Communities Happenings is a weekly post with news of interest to NPG’s online communities. The aim is to provide this info in one handy summary. Listings include tweetups and conferences which we’re attending and/or organising as well as new online tools, products or cool videos. We also occasionally flag up NPG special offers and competitions plus updates about NPG social media activities such as new accounts you might want to follow. Do let us know what you find most useful! 

SoNYC 

After our summer break, Science Online NYC (SoNYC) is back! The next event will take place on Monday August 20th from 7:00 PM. This event is being co-sponsored by the New York Academy of Science, and will be held at their headquarters. You must sign up here in order to be allowed through security on the night of the event. This month’s topic for discussion is PhDs:

A recent Washington Post article let the public in on one of science’s worst kept secrets: we produce far more PhDs than will ever find faculty positions. Despite this reality, most PhD programs only prepare their students to do research and, in many ways, leave them poorly prepared to be faculty. In this program, we’ll look at the programs offered by current PhD programs and consider potential additions that could better prepare students for life outside of the lab — and just might make them better faculty.

The Panelists:

• Elizabeth Bass, a professor of journalism at SUNY Stony Brook, runs their Center for Communicating Science.
• Eric Vieira, Assistant Director at the Office of Technology & Business Development of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, has worked for more than 15 years in in the biomedical industry.
• Monica Kerr is the Director of the NYAS’ Science Alliance, which focuses on career development for students and post-docs.
• Plus other panelists to be announced

You don’t have to be in NYC to take part – the event will be also be live-streamed and live-tweeted so do join us online. We will also be hosting a collection of related guest blog posts on Soapbox Science, so stay tuned.

Science Online London 2012 – Tickets will be released soon! 

This year’s Science Online London conference is fast approaching and will take place on Sunday 11th and Monday 12th November. Now celebrating its fifth year, Science Online London is an annual two-day conference hosted by nature.com for anyone interested in how science is communicated and carried out online.  This year’s event is hosted at the Wellcome Trust, taking place at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre on Euston Road.

We’d love to have your input into the programme, so if you’d like to suggest a session, please post your ideas on the wiki.

Tickets for the event will be released soon, you can find out here or via our Twitter account as soon as they are. Alternatively, email us at scienceonline@nature.com to be added to our mailing list for further updates.

 

 

 

Facebook Poll 

Over the last week we have been running a poll on our Facebook page. We are asking our fans to vote for the paper they think has had the most impact.

Results will be published on Thursday, so you still have a few days left to vote.

 

 

 

 

 

#BeginScights

Thursday 26th July saw the launch of SciLogs.com, a new English language blogging network, hosted alongside the popular German language blogging network, Scilogs.de, which also has Spanish and Dutch versions. It is hosted by Spektrum der Wissenschaft (the Spectrum of Science), a member of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG) family. SciLogs.com is the new home for Nature Network bloggers.

To celebrate the launch, we coordinated an NPG science blog network carnival focusing on the theme of “Beginnings.”

Joining in the festival were bloggers from SciLogs.com, Nature Education’s Scitable network and Scientific American’s blogging network, plus guest bloggers on the Soapbox Science blog.

Check out the summary of all the posts here and join in the conversation online.

Science Tweetups 

Science Tweetups are not only great fun, but they provide an opportunity to meet local scientists and communicators for a casual evening of chatting in the pub.

For those in Cambridge, UK, the next #camscitweetup will fall on Thursday 16th August from 7pm, location TBD. All are welcome and keep an eye on the hashtag for more information.

If you’re at the other side of the Atlantic, keep an eye on the NYCscitweetup hashtag for details of their next event and on their Facebook page.

Olympics quiz

As the London 2012 Olympics are in full swing London blogger, Chris Clough, has been treating us all to an Olympic themed science quiz. Here is a quick taster, but follow through to the post for more questions:

Round 1 – Athletics

First up is athletics. Can you just as easily rattle off stats about Olympics athletic events as you can about the natural world? Then this round is for you.

1. Which is the greater distance – the circumference of the Large Hadron Collider or the length of a marathon?
2. Which of these lengths of time is greatest: the amount of time it takes light from the sun to reach the earth or the world record time for the men’s 3000m steeplechase?
3. Which is heavier – an average ostrich egg or a women’s discus?

Let us know how you get on; the answers can be found in the comment thread.

Mars Curiosity rover live Q&A

NASA’s Curiosity rover landed safely on the surface of Mars this week, see Curiosity sets down safely on Mars, for more details. But what happens next? When will the rover begin driving towards the 5.5-kilometre-tall Mount Sharp? What might it expect to find along the way? When will it begin using its instruments to search for organic molecules and habitable environments?

Nature reporter Eric Hand will be hosting a live Q&A at 12 p.m (EST) on Wednesday 8 August with three Mars scientists. The panellists are:

Ashwin Vasavada A deputy project scientist on the Curiosity team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and an expert on the atmosphere and climate of Mars.

Roger Wiens A physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the principal investigator for the ChemCam instrument on the mast of the rover. ChemCam shoots a laser at rock targets up to 7 metres away to create a small spot of glowing, ionized gas. By looking at the spectroscopic signatures in the glow, its camera can identify the chemical elements in the rock.

Jack Mustard of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Mustard is the former chair of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group and a scientist on CRISM, an instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that looks for the spectral fingerprints of minerals that formed in water. The instrument is responsible for detecting thin rings of water-altered clays and sulphates around the base of Mount Sharp.

Make sure you join us and bring your questions!