How to make non-scientists hate scientists and ignore science

Inspired by Brendan Leonard’s “How to Get Your New Boyfriend/Girlfriend to Hate Your Sport”. 1. Place all the blame for everyone else’s inability to understand or appreciate your work on inadequate science education. You shouldn’t have to change the way

We are the seeders of collaboration clouds

This is a ScienceOnline-inspired ditty, written with the other sciosatellite leaders and Bora, Karyn and Anton in mind: We nudge the primordial specks of the universe, Atoms upon atoms Closer, closer Till gravity seizes them, draws them into intimate quarters,

Managing social media accounts for public or private organizations. Part I: Must Know

#ESA2012 social media workshop from Sandra Chung I promised the attendees of my ESA 2012 Portland workshop that I’d address social media management on behalf of institutions/organizations. Here it is. This is version 1.0, so please comment if you have

How do you respond to the charge that something is “dumbed down”?

As a science communicator and ex-science teacher, the most common criticism I hear from academic scientists about my work is that it’s “dumbed down.” I just read the same phrase in this fascinating but infuriating account in PLoS ONE of

Yet another blog post about talking about climate

But this one leads to a chain of interesting pieces by some of my favorite authors about how to make a tired, important topic interesting again. Bob Krulwich writes: Global warming is important, yes; controversial, certainly; complicated (OK by me);

The heat of global warming could run the world for 300 years

Since 1961, the world’s oceans have stored enough extra heat energy to meet all of the world’s power needs for 300 years (at 2008 consumption rates). Here’s how I got to that figure. I’ve been to a couple of climate