 |
Are mobile phones safe? Dr. Michael de Podesta From: Mobile phone safety 2010-01-28 12:00:00.0 Communications Channel |
I’d be lying if I said this kind of praise didn’t leave me feeling ridiculously flattered, but praise from these guys really does mean a lot, not just because both of them are “real” scientists but because I’ve seen them perform their own live shows and it’s clear they know what they’re talking about.
Science vs Magic is the first time I’ve tried to do anything like this. The closest thing I’ve done previously is a school assembly for Science Week. I conceived of the show in an attempt to become the IOP Schools Lecturer for 2010. I was shortlisted, but the gig went to the lovely Dr Melanie Windridge. However, by that point I’d invested a whole lot of time and money into developing the show and I was determined to prove to myself (and the IOP) that I could make the show work.
A few months after being rejected by the IOP, I performed the show in front of a few school audiences as part of the Otley Science Festival. The children seemed to love it and I received hugely enthusiastic and positive feedback from teachers and other adults who saw the shows. But, to be brutally honest, I don’t think it’s that hard to impress a hall full of school children, especially if they’re missing their regular science lesson. And it’s not that hard to do a few demonstrations on stage that make people go “wow”. I suspect any “enthusiasm” for science that this kind of thing generates is short-lived.
I wasn’t happy with the show - I had had a particular goal in mind when writing it, a “point” I wanted to make, and I thought I could do it better. I knew some of my demonstrations were a bit lame and that I was making up for that with my on-stage banter. So, I sent out a message on the BIG CHAT mailing list and asked for help. Quite a few people responded, including demo legend Ben Craven and Olympia Brown, Senior Young People’s Programme Coordinator at the Royal Institution.
I gritted my teeth and sent Ben and Olympia copies of a video of an early performance of the show, cringing at the thought of these strangers watching something I knew was far, far from perfect. Ben Craven emailed me, praising the concept but gently pointing out some of the problems with the show. A short time later, I met with Olympia and her colleagues Dave Porter and Andy Marmery. Over cups of tea in an office recently vacated by Susan Greenfield, they told me that they really liked the idea of the show… but they thought they could come up with ways to make it better.
Over the next few months, Oly, Dave and Andy really helped me to improve the show’s structure and came up with a bunch of demos that were much, much better than my original ones. Armed with these new demos and a much stronger script, I tried the show out at a school in Hackney and finally felt like it was close to being the show it was meant to be. I know the show was good on that particular occasion, not because the kids clapped like crazy, but because the conversation I had with a teacher afterwards convinced me that I had done far more than entertain and amuse for an hour - the show had been genuinely thought provoking.
A successful performance at Cheltenham has been the highlight so far of my work on this project. But it’s far from complete. I’ll be performing Science vs Magic again at the BIG Event in July and I’ll be looking for feedback from the audience of my peers in science communication. I hope they’ll like the show, but I also hope they’ll be watching with a critical eye and offer up some suggestions for further improving it. I probably shouldn’t think of it as “my” show any more - it’s really been a collaborative effort and I owe a huge thank you to everyone who’s helped shape it so far, especially the brilliant team at the Royal Institution.
]]>I want to be an astronaut. And now that we have a UK Space Agency, I might get to be one: I'm a teacher AND I'm from an ethnic minority community, which should mean that I'm way ahead of most people when the Minister for Outer Space draws up a shortlist for the first crew sent into space by UKSA (doesn't quite have the same ring as NASA, does it?)
The closest I've come to being an astronaut so far is to shake the hand of Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the Moon. I have no doubt that Neil has no recollection of this momentous event in my life -- I was one dozens of people with whom he shook hands after a recent event at the Royal Society where five astronauts enthralled a small audience with recollections of their adventures in space. Amongst other delights, we heard the Apollo 13 story from Jim Lovell himself, and Eugene Cernan's description of being the last man to have stood on the Moon.
I was only at this event because I was a teacher, only allowed to go because I was accompanying five of my students to the talk. So you see, being a teacher does have its perks.
The astronauts were inspiring -- truly heroic men who have accomplished great things. All of them were clearly smart and capable men. They could do science, maths, play (American) football and fix a broken spaceship. The kind of guys you'd want on your side in a fight or if you were stuck on a desert island. My students were awestruck by them. After the talk, one of my students said to me "Sir, your generation's a bit rubbish, isn't it?".
Perhaps he had a point -- sure, my generation has invented the iPod and facebook, but Armstrong's generation dared to climb into tin cans strapped to explosives and fly into the unknown. Awesome.
