tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16557854628604142742024-03-05T13:34:24.330+00:00Science BoxMarisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-85302877570124499782013-01-28T07:30:00.000+00:002013-01-28T07:30:04.234+00:00Targeting breast cancer in a surprising way<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6Z0cniYE6e9UoSR92zqWMCWAaw_rxEqPpzrXLDZBFGpKQC9tVQZUpkWX-lrOLVCT_HE8Q5Jc-jEapUT2xCvwK2aoNN5lBXn77gOpCFKiujY9mGCE7R3T6IORVEHMQ2v8HYNrGj2zhJ4/s1600/breast+cancer+cells+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6Z0cniYE6e9UoSR92zqWMCWAaw_rxEqPpzrXLDZBFGpKQC9tVQZUpkWX-lrOLVCT_HE8Q5Jc-jEapUT2xCvwK2aoNN5lBXn77gOpCFKiujY9mGCE7R3T6IORVEHMQ2v8HYNrGj2zhJ4/s320/breast+cancer+cells+image.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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Scanning electron micrograph of a cluster of </div>
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breast cancer cells showing visual evidence of </div>
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programmed cell death (apoptosis) in yellow. </div>
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Credit: Annie Cavanagh (cellimagelibrary.org)</div>
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Nowadays there are quite a few compounds in clinical trials to assay their potential as breast cancer treatments. Some of them are the so called “<b>PARP inhibitors</b>”. These inhibitors work very well in tumours that have a deficiency in DNA repair because PARP proteins are involved in that process. However, a group of researchers working on a different type of breast cancer without any problem in DNA repair has discovered that, unexpectedly, PARP inhibitors can kill the cells of this other type of breast cancer as well.</div>
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Breast cancer is not just “one” cancer. It can be the result of different mutations; therefore there will be different types of breast cancer. One of them is called “BRCA deficient tumour”. This tumour has a defect in BRCA proteins. These proteins are part of one of the DNA repair mechanisms, the Homologous Recombination (HR). Cancer cells with a deficient HR cannot repair their DNA properly leading to a higher genomic instability. This instability is an important survival factor for the tumour and DNA repair mechanisms are good targets for antitumor therapy.</div>
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One DNA repair mechanism has a step that involves PARP proteins. When the DNA strands break these proteins bind to them and are very important for their resealing. There are two different types of breaks: the single strand break (when only one strand breaks –SSB-), and the double strand break (when both strands of DNA break –DSB-). If a SSB happens PARP proteins bind to it and recruit other proteins to ensure the break is fixed. If that SSB is not fixed and the DNA starts to make a copy of itself, when the copying machinery gets to the SSB it will be transformed into a DSB. To fix this DSB the BRCA proteins are required. So, for a happy, non-cancer cell, all the DNA repair mechanisms should work properly and coordinated. If this doesn’t happen we need to force the cell to die.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mappingignorance.org/2012/12/18/targeting-breast-cancer-in-a-surprising-way/figure-1-2/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img src="http://mappingignorance.org/fx/media/2012/12/Figure-1-640x222.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig. 1 Dual cytotoxic mechanisms of PARP inhibitors. 1, catalytic inhibition (upper pathway) interferes with the repair of SSBs, leading to DNA replication damage that requires HR repair. 2, trapping of PARP–DNA complexes also leads to DNA replication damage but uses additional repair pathways. Credit: Murai et al., 2012.</span></td></tr>
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PARP inhibitors are small molecules that bind to PARP proteins not allowing them to work, as well as trapping them to the DNA strands. In a normal cell this would lead to SSBs and DSBs that will be corrected by BRCA and other proteins involved in different DNA repair mechanisms (Figure 1). But if the cell has a defect in BRCA proteins these DSBs won’t be fixed and the cell will be forced to die because of the persistent DSBs lethality. That’s the reason why PARP inhibitors are being widely tested as antitumor drugs to treat the BRCA deficient breast and ovarian cancers. In addition, PARP inhibitors have been studied in combination with DNA damaging agents due to their ability to enhance the toxicity of these agents. Nowadays the use of PARP inhibitors as part of a therapeutic combination is widely studied, but mostly in the context of DNA damage and repair.</div>
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On the other hand, a third of all breast cancers have an increased amount of another protein called HER2 and this makes them very aggressive. HER2 belongs to a family of proteins that are involved in cellular growth, differentiation and survival. Actually HER2 activates the NF-KB signalling pathway which enhances cell proliferation, invasion, and resistance to therapies. In addition, activation of NF-KB depends on PARP. Anti-HER2 therapies are working quite well and have improved patient outcome but a significant number of patients either do not respond or quickly relapse and exhibit resistance to therapy.</div>
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A surprising discovery by some researchers at the University of Alabama has opened a very promising field of study for the treatment of the HER2 positive breast cancers that are resistant to anti-HER2 therapy. These researchers previously published that cetuximab, a HER1 inhibitor produced a DNA repair defect in head and neck cancer cells. Therefore they tried to see if a HER1/HER2 inhibitor (lapatinib) would generate a similar DNA repair defect and sensitise HER2+ cancer cells to PARP inhibitors (such as ABT-888 –veliparib–). When they treated the HER2+ breast cancer cell line BT-474 with the anti-HER2 drug lapatinib and the PARP inhibitor ABT-888 as well as with ABT-888 alone as a control, they saw that the ABT-888 on its own was able to reduce the viability of the cells (Figure 2A). And this happened in different HER2+ cell lines, but not in those cell lines without an increased amount of HER2 (HER2-) (Figure 2B).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mappingignorance.org/2012/12/18/targeting-breast-cancer-in-a-surprising-way/figure-2-2/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img src="http://mappingignorance.org/fx/media/2012/12/Figure-2-2-640x255.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig.2 A) ABT-888 with or without lapatinib reduces the colony-forming ability of HER2-overexpressing BT-474 human breast cancer cells. B) Breast cancer cell lines exposed to various doses of ABT-888 or vehicle control and colony formation capacity assayed. As expected, the HER2 negative MCF7 and T47D cell lines failed to exhibit cytotoxicity to the PARP inhibitor ABT-888. Credit Nowsheen et al., 2012.</span></td></tr>
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The obvious explanation for this observation is that the HER2+ cells had a DNA repair defect or that the ABT-888 inhibitor produced that defect. However none of these hypotheses was true. Another explanation is that the effect of ABT-888 could be produced through HER2 itself. And this was the case, because when the researchers manipulated the HER2- cells to have an increased amount of HER2 (becoming HER2+) these cells became sensitive to ABT-888 and died.</div>
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As I said before, HER2 activates the NF-KB pathway and PARP1 is required for NF-KB activity. When researchers treated HER2+ cells with ABT-888 they saw a reduction in NF-KB activity. This doesn’t happen in HER2- cells, but when HER2 is introduced into these cells NF-KB activity decreases after treatment with ABT-888 as well. This strongly points to a mechanism in which HER2 mediated toxicity of ABT-888 works through NF-KB. In addition, increased levels of a protein that inhibits NF-KB mimic the ABT-888 toxicity.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Fig. 3: ABT-888 delays growth of implanted </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">HER2-overexpressing </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">breast tumours in vivo </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">(MCF7 HER2) but doesn’t affect HER2- ones </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(MCF7 NEO). Credit: Nowsheen et al., 2012.</span></div>
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All these assays were done in vitro. However, the researchers did some in vivo experiments as well. They transplanted breast cancer cells with (MCF7 HER2) or without (MCF7 NEO) an increased amount of HER2 into mice and treated those xenografts (transplants of cells) with ABT-888 or a control vehicle (Figure 3). The increased amount of HER2 itself produced increased tumour aggressiveness as seen by the faster growth of MCF7 HER2 tumours in mice compared with MCF7 NEO. Moreover, administration of ABT-888 delayed tumour growth in MCF7 HER2 xenografts but not in MCF7 NEO ones.</div>
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This study shows preliminary data about the effect of PARP inhibitors in HER2+ breast cancers and opens a very interesting possibility to further study the role of PARP inhibitors in the treatment of other type of cancers without a DNA repair defect.</div>
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Published originally in <a href="http://mappingignorance.org/2012/12/18/targeting-breast-cancer-in-a-surprising-way/" target="_blank">Mapping Ignorance</a>.</div>
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<b>References:</b></div>
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<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Cancer+Research&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1158%2F0008-5472.CAN-12-2753&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Trapping+of+PARP1+and+PARP2+by+Clinical+PARP+Inhibitors&rft.issn=0008-5472&rft.date=2012&rft.volume=72&rft.issue=21&rft.spage=5588&rft.epage=5599&rft.artnum=http%3A%2F%2Fcancerres.aacrjournals.org%2Fcgi%2Fdoi%2F10.1158%2F0008-5472.CAN-12-2753&rft.au=Murai%2C+J.&rft.au=Huang%2C+S.&rft.au=Das%2C+B.&rft.au=Renaud%2C+A.&rft.au=Zhang%2C+Y.&rft.au=Doroshow%2C+J.&rft.au=Ji%2C+J.&rft.au=Takeda%2C+S.&rft.au=Pommier%2C+Y.&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Murai, J., Huang, S., Das, B., Renaud, A., Zhang, Y., Doroshow, J., Ji, J., Takeda, S., & Pommier, Y. (2012). Trapping of PARP1 and PARP2 by Clinical PARP Inhibitors <span style="font-style: italic;">Cancer Research, 72</span> (21), 5588-5599 DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-12-2753" rev="review">10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-12-2753</a></span>
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<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Cancer+Research&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1158%2F0008-5472.CAN-12-1287&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=HER2+Overexpression+Renders+Human+Breast+Cancers+Sensitive+to+PARP+Inhibition+Independently+of+Any+Defect+in+Homologous+Recombination+DNA+Repair&rft.issn=0008-5472&rft.date=2012&rft.volume=72&rft.issue=18&rft.spage=4796&rft.epage=4806&rft.artnum=http%3A%2F%2Fcancerres.aacrjournals.org%2Fcgi%2Fdoi%2F10.1158%2F0008-5472.CAN-12-1287&rft.au=Nowsheen%2C+S.&rft.au=Cooper%2C+T.&rft.au=Bonner%2C+J.&rft.au=LoBuglio%2C+A.&rft.au=Yang%2C+E.&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology"><br /></span>
