Let’s Find Out What Science Outreach Can Accomplish
This week’s Soapbox Science post is by Matt Shipman, he explains why outreach is important and how we can go about improving our efforts:
… scientists need funding agencies, academic department heads, grant reviewers and others in positions of authority to recognize the value of science outreach efforts. But scientists don’t have a body of data, quantitative analyses and peer-reviewed publications that can be used to define that value. There are a few isolated studies out there (e.g. linking news coverage to journal citations, or measuring the benefits of outreach at zoos), but not enough to support a robust argument in favor of science outreach.
The solution to this quandary is fairly clear. We need physical and life scientists who engage in outreach to partner with social scientists and do three things:
A) develop methodologies for collecting data and subjecting them to quantitative analysis
B) use those methods to conduct impact studies in conjunction with outreach projects
C) publish their findings.
Do you agree with Matt’s solutions? Share your suggestions in the growing comment thread.
Volunteer UK doctors carry out first organ transplant in Gaza
Hazem Zohny reports in the House of Wisdom blog, a volunteer team of British surgeons carried out Gaza’s first kidney transplant last month:
{credit}BRAND X{/credit}
In Gaza City’s notoriously overcrowded and undersupplied Al-Shifa hospital, some 500 patients, including 40 children, require dialysis two to three times a week within its confines.
No organ transplants are possible. According to The Guardian, however, a volunteer team of British surgeons carried out Gaza’s first kidney transplant last month – an initial step in a long-term programme designed to train Gaza’s medical staff to perform transplants independently.
Two patients aged 42 – Ziad Matouk and Mohammed Duhair – received new kidneys.
Matouk and his wife, who donated her kidney to him, had hoped to carry out the operation in Cairo but were rejected as unsuitable and could not afford a private hospital.
More details can be found in the post.
What you always wanted to know about histones
Nature Methods and Nature Biotechnology will host a live discussion on why histone modifications matter in health and disease:
Ali Shilatifard and James Bradner
If you have wondered about the nature of the histone code, if you have questions about the importance of its writers, readers and erasers, or wonder how these are changed in some diseases and what can be done about it, an upcoming webcast will give a chance to raise these questions.
On February 26 we will discuss the importance of histone modifications from two aspects. First: What is the biology behind it? Which enzymes write the code and how important is crosstalk between different modifications? Second: How can one efficiently target these enzymes to fight disease?
Our speakers, Ali Shilatifard and James Bradner, will present their views and then they will engage in a live discussion fueled by questions from the audience.
You can sign up for the webcast, and post your questions here before February 26, or during the webcast on the event website.
North Korea tests “smaller and lighter” bomb
This week, North Korea announced that it had conducted a third underground nuclear weapons test:
{credit}USGS{/credit}
The test was detected by US Geologic Survey (USGS) seismic-monitoring stations and those of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna, which reported “explosion-like characteristics”. The yield of the test is believed to be roughly 3–10 kilotonnes, according to James Acton, a physicist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.
In a statement from the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea claimed that the test was of a “smaller and lighter A-bomb”. The bomb performed as expected, “demonstrating the good performance of [the country’s] nuclear deterrence that has become diversified”, according to the statement.
Continue to the News Blog to find out more.
A Love Letter to Stem Cells
Instead of writing a love letter to an ex, SciLogs blogger Nsikan Akpan wrote one to stem cells:
My Dearest Stem Cells,
When we first met in 2004, I couldn’t stand you. I was 18, a college junior, and finally learning to question the common scientific rhetoric, a rite of passage for becoming an “adult scientist”. You let the press and politicians make so much fuss about taking you from embryos, at a time when we knew so little about you. You stood by idly, while they said you could cure every disease ever, so you became the target of my derision.
Take your exploits with Alzheimer’s diseaseGN1 for example. You wanted to just waltz into the toxic battlefield that is the Alzheimer’s brain—filled with its landmines of amyloid protein—and rectify oblivion. Like it so easy to restore a person’s memories, built from a lifetime of intricate connections between neurons. Plus these cells are lost throughout the brain, not just in the memory centers. It’s more than you could ever handle, and yet you flirted with the emotions of those who suffer from this tragic disease.
Does Niskan’s love letter end on a positive note? Continue to his post to find out.
Science and Valentine’s Day
Finally, this week we also celebrated Valentine’s Day by adding a very “lovely” pin to our NPG Pinterest account – see what you can learn about the neuroscience of love!
