In the third and final post in our mini-series on science museums, we have complied a map that marks some of the Worlds Science Museums.

How many have you been to?

The globe is scattered with science museums; from the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas, Texas, to the Arktikum Science Museum in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Who knew there were so many…

Don’t forget the more you zoom in on the map, the more you will see.

View Larger Map

This map is by no means comprehensive – Russia, Asia, and Africa are all looking rather bare, so if you think we have missed an important science museum off, please let us know and we can add it to the map.

Previous maps

We’ve now published eleven Google maps showing key scientific locations in cities and territories across the world – from Amsterdam to Malta to Yorkshire. Thanks once again to everyone who’s contributed so far.

• Yorkshire
• Amsterdam
• Boston/Cambridge, USA
• Cambridge, UK
• Canberra
• Hong Kong
• Lindau
• London
• Malta
• Münster
• New York
• San Francisco
• Toronto

And an index map showing all of these.

In the latest in our series mapping scientific cities around the world, Tom Webb of Sheffield University asks his students to plot the scientific riches of Yorkshire, the largest county in the UK.

Yorkshire retains a strong cultural identity decades after it was subdivided into various subregions. Its cultural, industrial, natural and sporting heritage are widely appreciated, but it is also home to a number of prestigious scientific institutions. Tom Webb set his undergraduate tutees the task of mapping these, and this is what they’ve come up with – they study zoology, which may explain the bias towards life sciences. There are some geographical biases too – the big urban centres in South and West Yorkshire are better documented than the more rural North Yorkshire, York, and the East Riding. So please do fill in the gaps! (Thanks to Rory Galloway, Zoe Greenhill, Liz Harding, Rachel Haycock, John Hunt, and Eleanor Kirby-Green for doing the virtual legwork.)

View Science in Yorkshire in a larger map

For other cities: we’ve now built up a collection of maps. If you want to share the scientific wonders of your own city, speak up in the comments. These maps are easy to put together in Google Maps, but we’ll be happy to talk you through it if you’re new to the software. As well as providing a handy resource, you’ll no doubt find out a fact or two about the history and culture of your own city – never a bad thing.

Previous maps

• Amsterdam
• Boston/Cambridge, USA
• Cambridge, UK
• Canberra
• Hong Kong
• Lindau
• London
• Malta
• Münster
• New York
• San Francisco
• Toronto

And an index map showing all of these.

We’re back in Europe for the twelfth instalment of our mapping series. This week, Dr Paul Groth of VU University of Amsterdam maps the scientific highlights of the city he works in.

View Science in Amsterdam in a larger map

Red = museums

Green = learned societies

Turquoise = universities

Purple = publishing

Blue = historic sites

Yellow = institutes

Amsterdam is well known for its canals and art museums but it is also a science city.

Historically, several Nobel Prize winners have been based in the Netherlands including Johannes Diderik van der Waals whose equations describe the relation between pressure, volume and temperature in a gas, as well as Jacobus van t’Hoff who won the first Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Amsterdam is home to several national science institutes, including computer sciences, maths, sub-atomic physics and social history. It has two leading universities: the University of Amsterdam and the VU University Amsterdam.

Innovation is actively encouraged by the city. The Science Park includes a combination of science institutes and start-up companies. Likewise, the newly developed Zuidas region encourages connections between the universities and major businesses.

For kids there’s the fantastic "Nemo science center ":https://www.e-nemo.nl/?id=5&s=85&d=551 with hands-on attractions housed in a state-of-the-art building near the central station.

The map is very much a starting point – there’s plenty more to add. We welcome additions (and any scientific trivia concerning Amsterdam) in the comments.

If you’d like to put together a map of science in your own city or region, please contact Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com) for assistance.

Previous maps

• Boston/Cambridge, USA
• Cambridge, UK
• Canberra
• Hong Kong
• Lindau
• London
• Malta
• Münster
• New York
• San Francisco
• Toronto

And an index map showing all of these.

A new interactive ‘Special’ in the online version of Nature, and partly reproduced in print, looks at the special relationship between scientists and cities. In a fascinating series of articles and graphics, the story of metropolitan research is told with the aid of some addictive data visualisations.