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Cancer+Research&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1158%2F0008-5472.CAN-12-1287&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=HER2+Overexpression+Renders+Human+Breast+Cancers+Sensitive+to+PARP+Inhibition+Independently+of+Any+Defect+in+Homologous+Recombination+DNA+Repair&rft.issn=0008-5472&rft.date=2012&rft.volume=72&rft.issue=18&rft.spage=4796&rft.epage=4806&rft.artnum=http%3A%2F%2Fcancerres.aacrjournals.org%2Fcgi%2Fdoi%2F10.1158%2F0008-5472.CAN-12-1287&rft.au=Nowsheen%2C+S.&rft.au=Cooper%2C+T.&rft.au=Bonner%2C+J.&rft.au=LoBuglio%2C+A.&rft.au=Yang%2C+E.&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Nowsheen, S., Cooper, T., Bonner, J., LoBuglio, A., & Yang, E. (2012). HER2 Overexpression Renders Human Breast Cancers Sensitive to PARP Inhibition Independently of Any Defect in Homologous Recombination DNA Repair <span style="font-style: italic;">Cancer Research, 72</span> (18), 4796-4806 DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-12-1287" rev="review">10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-12-1287</a></span></div>
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-80634002486328308292012-08-16T09:00:00.000+01:002012-08-16T09:00:04.753+01:00And the Labby goes to ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>The Scientist</em> magazine organises the "<strong>Labbies</strong>" (<a href="http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/08/help-us-award-the-2012-labbies/" target="_blank">multimedia awards</a>). Each year a panel of judges picks some <a href="http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/08/2012-labby-video-finalists/" target="_blank">videos</a> and <a href="http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/08/2012-labby-image-finalists/" target="_blank">images</a> as finalists for the awards and people can choose the best one in each category.<br />
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This year the five finalists are quite different but all of them are impressive. From natural selection to stem cell research for diabetes these videos are a good example of different research projects presented in a very catchy way. </div>
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The first video titled "<strong>The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation</strong>"<strong> </strong>is about the adaptation of the rock pocket mice in the New Mexico's Valley of Fires where volcanoes have left patches of scorched black land.</div>
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"<strong>The Secret Lives of Honeybees</strong>" is the second video and shows us the “waggle” dances of the bees using forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras.</div>
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If you want to go on a journey inside the cell, "<strong>Nanoplanet: An expedition to the cell</strong>" is your video, and the third finalist.</div>
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"<strong>Embryogenesis in Living Colors</strong>", the fourth finalist, shows how the necessity of going further in a research project pushes the development of the techniques and machines used.</div>
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And the fifth finalist is this video titled "<strong>Diabetes: Progress and Promise in Stem Cell Research</strong>". This video shows the struggles of two patients with diabetes and the research project of the scientists who aim to develop an embryonic stem cell therapy for the chronic disease.
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And don't forget that you can vote for the best video in their <a href="http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/08/2012-labby-video-finalists/#vote" target="_blank">website</a>.<br />
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NOTE: This post has been published originally in <a href="http://extelligenceexperiment.com/2012/08/and-the-labby-goes-to/">The Extelligence Experiment</a></div>
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-77883812694378296862012-07-05T18:43:00.000+01:002012-07-05T21:06:03.499+01:00Truth and Beauty: The unseeable biology<div style="text-align: right;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">By Nevit Dilmen.</span><br />
<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brain_animated_color_nevit.gif?uselang=en-gb" style="font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Source Wikimedia Commons</a></td></tr>
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Sometimes it's difficult to tell you about things that happen inside the cells. And these things are difficult to teach as well. However, one of the ways we have to show you those beautiful things inside the cells is with animations.</div>
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These animations are based on accurate scientific data and show us, many times in a very spectacular way, those things that we can't see. Animations are a combination of truth and beauty.</div>
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As examples of these animations I want to share with you some videos that I hope you like.</div>
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The first video is a talk given by <b>Drew Berry</b> in the TEDxSydney. He shows us how the <b>DNA chains</b> are seen and how they get packed inside the nucleus of the cell. In addition, he show us a bit of information about <b>microtubules</b> and their attachment to the chromosomes during the cell division. It's truly beautiful.</div>
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The next video is another TED talk. This time is <b>David Bolinsky</b> who speaks. David is a medical and scientific illustrator whose team started few years ago the "<a href="http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/">Biovisions</a>" project in collaboration with Harvard University. The project's aim is to create scientific animations about cellular processes that we can't see. The talk is amazing and the animations about the processes that happen<b> inside the cell </b>shown in the talk are really beautiful.<br />
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And finally, I want to finish this post with the video of the animation presented by David in the previous video. I know some of you really wanted to watch it properly. Enjoy it!!!<br />
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</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-70143912891103218852012-06-22T11:51:00.002+01:002012-06-23T20:32:57.913+01:00"Science: it's a girl thing" disappointing campaign<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlFyA7YOJLXYAq3J0nta2k-giYTEQghllldgWESitr7MrFO4EoUBPjwmj43YrcIfERevyFj4ftpjDz_rcVa5D_m5ExSyPxl0zn0AM_zcf5oBulPnLJOY1VM0wCyoiHW8UsZ813RZsOrbA/s1600/science+is+a+girl+thing.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlFyA7YOJLXYAq3J0nta2k-giYTEQghllldgWESitr7MrFO4EoUBPjwmj43YrcIfERevyFj4ftpjDz_rcVa5D_m5ExSyPxl0zn0AM_zcf5oBulPnLJOY1VM0wCyoiHW8UsZ813RZsOrbA/s320/science+is+a+girl+thing.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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This morning I discovered (via <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaraGrima/status/216077375534936064">Clara Grima</a>) a new campaign from the European Union (EU) to promote science among girls and I was very disappointed. It's called "<a href="http://science-girl-thing.eu/">Science: it's a girl thing</a>".</div>
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This campaign was <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/geoghegan-quinn/headlines/speeches/2012/20120621-women-in-science-speech_en.htm">launched</a> <a href="http://euroalert.net/en/news.aspx?idn=15533">yesterday</a> with a <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferences/2012/launch-science-girl-thing/pdf/programme.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none">conference</a> in Brussels and it looked like a very good idea. We really need to encourage girls to get interested in science but the way the EU chose to do it this time is making many people angry.</div>
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There has been a lot of discussion about gender equality in science in the EU and I've been involved in some conferences and projects focused on this issue. I know the European Commission (EC) is committed to decrease the gender gap in science. One example is that the EC has taken the <a href="http://www.genderinscience.org/downloads/genSET_Consensus_Report_Recommendations_for_Action_on_the_Gender_Dimension_in_Science.pdf">Recommendations for Action on the Gender Dimension</a> in Science from the <a href="http://www.genderinscience.org/">GenSET</a> project. This project organised the first <a href="http://www.gender-summit.eu/index.php">European Gender Summit</a> last year and organises it again this year. The first summit produced a <a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/polcy-manifesto.html">manifesto</a> that in its last point says:</div>
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<i>Promote closer collaborations between schools and universities to support efforts to recruit more women into research by creating: a) <b>positive images of women scientists; </b>and b) appreciation of the benefits of science in a multi-cultural, and multi-lingual Europe. Investing in higher education for women and engaging Europe’s diverse populations provides a unique competitive advantage to achieve Innovation Union commitments.</i></blockquote>
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Well, with the teaser video of the campaign they haven't created a positive image of women scientists but a very biased and clichéd one. If the people who made this video (I'm really scared of viewing the whole video) were in the summit they would have never made it in this way. Never. It's in complete disagreement with what it was discussed there. We need more women in science but this is not the way to promote that. And I'm not the only one who thinks in this way. In twitter the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23sciencegirlthing">#sciencegirlthing</a> shows the disappointment of many other people. But you can see the teaser video here and judge by yourself. </div>
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UPDATE!!!!! (23rd of June)<br />
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The European Commission, after the cascade of negative reactions to the video, has removed it and <a href="https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/216270807926718464">started</a> a new hashtag in twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23realwomeninscience">#realwomeninscience</a>, to build a <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/EU_Commission/realwomeninscience/members">list</a> of women scientists in twitter. The list is interesting and complements another <a href="https://plus.google.com/104280860071451386165/posts/QJfGXiVUqZy">list</a> made in Goggle + of STEM women.<br />
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The video was dowloaded by some people and put it back on youtube. So you still can watch it here.<br />
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In addition, I want to share this video made by astronomer Dr Meghan Gray as well, where she gives her view on the campaign. And check this <a href="http://www.bps-research-digest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/girlie-scientist-role-models-could-do.html">post</a> about a recent study about how role models for girls can do more harm than good.</div>
