pursue science and in turn propel progress for our society as a whole.

It is clear that reforms must be made. Policy level decisions that both directly and indirectly affect much of the scientific process are in dire need of change. Likewise, it is encouraging to see entrepreneurs and scientists taking the lead. There is an incredibly vibrant and energetic community of people who will not wait for the slow drudgery of policy to change its ways. Instead many are taking matters into their own hands and coming up with some remarkable innovations. It is my hope that Sciencechat can play a small role in helping these innovators and the larger scientific community connect and collaborate.

At the end of the day, if sciencechat can make science just little bit more “cool” I think it has served a noble purpose.