The first place to start is the interactive piece by Richard Van Noorden. Two visualisations here will have you playing for hours. The first shows the number of publications per city and their relative citation impact, based on Scopus data. By sliding a scroll bar, it’s possible to engage a third dimension of time, thus showing how publication records have changed in any given city. So, for example, we see that Tokyo was the most prolific city in 2000. It was overtaken by Beijing in 2005, which now vastly dominates in terms of prolificness. That city, however, gets relatively little bang for its buck. Cambridge/Boston in the USA hit the roof of the graphic for citation impact, a position they’ve maintained since 2000. The second visualisation is a Google Earth embed showing number of publications in the journals Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences per city.

The infographics are backed up with a selection of news features and commentaries. As well as a general introductory piece, articles consider the future growth of cities, how to get the best research out of a city, and how cities will be at the forefront of the battle to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Nature Network has long focused on the city as a convenient geographical unit for discussing science. Indeed this site originated in 2006 as a set of Boston-specific pages to help local scientists communicate and collaborate. Since then, we’ve maintained a city focus, with local hub pages for London, Boston and New York as well as dedicated forums for cities such as Toronto, Cambridge and San Francisco.

Recently, we started a new venture to map the universities, institutions, museums and sites of historic scientific interest in cities (and wider territories) around the world, which were also linked to in the Nature piece. So far, Nature Network readers have mapped eleven, including all the hubs mentioned above as well as Hong Kong, Canberra and Munster. We’re always looking to expand the series, so do get in touch if you’d be interested in creating a map.

Our tour of scientific cities and territories takes its first foray into Asia, with this map of Hong Kong by Gabriel Wong of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

View Science in Hong kong in a larger map

On the map, universities are shown in turquoise, institutes in green, cultural institutions in red, and publishing in blue.

Since transfer from British rule in 1997, Hong Kong has been a powerhouse of innovation, research and technology for the Chinese economy. Hong Kong has a significant scientific output, with world-class research in a number of areas including engineering, cancer biology and infectious diseases. Of the nine universities, the University of Hong Kong is often ranked as the best in Asia and will celebrate its centenary next year.

The city also has some notable scientists. Last year, Hong Kong scientist "Charles Kao ":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_K.Kaoshared the Nobel Prize for Physics, for ‘groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication’. Kao was born in Shanghai, but was educated in Hong Kong and the UK, and worked at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as Vice-Chancellor (1987-1996). Geneticist Tsui Lap-cheeLap-chee is another celebrated researcher from Hong Kong, known for his role in identifying the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, whilst working in Canada. He was President of the Human Genome Organisation (2000-2002) and now serves as Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Hong Kong (since 2002).

On a cultural note, Hong Kong contains museums of science and spance as well as various nature reserves, wetlands and zoological gardens.

The map is very much a starting point – there’s plenty more to add. We welcome additions (and any scientific trivia concerning Hong Kong) in the comments.

If you’d like to put together a map of science in your own city or region, please contact Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com) for assistance.

Previous maps

• Boston/Cambridge, USA
• Cambridge, UK
• Canberra
• Lindau
• London
• Malta
• Münster
• New York
• San Francisco
• Toronto

And an index map showing all of these.

We’ve now published ten Google maps showing the key scientific locations in cities and territories across the world – from San Francisco to Malta to Canberra. Thanks once again to everyone who’s contributed so far.

To help keep track of the various locations, we’ve now plotted them (with links and credits) onto the map below (which we’ll also add to our links list in the margin, so there’s an easy way to find it in future).

View Science maps in a larger map

Ten maps is a good start, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a master map showing all the science hotspots on Earth? We’d really like to hear from you if you’d be interested in creating a map for your own city or territory, particularly in Asia, South America and Africa, which are currently unrepresented. It’s really easy, and we’re happy to provide instructions if you’re a maps novice.

If you’d like to put together a map of science in your own city or region, please contact Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com).

Given that we’re in Nobel season, today’s map has a ring of topicality about it. Over the summer, we gave regular coverage to the island of Lindau, at the foot of the Alps on Lake Constance. It is here that the annual gathering of Nobel Prize winners and early career scientists takes place, known as the Lindau Conference.

Bastian Greshake attended the 2010 meeting and posted regular updates to the German language Lindau blog. He got to know the beautiful island setting very well, and has since put together this map for our ongoing series.