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/x3eZQHwGQE0?version=3&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-77111597480897490422012-06-12T11:33:00.002+01:002012-06-12T11:52:39.153+01:00Genetic Engineering as you have never seen it before<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTms-Zr61eL3oZVQ5sWwf-cpihpA3yJuvaxJTiut5i8qfi2QVdzNA60WciMxJTQJVcFAFTGXSGB9grxAecwgEjA851q9XsLlYMIgGn0Lemic8DEzl82jp6WDj302XQokcrx4rfXmYkYmk/s1600/Genetic_Manipulation.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTms-Zr61eL3oZVQ5sWwf-cpihpA3yJuvaxJTiut5i8qfi2QVdzNA60WciMxJTQJVcFAFTGXSGB9grxAecwgEjA851q9XsLlYMIgGn0Lemic8DEzl82jp6WDj302XQokcrx4rfXmYkYmk/s1600/Genetic_Manipulation.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Wikimedia Commons</td></tr>
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I just came across this BBC documentary by <a href="http://twitter.com/AdamRutherford">Adam Rutherford</a> through Jenny Winder in <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/116017061364727182937/posts/bdKuWYyQjCv">Google plus</a> about Genetic Engineering. I do work with genetic engineering techniques myself in the lab but what it was shown in the video made me open my mouth. It´s really unbelievable how far we have gone nowadays in this field and how quickly this keeps evolving.</div>
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I won't say anything else... Just judge it by yourself.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvcvdmLnJG4iAkiDZXk8TC-uqTKSWV1gSJY4k1AKLpA9rS7FWpiStNJVGAr7TQQ0rWNyJEKOLj370YqPJQ9ljYZBOfLIL8WuqvA-X2x98blpr6EXIQ36AU4D3ts_DMVvQ0QYX3wvoV8k/s1600/4womeninscience" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvcvdmLnJG4iAkiDZXk8TC-uqTKSWV1gSJY4k1AKLpA9rS7FWpiStNJVGAr7TQQ0rWNyJEKOLj370YqPJQ9ljYZBOfLIL8WuqvA-X2x98blpr6EXIQ36AU4D3ts_DMVvQ0QYX3wvoV8k/s200/4womeninscience" width="200" /></a></div>
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Yesterday, I saw in twitter the link to a very interesting <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2012/06/from-the-lab-to-the-layman">post</a> published in <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/">Agora</a>, the L'Oréal-UNESCO for women in science blog. And the reason is very simple. They posted <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2012/03/who-is-ingrid-scheffer/">Ingrid Scheffer</a>'s speech at the inaugural SOBR (Student Of Brain Research) in Melbourne. I loved her speech.</div>
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She talked about how important is to communicate our science to the non-scientists. She covered different issues from how to prepare a powerpoint to how to talk to the media. Quite a few and very interesting things in not many minutes.</div>
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So, here you have the videos of her speech. I hope you enjoy them as much as me. Becasue... "Science is sexy, and it is our job to tell everyone that." Never forget it.</div>
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<object height="360" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lh6zM43qbOM?version=3&hl=en_GB">
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lh6zM43qbOM?version=3&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-47525389391824307322012-03-21T07:39:00.000+00:002012-03-21T07:47:03.056+00:00Open-Source Cancer Research<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm always interested in cancer research and recently I became very interested in <b>open data</b>. Open data is a great tool. It's based on sharing the knowledge. And this is always very good. Mainly for research that is collaborative. Sometimes this is not easy because of the competition, mainly in the biomedicine field. This open science is increasingly growing but it won't succeed if only few scientists are involved in it. </div>
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When I took part in the <a href="http://scienceboxen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/giving-people-chance-to-take-part-in.html">SciFund challenge</a> one of the rewards I was offering was to write a blog post about whatever (related to science) the contributor wanted. Well, <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/FredericBaud">Frederic Baud</a>, one of the contributors of my <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">project</a> asked me if I could write a post about open science, so here it is. The <b>open science </b>movement is fighting to make scientific research – especially publicly funded research – <a href="http://www.openscience.org/blog/?p=269">more transparent, freely accessible and reusable</a>. And I want to encourage scientists to share their research and be part of this movement. As I said before it may not be easy but there are many good examples of very successful projects that were based in this open philosophy. </div>
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The one I want to show you here is about the development of a new drug to treat some types of cancer. I heard of it trough <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/figshare">Mark Hahnel</a>, the founder of <a href="http://figshare.com/">Figshare</a>, a platform for scientists to share their research under a Creative Commons license. The example is from <a href="http://bradner.dfci.harvard.edu/">Jay Bradner</a> who presented it in a very good way in his TEDxBoston talk. He will explain how this worked for him better than me so here you have his talk.</div>
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And this is not an isolated example. Really. We can increase the number of successful cases if we, scientists, decide to take part in the open science movement. Not only for our own benefit, but also for the benefit that society can get from it.</div>
</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-58831994556865895372012-03-19T08:00:00.000+00:002012-03-19T08:00:00.752+00:00It has been possible thanks to you<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_eKCe17chDrhAAPaPBaLXtdeneX_npui2miL0GU8Ym3i7GfhMXgAPm8JXeCtErrEBZ7S-8352G39n4P49SAmJlgmEshiEhVqNoD1Qk21q5beLJORt03_Efo6NHvsIhSIDQtfUpMsuL0/s1600/cancer+yeast+has+answers+.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_eKCe17chDrhAAPaPBaLXtdeneX_npui2miL0GU8Ym3i7GfhMXgAPm8JXeCtErrEBZ7S-8352G39n4P49SAmJlgmEshiEhVqNoD1Qk21q5beLJORt03_Efo6NHvsIhSIDQtfUpMsuL0/s320/cancer+yeast+has+answers+.png" width="220" /></a></div>
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Yes, my SciFund <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">project</a> has been possible thanks to you. This is the post to thank all the fuelers who contributed to it for that and to thank other people who helped also with other things.</div>
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First of all I want to thank Jai Ranganathan and Jarret Byrnes for having the idea and making the challenge a reality. I also want to thank the researchers who took part in this first round of the SciFund challenge for their help polishing the project before publishing it, and especially to Jorge Mederos who has been a great team mate all this time.</div>
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I want to thank Esther Walker, from the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, as well, for all her help choosing most of the nice pictures that appeared in the video of my project.</div>
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Finally I want to thank my sister Angélica for all her help spreading the word about my project and the other two Spanish projects in the challenge.</div>
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And because I wanted to do something more special than a blog post, here you have this video dedicated to all of you, who have made this possible.</div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/38750880">Thank you</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user8405696">Marisa Alonso-Núñez</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<b>Contributors to "Cancer? Yeast has answers"</b></div>
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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; width: 650px;"><tbody>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt; width: 228pt;" width="304">Anne Osterrieder</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Carlos Xabier</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Claire Villeneuve</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jacek Walczynski</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jelena</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jesús</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Kanijo</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Lopez-Carr Walker Davies Murphy Bambridge</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Rafael Medina</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Robin Fink</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Simone</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Carlos Romá-Mateo</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Graham Richards</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jagoba Barron</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jimmy Garland</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Marc Figueras</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Nathan Tyler</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Raúl de la Puente</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Santiago Campillo Brocal</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Vladimir Vukicevic</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Aritz Lopategi</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Carlos</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Deidre Ruble</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Diego</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Elissa Malcohn</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Esther Martínez</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Francisco J. Teran</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">George Gardiner</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jocelyn Thurlow</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Jorge Mederos</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">jose luis cebollada</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Juan Carlos</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Maggie Whitaker</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Mary Canady</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Maurice Cowell</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Mikel Martin</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Mischa Andrews</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">MrGimlet</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Nahúm Chazarra</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Rubén Lijó</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Santi Rello Varona</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Sarah</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Sergio Gutierrez-Santos</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Udane Arambalza</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Bernardo Herradón</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Sarah Murray</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Bizkaitarra</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Charo Carballo</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Christoph Rabel</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Daniel Torregrosa</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">FredericBaud</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">José Manuel López Nicolás</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Patricia R</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Susana Díaz</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">William Sadek</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Angelica Alonso</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">María Paz Núñez</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Comprendia LLC</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Rosa Núñez Bayón</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Tim Skellett</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Mary Canady</td></tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="height: 15pt;">Gus Granados<br />