Another student was left concerned by the talk: "Sir, I sometimes worry what would happen to the world if all the old people died at once. Who'd be left to do these amazing things? None of the people I know are as smart as those guys". This was from one of my smartest students; I question whether an equally able student from a private school would have asked such a question, but that's another discussion.
I was glad the talk had inspired my students. But I have a bone to pick with the astronauts. It's a problem with a lot of astronomers and people who talk to the public about space: their constant use of the term "insignificant" to describe the Earth and us humans. I am not insignificant. When you tell me that you can stand on the moon and see the Earth as a "pale blue dot" which you can blot out with your thumb, that does not make me think the Earth is insignificant. When you tell me that there are more stars in our galaxy than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world, that does not make me feel insignificant.
My dictionary defines "insignificant" as "not worthy of notice". Anyone who uses the word "insignificant" to describe The Earth or humans does not understand the meaning of the word. Because, as far as I can tell we are the most significant thing in this corner of the Universe. If you were an alien and you were to stand on the Moon and look around you, surely it is the little pale blue dot that would be most worthy of notice?
Surely it would be the only body in the galaxy where protons, neutrons and electrons have come together to make objects which think, love, write blog posts, that would be the most significant finding? All the other objects in the galaxy are pretty much the same aren't they? Sure, there are different types of star but compared to just one human being, stars are boring, uncomplicated things. If you were an alien standing on our moon, you would think it is the stars that are insignificant, not us. So Lord Mandelson, my beloved Minister for Outer Space, send me to the moon and I promise I will not come back to Earth and talk to people about the insignificance of us or our planet. Send me to the moon and I'll stand atop it and shout "I'm the King of the Universe".
A friend of mine told me about a really good case study by a student of hers entitled “Does the MMR vaccine cause autism?” It started with the statement “I am interested in this topic because my father decided against having me vaccinated when I was a child.”
After looking at a variety of sources of information, the student concluded that there was not really any scientific evidence to link the MMR vaccine to autism. However, she also stated that the side effects of vaccines were a good reason to avoid vaccinating your children. I found this depressing - vaccines and vaccination are one of science’s greatest achievements and I was saddened that this bright, capable student had failed to acknowledge this.
I wish she’d watched this film:
]]>I’m one of the lucky ones. Over the past few years, I’ve been given well over a hundred thousand pounds to carry out various projects of mine. I will be forever grateful to the organisations, from NESTA to The Wellcome Trust, who have invested their money in making my dreams come true. But these organisations haven’t given me money because they are in the habit of indulging wannabe “creatives”; they have funded my work because, I guess, they believed that I was offering to do something worthwhile in the way of communicating science to the public. And I’d like to think that my work has indeed been, in some small way, useful or interesting to the world.
Before I continue, I want to reiterate that I know I have been incredibly lucky and that I am grateful to everyone who has supported my work so far and to those people who continue to support my work (I’m currently working on projects funded by STFC and The National STEM Centre).
But the system doesn’t work. Getting funding for science communication projects can be a frustrating, soul-destroying process. And this is coming from someone who is relatively successful in attracting funding. So, at the risk of appearing to bite the hands that feed me, I want to share what I, and others, think are some of the problems.
Most public engagement grants require you to fill in an application form of some sort. These can be incredibly time-consuming to complete and there’s no guarantee you’ll get funded, so, you have to decide whether the value of the grant and your chances of being successful justify the time. Hayley Birch, a freelance science communicator, told me: ”I’ve learned it’s really important to spend time looking at the criteria and pestering people at the funding organisation to check that you meet all of them (and also that they seem to be even vaguely interested in what you’re doing) before you start writing anything up. Sometimes you get rejected because of something they failed to mention or make clear, and then you really are wasting time that could have been spent getting paid.”
Some of the grants out there have a disproportionate amount of paperwork associated with them - surely it cannot be in anyone’s interest to require lengthy application forms and evaluation reports for small grants? I imagine the costs of processing all the forms, and convening the inevitable committees for decision making, approach being as large as the sums of money being given away - a ridiculous state of affairs.
It’s unlikely I’ll be applying for many “small” grants in the future - the things I want to do in the future require large sums of money if they are to be done properly. And I don’t want to do them if I can’t do them properly (please get in touch if you’re a philanthropist reading this). Luckily, there are some places where I could go to try and get this sort of money, and again, there are various forms to fill in. Like funding for scientific research, these applications are usually “peer reviewed” - but this may not be the most sensible way of awarding such grants.
