Open articles in category : Science communication

Although the theory of evolution is widely accepted in science, whether it comes to biology, medicine or psychology, public opinion still holds some prejudices and imprecisions related to this process. These are mainly caused by philosophical and religious views of the world, but sometimes it amounts to an inaccurate teaching of the theory of evolution or reflecting it in the media. On the one hand, the cause may be the ignorance, but on the other hand, there are certain misunderstandings. Some of it will be discussed next.

Within the Solar System, surfaces of the atmosphere less bodies are strongly influenced by factors often associated with the expression "space weathering" (*). Recent scientific evidence has shown that the aging process surface due to space weather has a very strong momentum (of the order of one million years) relative to the age of the solar system (about 4.5 billion years).

"Science and journalism - friend or foe?" gathered at the British Council's genuine friends of knowledge. They represent many fields including media, IT, architecture, education, psychology, theology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, linguistics and climate. The story of the event continues now with the second part, and this precedes the one dedicated to few of the email questions and aspects addressed by friends of the Science Newspaper.

The celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 involved 148 countries, a number that confirms that the IYA2009 network is the largest ever in science. Activities and events from these participating nations paint a picture of professional and amateur astronomers bringing the Universe down to Earth through countless projects, opening the eyes of the public to the wonders above.

Although we do not have instruments to measure the degree of boredom or the properties of time, one thing is for certain: the science cafe on the relationship between science and journalism lasted two hours. Two times more than the initial planned programme. The topics, the discussions between participants and video dialogues with partners from UK, Greece and Romania seem to have dilated time. In a pleasant way and for all those who were or wished to be present at this event. That's because we have received email requests from young researchers and science communicators from abroad.

Imagine for a moment that you could peer into the future what would you look for? Perhaps in your excitement, you'll want to know how things will turn out tomorrow or even five years from now. As your glance moves from family to friends and business relations, the thrill continues with one delightful discovery after the other until all of a sudden and with a screech, you are stuck in traffic. You think to yourself for a moment:  "why didn't I look out for the traffic". This is the real world, welcome to Lagos.

Another week has passed. The Science Newspaper's editor wants to provide the readers with a very short brief from the subjects that were announced during the past week. Just for the benefit of the interested readers. Some of these made the headlines, some not; but that doesn't mean the latters are less important. Now, it's time for presenting the very first RESULTS & LINKS for the week July 20-26, 2009.

The 'New Zealand Virtual School' proposal, led by the 163 student The Catlins Area School, Owaka, has been shortlisted by the Ministry of Education to become one of five new national Trade Academies. The Virtual School would be the first of its type; delivering vocational training to young New Zealanders through online learning.

Dr. Eric Demoncheaux is Head of Science at Battle Abbey School, which lies on the historic site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, built by William the Conquerer. Eric gives us his highlights of National Science and Engineering week where our co-editor visited the school to meet some young scientists.

It has always been known that a good mother-child contact leads to healthier and happier babies and adults. But what would happen if we knew that early life nurturing affects our genes and can leave life long imprints in our genome? This is a research focus of Patrick McGowan and his colleagues at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal, Canada, who found that suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse are more prone to carry stable chemical modification on their DNA that will cause impaired response to stress later in life, published in a recent volume of Nature Neuroscience (McGowan et al., 2009).

The beginning of summer coincides with the sixth World Conference of Science Journalists, hosted in London, at Central Hall, Westminster from June 30 to July 2nd.  We spoke to Pallab Ghosh, President of the World Federation of Science Journalists and BBC Science Correspondent about this biannual global event.  We discussed  what news will be brought to your attention, why should science journalists attend, what are the expectations, and last but not least, the effect of the financial crisis in the area of science writing.

In 1609 the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei used the telescope for the first time to comment on the sky, which meant a revolution in astronomy. People found with astonishment that the surface of the Moon has similar forms of relief to land (mountains, valleys, Crate, plains, etc.) Around the planet Jupiter rotating four natural satellites, now called Galilean satellites, it was found that on the surface of the Sun appear occasionally some dark spots, and not least in the Milky Way there are thousands and millions of stars. To mark the astronomical revolution that has radically changed the design of the human universe, the United Nations has decided that 2009 should be considered the International Year of astronomy and worldwide events are occurring to mark this astronomical anniversary. Activities are conducted under the aegis of the International Astronomical Union in partnership with UNESCO.

This year, like every year, Yuri's night takes place on April 12th and is a celebration of humanity's achievements in space. Each April 12, people from around the world come together to mark the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space (in 1961) and the first launch of the US Space Shuttle (in 1981).

The Universe became access all areas these days as a new astronomical observatory opened its doors for everyone to use. The Montegancedo Astronomical Observatory, which is part of the ASTROCAM network, officially opened on 23 January 2009 to coincide with the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

The most spectacular meteor shower acts as the basis for the origin of a new project between science and music. It is the work of the same team of three that did the soundtrack of an eclipse.

Science and music; or what an astronomer, a science journalist and a composer can do.