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P.S: The <a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/sign-up/">Second Round of the SciFund challenge</a> is recruiting scientists during March to take part in May. This time I won´t be able to be part of it but if any of you want to try I strongly recommend the experience to you.</div>
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</tbody></table>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-83910975431629687962012-03-07T16:54:00.001+00:002012-03-07T21:14:04.415+00:00Job (in)stability in the early stages of the Research Career<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCf7TSdfV3KGkYBVeJyVJ8KQKgXw4idDv0XPAQmMSpAf038liCSBYCC28F_MA1cqC1WE_2Z4c8SNQL9gncKpdL6ccpPiGzBuCbQye6x1R2uBugR-fcufge7t20ZnnIcpru-kLtEbyoqVQ/s1600/Eu-Logo-_eps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCf7TSdfV3KGkYBVeJyVJ8KQKgXw4idDv0XPAQmMSpAf038liCSBYCC28F_MA1cqC1WE_2Z4c8SNQL9gncKpdL6ccpPiGzBuCbQye6x1R2uBugR-fcufge7t20ZnnIcpru-kLtEbyoqVQ/s200/Eu-Logo-_eps.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Back in January I took part in the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/consultation/wue-programme_en.htm">wrap up event </a>of the public consultation on the future of the European Research Area (ERA) organised by the European Commission: "<b>ERA Conference 2012: Fostering Efficiency, Excellence and Growth</b>". You can find the preliminary report about the public consultation in the European Commission <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/pdf/era-summary-report-2012_en.pdf">web</a> and I really recommend you to read it if you are interested in these issues.</div>
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My intervention was in the session called "<b>Researchers: Why the European Research Area?</b>" and I was asked to talk about the specific topics that are important for young researchers related to this. My speech (a short one because we were asked to last around 5 minutes) was focus on the mobility and instability issues in the early stages of the research career. If you click in the link below you can watch my talk. </div>
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I hope you like it and I would like to know what you think about it (in the comments box for example). You can also enjoy the rest of the talks <a href="http://webcast.ec.europa.eu/eutv/portal/archive.html?viewConference=14256&catId=14024">here</a>. Related to my talk I recommend you to watch Dr. Vannessa Diaz's talk. It was very clear and to the point. I loved it.</div>
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Just one more thing. One issue that was recurrent in the answers to the consultation was the gender inequality mainly at the top positions in academia. This is not exclusive of the academic environment but can be found in other places as well. To finish this post I would like to leave you with this video title "The lack of women at the top" by Euronews (clicking in the image will redirect you to the video in Euronews´web).</div>
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<a href="http://www.euronews.com/2012/03/05/a-lack-of-women-at-the-top/"><img alt="The lack of women at the top" src="http://static.euronews.com/images_news/img_606X341_right-on-lack-of-women.jpg" width="420" /></a></div>
</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-23447782367949482702012-03-05T13:22:00.003+00:002012-03-05T13:22:58.876+00:00How scientists see the worldI've just found this comic and I think it's great so I want to share it with you all... <a href="http://abstrusegoose.com/275">World View (cartoon)</a> by Abstruse Goose<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WPSuYSMgIPVo_KCJQc9IFPhLdxXWmahBcR5KANGYCzOq-2t3Q5bxPNgol8srwEiOBDyAyVOAPTGe80bBtooa8XKsXN3FV0VweiWiOJCAtWPbOCaEb9Gg97qKQKWfx2qyYBEOusQvqio/s1600/all_i_see_are_equations.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WPSuYSMgIPVo_KCJQc9IFPhLdxXWmahBcR5KANGYCzOq-2t3Q5bxPNgol8srwEiOBDyAyVOAPTGe80bBtooa8XKsXN3FV0VweiWiOJCAtWPbOCaEb9Gg97qKQKWfx2qyYBEOusQvqio/s1600/all_i_see_are_equations.PNG" /></a></div>
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</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-16014776263222871022012-02-15T09:00:00.000+00:002012-02-15T09:00:07.258+00:00When the budget is low: the "Flip a coin" experimentIn these difficult times this may be the research that we are left to do :-( ... I hope not<br />
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<a href="http://vadlo.com/cartoons.php?id=266"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKGQ30nuVbWtv8AzXoB2H47iBAWgOpYTYUfUKpm37Kf9l4MRqOPySycOXsSEe7JWzLgs8hNuno7YNoc3T0iSi00HxJMKmdYak2VpV4ZOONZzwmMUKusgBB7ELMtyCK8TmNiRtgnaWsJcE/s640/With-this-much-grant-money-only-experiment-we-can-do-is-flip-a-coin.gif" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-30422451682764493822012-02-13T08:00:00.000+00:002012-02-13T08:15:43.261+00:00Are journalists from Mars and scientists from Venus?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVE_hVbjchRARnlQ-Tlx6GW_jJQjrWYC-98j_P3EAJsMOPUbPrPAKW2-TjzetYldxNfPZgvBIKKUWEEfStJJDqn2oc2NnXe7SRk12FCSlRpxbpAR6RPpjR8LZ032_hBQrpBa4xFNCmdns/s1600/periodismo+cient%25C3%25ADfico.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVE_hVbjchRARnlQ-Tlx6GW_jJQjrWYC-98j_P3EAJsMOPUbPrPAKW2-TjzetYldxNfPZgvBIKKUWEEfStJJDqn2oc2NnXe7SRk12FCSlRpxbpAR6RPpjR8LZ032_hBQrpBa4xFNCmdns/s1600/periodismo+cient%25C3%25ADfico.jpg" /></a><b>Are journalists and scientists from different planets? Do they speak different languages? Are they forced to not understand each other?</b><br />
These questions are framed in a long debate that looks like a never ending one. This time it re-started with a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/jan/17/scientists-journalism">post </a>in the “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog">Notes and Theories</a>” blog of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">The Guardian</a> written by <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/Ananyo">Ananyo Bhattacharya</a>, chief online editor of Nature. What does this post say? In few words, that scientists don't have a clue about how journalism works.<br />
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There was a quick reaction from different bloggers and scientists who replied to that post giving their <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/the-way-things-are/">opinion</a> and saying why, in this case, journalists don't understand how <a href="http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=12566">science</a> or <a href="http://geologygeek.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/the-main-ways-in-which-science-journalists-demonstrate-they-dont-understand-science-journalism/">science journalism</a> work. Even Ed Yong published in his <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/01/17/every-scientist-versus-journalist-debate-ever-in-one-diagram/">blog </a>a diagram of the relationship between journalists and scientists.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Actually, there is a bit of everything in science journalism and communication. It's true that scientists are used to write articles with a specific structure (the scientific paper one) that is different to the one used by journalists. And if scientists don't understand this journalistic structure and want their research to get published in conventional mass media and reach a broader audience, they should make an effort to adapt themselves to it in this context. An article in a journal is not the same as an article in a scientific publication. And for a journalistic article about a researcher work to be good<b> it requires two things: a scientist who knows how to collaborate with a journalist, and a journalist who understands the researcher's work. This is team work.</b></div>
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In general, scientists are not trained to work with journalists to communicate the research they do. This is a problem because there are good scientists who would like to communicate their science but don't know how to do it or they are not good at it. There are masters and postgraduate courses in science journalism and communication but this is not enough. However there are some <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/workshops.html">isolated</a> <a href="http://esteve.org/aw/Home/Secciones_Web/Actividades/Seminarios_formacion/irtve/%7Efav/madrid/">initiatives</a> that cover the necessity of training scientists in science journalism but they are not enough.<br />
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On the other hand, journalists have to understand that scientists don't like quite a few things related to mass media. Many scientists are afraid of telling something to a journalist and being misunderstood. Because if this happens the article about his or her research can appear in a wrong way in the mass media and the error will be associated to the scientist. This is understandable, mainly because what it is interesting for a scientist it is not for a journalist and vice versa. We can't change this , but we can make an effort and work together, understand each other and adapt ourselves.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVg7CzyzHEC1RcZQuoeAdLlE8mbn4J-kgPqBeZkukxL-1Ib3kFVjCbcRDHZCsSpoPGw4ABAeKT_brm46fYPHrye96M_kTv-Wyit7h8cGxZih-PETx0duxaIWiT7-G4pN4WNuDyMw8kg2I/s1600/saturday+morning+breakfast+cereal+scienc+journalism.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVg7CzyzHEC1RcZQuoeAdLlE8mbn4J-kgPqBeZkukxL-1Ib3kFVjCbcRDHZCsSpoPGw4ABAeKT_brm46fYPHrye96M_kTv-Wyit7h8cGxZih-PETx0duxaIWiT7-G4pN4WNuDyMw8kg2I/s1600/saturday+morning+breakfast+cereal+scienc+journalism.gif" /></a></div>
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And all this for what? Very simple. <b>To be sure that scientists and journalists speak the same language: the language that takes science to the general public</b>. I'm convinced that scientists and journalists who want science to get to everybody do find the way to do it. And it's an amazing way. <b>The one that grips people with the wonders of science</b>. <br />
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Comic: <a href="http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623">How science reporting works</a> by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal</div>
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Published originally in Spanish in <a href="http://e-ciencia.com/blog/?p=6746">E-ciencia.com</a></div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-63094086127630075192012-01-29T08:00:00.000+00:002012-01-31T20:07:07.998+00:00Yeast in Cancer Research as a case study in the TEDxBrooklyn<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I've just discovered that my project <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">"Cancer? Yeast has answers"</a> was one of the examples that Brian Meece, the CEO of RocketHub, mentioned in his talk about crowdfunding science at the TEDxBrooklyn.<br />
