You are browsing the archive for science journalism Archives - Page 2 of 5 - The Plainspoken Scientist.
8 January 2019
The Science of Our Stories: How Communication and Training Bridges the Gap Between Scientists and Journalists
All of our lives are made up of stories that help us make sense of the constantly changing world around us. Stories help us understand what is happening, why it’s happening, and the ever-important-question of what can be done about it; They often provide us with the familiar narrative elements – an introduction, plots, main characters, setting, climax, and conclusion – that our brains readily accept as the way the story should go. But when it comes to the story of science, sometimes things get more complex, messy, and completely non-linear.
3 January 2019
AGU18 debrief: Y’all love scicomm…and that makes us happy
Yes, I know. Fall Meeting was last month (and year), so what took us so long? Honestly…we were exhausted, but for the best reasons. Turns out that y’all love scicomm so much and helped to make AGU18 one of most successful for Sharing Science yet!
12 September 2018
Talking health might shift attitudes on global warming
By Shane M Hanlon Global warming is a political issue. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I recently wrote a post about it that outlined political views on the subject, probably best summarized by this1: Takeaway: majority of folks think that global warming is happening but views vary widely based on political affiliation. You might ask, “Yeah, but there are a bunch of different people in political parties. What about …
25 July 2018
Black Lung Disease is Making a Come-Back
This is part of a series of posts from our own Shane Hanlon’s disease ecology class that he’s currently teaching at the University of Pittsburgh Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology. Students were asked to write popular science posts about (mostly) wildlife diseases. Check out all the posts here. By Victoria Wright Black lung disease is making a come-back. Characterized by shortness of breath and hypoxemia, a recent NPR article explains that not only are …
11 July 2018
Origin found of amphibian’s worst nightmare, Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis
In recent years, amphibians all over the world have been dying to the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, affectionately referred to as BD. The fungus has been spreading at an alarming rate, and the death toll is rising. The sudden and dramatic outbreak of BD around the world has prompted a large-scale research effort to locate the origin of the fungus, which may reveal the genetic lineage of the fungus, as well as give us insight into preventing further spread of the disease.
31 January 2018
A Change of Climate: Part 2
By Sam Illingworth Following on from my previous post, in which I described the process of curating a book of poetry about climate change, I would now like to share with you a collection of the poems that feature in A Change of Climate. Some of the poems in this collection are sad, some of them are funny, and some of them like ‘We are no longer interested in the …
17 November 2016
How to be a Congressional Science or Mass Media Fellow
By Shane M Hanlon We in the Sharing Science program often get questions about opportunities about how to be a scientist in a non-traditional capacity, mainly how to transition (or flirt with transitioning) out of academia and into science communication or policy roles. I wrote about some opportunities previously as I, and many members of the Sharing Science staff, have personal experience in this. However, I wanted to highlight two …
19 September 2016
Plainspoken statistics
Sense About Science is helping journalists learn about statistics to better convey relevance and importance to the general public.
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to showcase creative and effective science communication via multiple mediums and modes.