Jonathan, who I mentioned above, is a former TV producer and has been a co-applicant on a couple of grants I’ve recently applied for. He expresses the following concerns: “In many ways, I’m unhappy about the supposed peer review approach favoured by the likes of the research councils and Wellcome. The lack of a right to reply to reviewers (with Wellcome, at least) is a crippling omission. I wasn’t a big fan of the commissioning approach in broadcast, either, but I do think the editorial interactions with the decision-maker helped define and refine projects. At the very least, the creative risk was shared between the funder and the applicant, which I think was productive”.
I believe that “science communication” is a vital cultural activity. But it’s a relatively new one and one that needs nurturing and leadership. But who are the leaders in science communication? Who are the equivalent of those people who lead the worlds of art and fashion? I believe some of those roles should be filled by people at those organisations giving away large sums of money for public engagement.
I know this will embarrass him, but I look to Jonathan as a leader in the kind of work I’m trying to do. So, I’m going to quote from him again: “What I’d like to see is the principal funders recognising their leadership role more, and working with practitioners to develop and deliver the sort of projects they believe will work. It’s all very well strategising with government departments and big universities, but a few ‘how to fill in the application form’ workshops don’t constitute engagement with the practitioner community. I exaggerate the scale of the problem, but I hope you see my point.”
I agree with Jonathan - I’d like to work closer with funders to make ambitious projects happen. However, I don’t want things to become too much like the world of television, where relationships between commissioners and producers seem to be more important than anything else. Many of the funders I have dealt with seem enamoured with broadcast television, jumping at the opportunity to fund anything which promises a broadcast TV element. Many TV production companies are applying for public engagement grants to top up their budgets for a TV project and they’re often given this funding, despite their projects not being particularly innovative or interesting. Despite being a beneficiary of this “TV effect” myself, I can’t help but feel that such money could be better spent supporting more innovative forms of public engagement.
I’m writing this in the hope that the “decison makers” at the major organisations who fund science communication might read it. We science communicators are a weird bunch - often straddling the worlds of art and science in our work and bringing the two together in exciting new ways. Perhaps it’s time we did the same with the way we fund our work.
UPDATE: Since originally posting this, two of the organisations mentioned above have sent encouraging emails. I hope this might be the start of discussions which benefit us all.
]]> |
Are mobile phones safe? Dr. Michael de Podesta From: Mobile phone safety 2010-01-28 12:00:00.0 Communications Channel |
Some obvious questions to get the discussion going:
Are the Dragons right or are they just being rude by refusing to allow the guy to show them more of his “research”? (He claims to have lots more he can show them)
What, if anything, is wrong with the salesman’s research?
The salesman claims he has video testimony of people who have been cured by his medicine - would that be enough to convince you of its efficacy? If not, why not?
Why do you think the “Dragons” reacted so violently against this man?
]]>On a more serious note, this website has a whole bunch of “Fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena from the PhET project at the University of Colorado”. And the best thing? They’re all FREE.
If anyone reading this has a spare few million quid, I would LOVE to go up to the ISS and make a few demo films…
]]>The film below is one I made back in 2006. It is a portrait of the winner of the 2006 Royal Society Pfizer Award - for “an outstanding, innovative contribution to biological science, including basic medical science, which contributes significantly to capacity building in Africa”.
Lab Report: Dr Alexis Nzila - an African Scientist doing African Science from Alom Shaha on Vimeo.
The film was shot on location in Kenya and I worked closely with Alexis so that he could tell his own story, without the need for an external narrator. Apart from telling the story of an inspiring man, it also provides a useful look at “how science works” when it comes to developing drugs.
In the film, Alexis explains his work on developing anti-malaria drugs from existing cancer drugs - an approach which could bring cheap anti-malaria drugs to those who need them most. Alexis also talks about why he made the choice to work in Africa despite the many difficulties of doing science there.
Alexis believes firmly that “there will not be lasting solutions to malaria without a strong contribution from African scientists. Controlling malaria is not simply a matter of distributing bed nets and medication. It also requires planning and research so we can predict what the situation may be like in 5 or 10 years from now. To tackle malaria at a national level, governments need scientific evidence to make effective policy decisions. Without strong research groups, government programmes for malaria control cannot work”.
Alexis has every intention of staying in Africa and “building a team that does internationally recognised work”. However, it will take more than good intentions to ensure that Alexis and other talented African scientists remain in Africa; simply put, the biggest problem in doing science in Africa, like so many of the other problems in that troubled continent, is a lack of funding.
]]>