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Actually he does a very good summary of what the SciFund challenge was and the key points to have a successful project to get funds for your research project by crowdfunding. And one of those key points is the rewards you give back to the people who decide to donate money to your project. In this part, my project got his attention and he used it as an example of interesting rewards. He mixed the ideas of sending a copy of the paper and getting the name of the contributors in the blog post about the challenge, and said that I was offering having the name of the contributors in the paper. That it´s not true.<br />
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But what it is really important and he mentioned specifically was the fact that I was offering as a reward, not only the paper of the work done, but also an additional explanation in lay language of what the paper was about. I'm very flattered by this. I admit it. But I think that is a great idea, indeed. An it´s the least I can do. To explain, in a way everybody can understand, the results of the work they contributed to. Anyway, here you have Brian's talk. Enjoy it!!!! (my project gets in stage in the minute 10:30)</div>
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All of them are really good, but I want to share the last one: "The greatest show on earth". This video has been released last week and it's a video about the evolution. I'm sure you will enjoy it.<br /><br />And before leaving you with the video, I want to add that John makes all his videos for free and all of us can enjoy them without any cost, so if you think they are good, you can help him with this project <a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=c7Tcsii_M8JZyC7d-KZBHA2EHzksT2Q-xYJNakIRM0K82PAH1jWXpK2W694&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8db2b24f7b84f1819343fd6c338b1d9d60" target="_blank">donating some money.</a><br /><br />And now, here you have the last "Symphony of Science" video, "The greatest show on earth"<br /><br /><object height="360" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wxDOpAM2FrQ?version=3&hl=en_GB&rel=0">
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Here you have the lyrics... enjoy it!!!</div>
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[David Attenborough]<br />How could one species turn into another?<br /><br />[Richard Dawkins]<br />How is it that we find ourselves surrounded by such complexity, such elegance?<br /><br />[Bill Nye]<br />The genes of you and me<br />They're all made of DNA<br />We're all made of the same chemicals<br />DNA - we're all made of DNA<br /><br />[Attenborough]<br />Only the fittest survive<br />And that is the key<br />Natural Selection<br />That is the key<br /><br />[Dawkins]<br />We are surrounded by endless forms<br />Most beautiful, most wonderful<br />Evolution - the greatest show on Earth<br /><br />There is grandeur in this view of life<br />Evolution - the greatest show on Earth<br /><br />[Attenborough]<br />The history of life can be thought of<br />As a many branched tree<br />The five kingdoms of life<br />were established early on<br /><br />Bacteria<br />Protists- amoeba like creatures<br />Fungi<br />Plants <br />And animals<br /><br />[Dawkins]<br />We find ourselves perched on one tiny twig<br />In the midst of a blossoming tree of life<br /><br />[refrain]<br /><br />We are surrounded by millions of other species<br />Walking, flying, burrowing, stalking, chasing, fleeing,<br />Outpacing<br /><br />[Attenborough]<br />Animals strive to reach this one ultimate goal<br />To ensure the survival of the next generation<br />This one ultimate goal<br />To pass on their genes<br />That is what life is all about<br /><br />[refrain]<br /><br />[Dawkins]<br />As we look back on the history of life<br />We see a picture of never ending,<br />ever rejuvinating novelty<br /><br />[Attenborough]<br />Those animals may seem to us to be very remote,<br />strange, even fantastic<br /><br />But all of us alive today<br />Owe our very existence to them</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-75071931125903765162011-12-25T14:37:00.003+00:002011-12-25T14:37:44.663+00:00Science Box wishes you Merry Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-32936030190294360312011-12-07T08:00:00.000+00:002012-01-23T23:15:17.105+00:00Giving people the chance to take part in Science funding : the SciFund challenge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Published originally in <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2011/12/giving-people-the-change-to-take-part-in-science-funding-the-scifund-challenge/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BlogAgora+%28Blog+Agora%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">Agora, the blog of the L'Oreal Foundation for women in science</a>. This is my post in that blog about the SciFund challenge.<br />
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It’s obvious that the economic crisis we are suffering is affecting science. We are seeing science budgets shrink quite quickly all around the world. We are seeing scientists struggling to find money to do their research. We are seeing a decrease in the trust of governments and institutions in research. And this is going to last for a while. But it is in moments like this that creative ideas arise. <br />
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A few months ago a couple of American researchers, <a href="http://jarrettbyrnes.info/">Jarret</a><a href="http://jarrettbyrnes.info/"> </a><a href="http://jarrettbyrnes.info/">Byrnes</a> and <a href="http://www.miller-mccune.com/category/curiouser/">Jai</a><a href="http://www.miller-mccune.com/category/curiouser/"> </a><a href="http://www.miller-mccune.com/category/curiouser/">Ranganathan</a>, got one of these creative ideas. They were tired of seeing this economic situation on one hand and, on the other hand, they realised that people were willing to give money to different projects, such as the one to build a <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw">RoboCop</a><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw"> </a><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw">statue</a><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw"> </a><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw">in</a><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw"> </a><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscifund.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F29%2Fthe-scifund-challenge-a-call-to-virtual-arms%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGO0jeejj7zqYNjnNIplw12ELFFzw">Detroit</a>. So why not ask people to fund research? The seed of the <a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/">SciFund</a><a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/"> </a><a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/">challenge</a> was sown! <br />
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They spread the word through social networks trying to recruit researchers who were interested in taking part in this initiative. The challenge of making the research projects comprehensible to people had two main aims: telling people about the research and trying to get people to donate small (or not that small) amounts of money to fund parts of those projects. And quite a few scientists, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">from</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/who-is-the-scifund-challenge/">different</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">levels</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">in</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">the</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">ir</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">research</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">career</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">s</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">and</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036">different</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1460745036"> </a><a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/who-is-the-scifund-challenge/">specialities</a>, signed up. <br />
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After a full month of hard work writing the projects to make them understandable, making a video explaining the project (the first-ever video for many of them) and working together to get the best out of each project, the SciFund challenge went live. On the first of November, 49 researchers made it possible. 49 amazing research projects were on the <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund">RocketHub</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund">platform</a> ready to be “fueled” with people’s donations. <br />
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I’m one of those researchers and I’m really impressed with people’s commitment. The SciFund challenge has raised so far more than US$60,000! Another thing that has impressed me about the SciFund challenge is the fact that 43% of the researchers who take part in it are women. Yes, 21 of the 49 projects are from women. This is not bad at all and it’s even more amazing if we take into account that four of the five projects that have already been fully funded are those proposed bywomen. I would like to tell you a bit more about some of these fantastic projects. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">Athlete</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">‘</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">s</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">Foot</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">in</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">Worms</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3703-athlete-s-foot-in-worms">?</a></b> <br />
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Rebecca Rashid Achterman is a biology instructor at Western Washington University who studies how microbial pathogens cause disease. Her project is about the fungi that cause athlete’s foot – the largest cause of skin infections worldwide. She uses worms for her study because the skin (cuticle) of the worm has a protein that these fungi love to eat and that is present in your skin, hair and nails. Using worms she can have a closer look at the interaction of these fungi with the skin. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape">Mapping</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape">a</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape">Bornean</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3831-mapping-a-bornean-soundscape">Soundscape</a></b> <b><br /></b><br />
Alison Styring is a professor at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She is a field biologist with a focus in conservation and ecology with expertise is Southeast Asian birds. In her project she is asking money to study, record and mapp the sounds from the rainforests of Borneo, which are among the most species-rich habitats in the world. The information she will obtain is going to be very important for understanding the role of animal communication in that ecosystem. In addition, this information will be an important reference for many rarely seen species inhabiting rainforest thickets and canopies. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3827-school-of-ants">School</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3827-school-of-ants"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3827-school-of-ants">of</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3827-school-of-ants"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3827-school-of-ants">Ants</a></b> <br />