Click on each pintpoint to see a photo and read a description of the location.

Lindau auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen

The map is a starting point, rather than a finished product. If you’d like to nominate other places in Canberra for inclusion, please leave a comment below.

If you’d like to put together a map of science in your own city or region, please contact Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com) for assistance.

Previous maps

• Boston/Cambridge, USA
• Cambridge, UK
• Canberra
• London
• Malta
• Münster
• New York
• San Francisco
• Toronto

Join the Lindau Facebook page for more updates on that unique conference.

In our latest map, Will Grant of the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science tackles the scientific highlights of Canberra.

View Mapping science in the city: Canberra in a larger map

Canberra’s a government town (designed in the early decades of the 20th century as Australia’s Capital), which houses a lot of Australia’s federal government infrastructure. Because of that, there are a number of institutions that provide a range of services – from training to applied science to blue-sky research – to the government.

Some (such as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and Geoscience Australia) are government agencies providing top level scientific advice on Australia’s problems and issues, as well as more basic research in their particular field. CSIRO in particular is a very productive scientific organisation, providing both blue sky and applied research across a range of fields, from astronomy and planetary science through to biology, information and communication technologies and health and wellbeing.

There are also a number of universities, focusing on different teaching and research interests. The Australian National University is Australia’s most research-intensive university, with particular strengths in medicine, biology, physics and the societies and peoples of our region. The University of Canberra has a more applied focus. The Australian Defence Force also has a scientific presence in the city, in the form of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, and the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Alongside this, Canberra houses some of Australia’s leading science communication organisations, including Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre.

By Will Grant

The map is a starting point, rather than a finished product. If you’d like to nominate other places in Canberra for inclusion, please leave a comment below.

If you’d like to put together a map of science in your own city or region, please contact Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com) for assistance.

Previous maps

Boston/Cambridge, USA

Cambridge, UK

London

Malta

Münster

New York

San Francisco

Toronto

With its prominent biotech sector, Harvard univeristy, MIT and world-class conference facilities, Boston (and adjoining Cambridge) is undeniably one of the great scientific cities of the world. Nature Network itself started off as a local site dedicated to serving the scientific community in Boston. This presence continues as a dedicated hub on NN, and hub leader Tinker Ready has now prepared a scientific map of her city.

View Science in Boston/Cambridge in a larger map

Yellow = biotech/pharma, turquoise = academic, red = museums, purple = miscellaneous, red cross = medical.

Tinker gives an overview:

Fruit Street, Longwood, Kendall. Any Boston science map will show clusters at these three research hot spots. The Longwood Medical area grew up around Harvard Medical School and its three affiliated hospitals. The dense crossroads, which also includes a Merck drug research tower, is sandwiched between two stops on the Boston T – the city’s subway and trolley line. Good thing, because if this were a traffic map, it would show a permanent jam at the intersection of Brookline and Longwood avenues. Make that double when the Red Sox play baseball at home – Longwood is right down the street from that other city landmark, Fenway Park.

Boston University sits not far from Fenway. And while the school’s engineering labs dot the main campus, the BU medical and public health schools can be found on the other side of town in the South End. There, BU runs the city’s public hospital and hopes to open a high-security, biodefense research lab in 2010. (Opposition from neighbors and environmentalist has delayed the launch of the National Institutes of Health-funded program.)

North on Mass Ave. toward the Charles River leads to Massachusetts General Hospital – Fruit Street to those in the know. MGH sits on the Boston side and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sits across the river in Cambridge. There, the “infinite corridor” (250 meters) runs from the MIT dome to Kendall Square, home to the Broad Institute, a freestanding genetics research center. Also in Kendall — labs for Genzyme, Biogen-Idec and smaller biotech companies and start-ups. No wonder a Cambridge saloon is called “Miracle of Science.” With a menu modeled after the periodic table, it fits right in.

The map is a starting point, rather than a finished product. If you’d like to nominate other places in Boston/Cambridge for inclusion, please leave a comment below.

If you’d like to put together a map of science in your own city or region, please contact Matt Brown (i.am.mattbrown – at – gmail.com) for assistance.

Previous maps

Cambridge, UK

London

Malta

Münster

New York

San Francisco

Toronto