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Andrea Lucky heads the School of Ants project, which is based in the lab of Dr. Rob Dunn at North Carolina State University. The School of Ants project is a citizen-scientist driven study of the ants that live in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. The project involves thousands of people across North America and is mapping the native and introduced species of ants that live in backyards to understand how and when different species came to live where we find them today. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3808-smart-delivery">Smart</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3808-smart-delivery"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3808-smart-delivery">Delivery</a></b> <br />
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Jennifer Schmitt is a research fellow with the NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise. She is working on projects that include corporate embedded sustainability, smart network applications in Tanzania, and energy efficiency financing. Her project wants to develop a new and better way to deliver childhood vaccines by using cell phones and a “Facebook like” social network. The aim is to send small batches of vaccines to continually reach the most rural areas of Tanzania with the help of cell phones and a virtual group of “friends” who will transport the vaccines in the extra space on their bikes, mules or backpacks to the places where they were planning to go. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">Cancer</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">? </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">Yeast</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">has</a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers"> </a><a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-answers">answers</a></b> <br />
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This is my project. I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in Manchester (UK) and I work with yeast. Yes. Yeast in a Cancer Research Institute. I’ve already written in this <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2011/08/baking-science-and-cancer/">blog</a><a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2011/08/baking-science-and-cancer/"> </a>about some research done on yeast, but now I’m going to tell you about the specific research I’m doing. Cancer cells divide without any control and the key proteins that control this cell division are so important that are (more or less) the same through evolution: from yeast to humans. In our lab in Manchester we study a protein that is increased in many cancers and is involved in promoting cell division. We try to find out how this protein interacts in the cell with other proteins. If some of these secondary proteins are important for the function of the key protein in promoting the uncontrolled division of the cell, inhibiting the specific interaction between them can be a new way to try to treat cancer. <br />
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<b>Science needs your collaboration </b><br />
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These are only five of the <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund">projects</a>, but the rest are very interesting as well. The initiative is going to be alive until the 15th of December and there are still many projects that need our support. With the SciFund challenge we have the opportunity to contribute to the creation of knowledge in many different fields. This challenge gives us the opportunity to take part in specific research projects. This doesn’t happen very often and we can’t miss it. Now it is our turn, as citizens, to be part of the future of our economies. To be part of science. </div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-75416004360661501182011-11-28T16:55:00.001+00:002012-01-23T23:15:17.109+00:00Diversity & Soaps Operas for Better Science Communication<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvcvdmLnJG4iAkiDZXk8TC-uqTKSWV1gSJY4k1AKLpA9rS7FWpiStNJVGAr7TQQ0rWNyJEKOLj370YqPJQ9ljYZBOfLIL8WuqvA-X2x98blpr6EXIQ36AU4D3ts_DMVvQ0QYX3wvoV8k/s1600/4womeninscience" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvcvdmLnJG4iAkiDZXk8TC-uqTKSWV1gSJY4k1AKLpA9rS7FWpiStNJVGAr7TQQ0rWNyJEKOLj370YqPJQ9ljYZBOfLIL8WuqvA-X2x98blpr6EXIQ36AU4D3ts_DMVvQ0QYX3wvoV8k/s1600/4womeninscience" /></a>A couple of weeks ago Abby Tabor from <a href="http://blog.mysciencework.com/en/">MyScienceWork </a>contacted me asking to interview me for an article about science communication that she wanted to write. I said yes and the result of that and other two more interviews gave as a result an amazing post that you can find in the <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2011/11/diversity-soaps-operas-for-better-science-communication/">Agora forum, For Women in Science </a>community and in <a href="http://blog.mysciencework.com/en/2011/11/23/diversity-soap-operas-for-better-science-communication.html">MyScienceWork blog, Multidisciplinary Research News</a>. I hope you like as much as I do.<br /><a name='more'></a>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div>
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<i>As more and more researchers take part in bringing their science to the public, social media provide a wealth of tools for making contact. Still, it is important to remember that the target is real people on the other end, with a desire and a need to understand. The diversity of this community also means diversifying the approaches, with new ideas and old favorites, in order to connect most effectively with groups of different needs.</i><br /> <br /> Increasing numbers of researchers are living double lives. On top of a successful scientific career, many are stacking a full-time position as purveyor of science, via blogs, social media, and internet forums. Although, to many, it is more than evident that scientists should share their work with the public, <b>Marisa Alonso Nuñez</b>, a researcher at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Manchester (UK) and contributor to the Agora forum, explains that there remains some resistance on the part of the research world. Some scientists simply don’t see it as part of their job. It’s not taken into account in their job description, and those who actively communicate with the public do it in their spare time, without pay. <br /><br />“Some researchers don’t like it, or they don’t have time, or they’re not good at [translating their work for a lay audience], but I’m happy to do it. A lot of our work is funded by public money, so I feel we owe that to society.” <br /><br />Marisa makes good on this promise to her 516 followers on <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/lualnu10">Twitter</a>, as well as via her personal blog, in <a href="http://scienceboxen.blogspot.com/">English</a> and in <a href="http://cajadeciencia.blogspot.com/">Spanish</a>, and on <a href="http://www.hablandodeciencia.com/">collaborative</a> <a href="http://e-ciencia.com/">blogs</a> and an <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/jof/index.html">online magazine</a>. <br /><br /><b>Mayana Zatz,</b> a geneticist at the University of São Paulo and laureate in 2000 of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award, not only keeps up the pace for the nearly 4,500 people following her on <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/Mayanazatz">Twitter</a>, but she also maintains a <a href="http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/genetica/">blog</a>. She writes about her own work on neurodegenerative diseases, and other science news. The communication flows in both directions, as Professor Zatz welcomes questions from the public, via email. She receives about 20 messages per day from patients asking when a new treatment will be available, for example, or from citizens seeking to understand stem cell research.</div>
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<br /> The Internet clearly has a vital role to play but, for <b>Federica Migliardo</b>, a biophysicist at the University of Messina, an all-web approach without personal contact would be the wrong direction to take for enhancing relations between science and society. Writing <a href="http://agora.forwomeninscience.com/index.php/2008/07/science-needs-a-makeover/">on the Agora forum</a>, Dr. Migliardo stresses the point that science must reflect the society for which it works, in that both women and men must be active in decision-making roles. Likewise, it could be said that our approach to transmitting scientific information to society should reflect the diversity of communication channels that exist, and the varying needs of the individuals involved. <br /><br />Federica participates regularly in meetings at universities designed to expose students to a potential career in research. She says these young people actually request this kind of contact, sending her Facebook messages asking her to make a stop in their town. <br /><br />“It’s important to speak personally because, if not, science is only abstract, it’s not something they imagine they could do.” <br /><br />All things being relative, Dr. Migliardo admits that the laureates of the L’Oréal-UNESCO award are like gods to her. “It’s the same for young people. They imagine [scientists] live on Olympus, that we are geniuses, and that it would be impossible to reach our goals.” <br /><br />When they meet her, though, she says they are struck by something else entirely: how very normal she is. This is something many women researchers feel is imperative to get across to girls interested in science. There is a misconception that to do research, you have to give up the ordinary pleasures of life: seeing friends, going to movies, having children. Mayana Zatz receives a lot of emails that touch on this subject, and feels it’s important to make it clear to young women that you don’t have to leave science to have a family, nor should you give up the experience of motherhood to do research. <br /><br />Coming face-to-face, or email-to-email, with inspiring figures in research can clearly have great benefits for someone considering following the same path. But for a more general diffusion of science, what remains in our arsenal of communication? “I’m convinced TV is the best way now,” declares Federica Migliardo. Marisa Alonso Nuñez laments the undesirable time slots to which scientific documentaries are often doomed—“Who’s going to watch science on a Saturday night?”—but Dr. Migliardo has an idea that could bring science into more homes at a more influential hour. Her goal is to create short films to be broadcast just before the evening news. Each episode would let different scientists talk about their research and their life, and connect with the public on a more human level.</div>
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<br /> Mayana Zatz would like to exploit television to get science discussions out there into the world, using a genre that draws a serious following, all around the globe: the soap opera. Professors Zatz’s field of genetics abounds with ethical issues that doctors, patients and society have never had to face before. She believes these questions could be inserted into stories that would reach the public in a novel way. <br /><br />The fusion of daytime drama with the grave dilemmas of medical ethics may seem an odd one, until Professor Zatz relates the story of a family that came to her for genetic counseling. The couple’s daughter had inherited a genetic disorder, and they had come for testing to determine the risk of a second child facing the same fate. Zatz and her team tested the three family members and discovered—incidentally to the test for the disorder itself—that the devoted dad was not, in fact, the biological father. If that’s not the stuff of soap operas, what is? <br /> <br /> The question, explains Mayana Zatz, is whether to tell the couple, because questions of informed consent and personal responsibility spring to the foreground. This is the sort of debate that Professor Zatz would like to stimulate in the public by inserting scientific details into more plots on TV, “to improve the interest of science and ethics for the entire population.” <br /><br />Perhaps, in time, a program full of drama, betrayal, beautiful people, and science will come to the airwaves. In the short term, though, Marisa Alonso Nuñez worries that the current climate of budget cuts will make science popularization efforts its first victims. Luckily, much of the web’s offerings, coming straight from the researcher-communicator’s mouth, are free. “Blogs don’t cost money, they cost time,” as Marisa puts it, “and more and more people are interested in doing it.” <br /><br />“The public conception of science communication is changing—they demand more—and we need to take that into account,” Alonso Nuñez adds. “Now, we do it because we like to. I’d like to see it become that we have to do it, that this aspect would be considered for grants and job applications.” <br /><br />This may be what’s in store for researchers down the road, yet Zatz, Migliardo and Alonso Nuñez agree that, to be most effective, science communication needs to be a joint effort: a team approach between scientists and journalists, writers, film directors, communications specialists…Because, just as a diverse portfolio of media improves the transmission of knowledge, a diversity of players will improve the quality of the message, from the start. </div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-19634843336632032822011-11-23T08:00:00.000+00:002011-11-23T08:00:00.640+00:00Have your say in the European Research Area<br />
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We are always complaining about the fact that the public organisations don't listen to us. Governments, universities and international organisations usually write laws and regulations not taking into account the people that these are going to affect. However, I have to say that there is an organisation that, since a long time ago, does take into account citizens opinions when the time of writing its documents comes: the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm">European Commission</a>. I know what you are thinking: " but the European Commission produces not binding documents, but recommendations". Yes, you are right. But these are recommendations at European level that, little by little, governments, universities and other kind of organisations take.<br />
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Actually, the European Commission publishes two basic types of documents that cover different aspects of the European scenery: Green Papers and White Papers. The <a href="http://europa.eu/documentation/official-docs/green-papers/index_en.htm">Green Papers</a> are the documents about the current situation on some issues to promote a reflection on those subjects. The <a href="http://europa.eu/documentation/official-docs/white-papers/index_en.htm">White Papers</a>, however, have specific proposals of action and in many cases arise from some previous Green Papers about the same subject.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGE6SXzob1TgVJthaqivyq5aAonPHI_xuBveZZp74jQVm3sWZ8CVmeJMkV7vz3kFf7KO5NPR0N0hwOjfXyGMVkJpw1Inf0JsNF6OY4jg0YwxBsHJ96Cv6jVVCVE_KNxvLix8UY9BeooM/s1600/220px-European_Research_Area_logo.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGE6SXzob1TgVJthaqivyq5aAonPHI_xuBveZZp74jQVm3sWZ8CVmeJMkV7vz3kFf7KO5NPR0N0hwOjfXyGMVkJpw1Inf0JsNF6OY4jg0YwxBsHJ96Cv6jVVCVE_KNxvLix8UY9BeooM/s200/220px-European_Research_Area_logo.svg.png" width="176" /></a></div>
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About research there is a document that the European Commission has produced that is key for the development of the human resources policies in this area: <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eracareers/pdf/am509774CEE_EN_E4.pdf" style="text-align: justify;">The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers</a>. This document <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;">contains</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;"> a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;">paragraph that is very important in my opinion, and that I have used extensively in talks that I've given in different places: </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: inherit;"><b><i>"</i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><i>All researchers engaged in a research career should be recognised as professionals and be treated accordingly. This should commence at the </i></b></span><b style="color: red;"><i>beginning of their careers, namely at postgraduate level, and should </i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><i>include all levels, regardless of their classification at national level"</i></b></span></div>
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This document should be known by every researcher and organisation that has to hire researchers. Since 2005, when it was published, many national organisations have taken it, but they are not enough and its implementation is being very slowly. In addition, there are other two very interesting green papers related to research: "<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/pdf/era_gp_final_en.pdf">The European Research Area: New Perspectives</a>" from 2007 and "<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020/pdf/com_2011_0048_csf_green_paper_en.pdf#page=2">From Challenges to opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation funding</a>" from 2011.</div>
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But the aim of this post is to present to you a public <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/consultations/index_en.htm">consultation </a>that the European Commission is conducting at this moment about the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/era/consultation_en.htm">Areas of untapped potential for the development of the European Research Area (ERA)</a>. This is a consultation where the European Commission wants the opinion of the citizens and organisations about the areas that can be improved in the European Research Area. This consultation cannot be successful without the citizens opinion and contribution. <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/era/consultation_en.htm">Here</a> you can access the website with the information about the consultation. There are two main ways to contribute to it. One is answering the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=ERA2012">questionnaire</a> that they propose, and the other one, sending your written proposals and opinions in a document. The deadline to contribute is the 30th of November of this year, so we don't have a lot of time left.<br />
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Alongside the questionnaire you can find a <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/era/consultation_era.pdf">document</a> with the key areas and information about the different parts of this consultation. If you have enough interest and time (well, it's only 10 pages), I strongly recommend you to read it.<br />
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And the only thing I can do now is to encourage you, from Science Box, to check the questionnaire and fill it. We don't have quite often the opportunity to influence the future strategies about research. Let's not miss this one. Thanks a lot for your collaboration and I need to ask you for a last favour. If you fill the questionnaire, could you leave a comment in this post saying that you have done it, and where country are you from? A "done"+"country" is enough. Thanks a lot again.</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-82534811807418126142011-11-14T12:30:00.000+00:002012-01-23T11:27:41.535+00:00The "Blogfather". Interview with Bora Zivkovic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is a new science communication project in Spanish. A free online magazine of science communication called <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/jof/index.html">Journal of Feelsynapsis</a>. This initiative comes from an online community of scientists called <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/">Feelsynapsis</a> and the passion for communicating science of <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/pg/blog/owner/Quique">Enrique Royuela</a>.</div>
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I take part on this amazing project and I have <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/jof/001/index.html?pageNumber=4">two</a> <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/jof/001/index.html?pageNumber=106">articles</a> in its first issue. One of them is an <a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/jof/001/index.html?pageNumber=4">interview with Bora Zivkovic</a> that you can find translated into English below. I hope you like it.</div>
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This is the first issue of a new online magazine of science communication, so there is no better way of starting it than with the interview with one of the best known science writers and bloggers in the online world: Bora Zivkovic. Bora is the chief editor and community manager of the <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/">Scientific American blogs network</a>. In addition, he is a chronobiologist, biology teacher, organiser of the Science Online Conference of North Carolina and editor of the Open Laboratory anthologies with the best science writing. But above all, he is a blogger who has been around for seven years in social networks and online communities, who writes his blog <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/">A blog around the clock</a> and who tweets all the time from his account <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/BoraZ">@BoraZ</a>. </div>
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At the beginning of September I had the pleasure of taking part in the <a href="http://www.scienceonlinelondon.org/">Science Online London 2011</a> Conference that was about how communicating science is changing mainly in the online environment. I met Bora there and we had a very interesting chat/interview about science communication that I want to share here with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.<br />
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<b>Q: What’s the role of science communication online nowadays or what should be if there is a difference? </b></div>
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A: Well, that’s not an easy question. What’s the role or the goal of any communication? Is it affecting change? Or is it educating? Or amusing, entertaining? Science communication can do all of that. But you have different audiences. Because other scientists are one audience and general public who finds science interesting or fun is another audience. But for some topics it needs to fire up a lot of people to affect or change policy or personal behaviour at country wide level. Your communication is going to be different depending on what your goal is. And how online and offline differ is that what you reach online can potentially be bigger if you are doing it right. But it’s also going to be more random who is going get it. So, if you are using email, letters, phones, flyers, is going to a very targeted audience, and it may be slower and less efficient. In essence that is going to be less people who are going to get it but you can target it very well.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib9E4UvNn0qXOM0njGKjkVVO-hi58SrHyuiP00nGCPvvCqaS3_7HU7Z3ez9LV6nOV8uAqKUDo8qKHm8r2wrgOUsci7O3blPScMjhg6twRAhNDaL0_Ra-69xraay-D8VVOmQy9e0C5wdVQ/s1600/a-blog-around-the-clock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib9E4UvNn0qXOM0njGKjkVVO-hi58SrHyuiP00nGCPvvCqaS3_7HU7Z3ez9LV6nOV8uAqKUDo8qKHm8r2wrgOUsci7O3blPScMjhg6twRAhNDaL0_Ra-69xraay-D8VVOmQy9e0C5wdVQ/s400/a-blog-around-the-clock.jpg" width="400" /></a>But putting stuff online, everybody is going to read it. Your enemies are going to read it, your friends are going to read it, even the people who don’t care are going to read it. So you are hoping there is going to be some people who have not thought about before, but who are going to be fired up by what they just read. And that’s where blogs, twitter, facebook, google+ and all these things are coming in. Because what we science communicators basically do is taking scientific papers and news and spread them all around where we have a lot of non science audience. So my family, and my friends from high school and my friends from facebook, they are going to occasionally click on the link that I posted on facebook and say “Wow, this is cool, I din’t know this” and they share it with their friends and those concentric circles are going to reach people who are not going to actively seek scientific information. Somebody who reads and cares about science will buy Scientific American but most people won’t because most people don’t care. Or most people don’t know they care, or they don’t know that science is fun. And if you try to reach them, for that, the web is really really good because everybody is online. </div>
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<b>Q: So the networks are really important for that I guess. And could you tell me up to five qualities or adjectives of good science communication? </b></div>
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A: PASSION!!! You have to be generally excited about the story you are telling which is one of the reasons why blogs are successful. Because bloggers don’t get assignments. You hear stuff, you read stuff and you suddenly get excited about something and that’s what you write about. So passion is the most important. The second is to write about things that you know. If you are a scientist write about your area of expertise. I’m not going to write about physics because that is not interesting to me or it would take far too much work for me to get it right. So I’m going to link it to a science blog who does it much better, who can do it in twenty minutes, as I can do a circadian story. So there is this division of labour between the blogs for each one of us to jump on the stories that we can actually say something intelligent from a perspective of expertise and with passion. So this is not five but it’s enough. </div>
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<b>Q: Well, 5 was just a random number. You have talked about scienctist writing about their field of expertise, and you were a scientist and switched to just not doing much research… how this happened, why did you take the risk of making that change? Because is kind of a risky change. </b></div>
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A: It’s one of those things that happen. It’s not that I sat down, saw the pros and cons and made a decision. I was in grad school for ten years. I published five papers. I had four manuscripts and half of my dissertation ready, and I stopped doing experiments only because my advisor said so “Stop it! I know you can do fifty more experiments but stop now, write your dissertation and get out”. It was a combination of things. First, that I’m not actually doing research, just writing. Second, three very important people in my life, my father, my grandmother and my grandmother in law, they died one after another. And that actually put me in clinical depression. But I was a macho male and thought that couldn't happen to me and it took a couple of years to me to realise that it was a real problem. But I had a family who took care of the house and me. And that was the moment when I started spending most of my awake moments online. That was my self-medication. By that time I was out, you know?, like I didn’t renew anything in grad school, so I was out. It was over. But I was now part of these online communities. So I was blogging about politics. When the 2004 election was over I decided that I was bored of politics but I was a scientist so I could write about science, so I started a science blog and that was an instant success from the very first post. And that was a life boat moment for me. Wow, there is interest for this, there is hanger for this and I’m writing it from a position of expertise, that people trust. So if I write about sleep or circadian rhythms, or animal behaviour or physiology I’m not just anybody, I’m somebody who has knowledge. People would trust that and will come to me with questions. And that’s how I became a science blogger and that lead a job for PLOS first for three years and now with Scientific American. </div>
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<b>Q: Actually my next question it is about the fact that you started blogging about politics but you switched to science blogging and I guess you already told me but what is the subject you love to blog about the most? </b></div>
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A: You know people change. I’ve been blogging for seven years. And people change in their interests and their styles so I still like, when I have time and energy, to blog about animal behaviour and circadian rhythms but I blog even more about the media. So I write a lot about blogging and social networking, journalism, science communication and science education because that is something I’m passionate about so I get up early, I’m walking the dog and taking a shower and I round up these words. And over the years I acquired some of that expertise so I feel comfortable writing about that. I feel comfortable wrting about that and it is what I care about. So I write a lot about it. And when I have time ever now and then I write about science. Just for fun, just becasuse I like it. </div>
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<b>Q: And the last question. If you could give an advice to the newbies in science communication what would be, and also to the oldies, to the ones who have been blogging for a while. </b></div>
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A: It’s tough this one. With the new bloggers I guess the big obstacle is confidence. And it’s hard to tell people to be confident. If they are not, they are no going to listen to you. So something I do a lot, and people really like, is that my blog reading sphere is not just reading the oldies. It’s actively searching for new bloggers, young bloggers, new voices. And when I discover somebody whose writing really appeals to me, those who nobody has heard about before and they get three hits a day, I take it to myself to promote them and also to keep in touch with them, to give them the boost of confidence. It’s like go for it. Especially now that with the Scientific American I run the guess blog it’s perfect. Let’s write something for the guess blog. And they often do their best work for it. Somebody said that Scientific American guest blog is like TED of science blogging because people put their best writing there. So this is a way for me to promote young and new voices until they don’t need promoting any more because they became confident, they learnt, they built networks, some of them actually got hired by the media and I feel so proud of them. That’s the reason why they call me a blog father because they are my blog kids that I’m so proud of. And some of them are now big famous bloggers and they started because I told them. I really love doing that and whenever one of those people succeeds is like my success. And the second half, telling the old bloggers what to do. The thing is the first rule in blogging is that you don’t tell bloggers what to do, what to write about and how to write it, because it has to come out of passion . </div>
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<b>Q: Well, It’s not what to do. It’s something that you miss or something that is not working. A feeling of the style of the old bloggers, or maybe it’s not just an advice, but something that you would like to point out to learn from. </b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjpA8s5vqq-izFkhRVCsoB3CE5uOE4eEhUib3qfnPHFKIgzizIRL2AWdm6eEnQzqNslaixGjeVSZBsySJeAihl7fz8CtOE_IHx0IC0hINm8Tb2KbjaS24SZp-edwvayI4N8-JhInKEdaI/s1600/CIMG1359.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjpA8s5vqq-izFkhRVCsoB3CE5uOE4eEhUib3qfnPHFKIgzizIRL2AWdm6eEnQzqNslaixGjeVSZBsySJeAihl7fz8CtOE_IHx0IC0hINm8Tb2KbjaS24SZp-edwvayI4N8-JhInKEdaI/s400/CIMG1359.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
A: It’s very different to tell again because every blogger has a different goal. So for their purposes or reasons, they are probably doing it right and we cannot tell that they are doing it wrong. Some of them use the blogs to communicate to their peers. So they use a lot of details and that is fine. Some reach broader audiences and they are working on it and they are improving their writing style and that’s fine. Others are blogging in order to provide support to different communities, especially for young researchers or women researchers as a minority of researchers to figure out how to navigate in the dangerous world of academia, how to succeed. So experienced scientists can be a lot of help for the younger people: how to write a grant proposal, how to choose your PI, how to present in a meeting to maximise your own chances for reaching your goals. So even if they never write about papers or they never write about news they are an extremely important part of the community and if they use strong language is fine with me, I’m not against strong language because some languages sometimes are needed to wake the structures up. One of the most linked blog posts of mine is titled “<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/12/the_shock_value_of_science_blo.php">The shock value of Science Blogs</a>” and is exactly about this. It has a traditional structure that people is just to it and how often crazy language and style of blogs gets people shocked out of that compliancy and makes them think differently. And that’s for the good.<br />
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As you can see, interviewing Bora was a great pleasure for me and I learnt a lot about the science communication world. I really hope this interview has been for you as useful as for me. Finally I just want to point out the two characteristics Bora said about science communication: <b>passion and knowledge</b>. So,<b> let's communicate science with passion about what you know.</b></div>
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UPDATE: The interview has been featured in different blogs:<br />
<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/2011/11/14/interview-in-spanish-in-journal-of-feelsynapsis/">A blog around the clock</a><br />
<a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/01/20/five-minutes-with-bora-zivkovic/">LSE Impact of Social Sciences</a><br />
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<br /></div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-37592193755122797052011-11-04T22:46:00.002+00:002011-12-06T20:18:47.132+00:00SciFund is really happening!!!<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Last month has been crazy. Apart from the regular work in the lab I've been doing something else. Something different... and quite fun I have to say. It´s been a month of thinking about how to explain my project with regular words and how to explain it in a catchy and good video as well!!</div>
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The SciFund Challenge has been a very important and special part of my life this month. And after all the work done and the collaboration with other scientists to get our projects done in the best way possible this part of it is ended. The experience is been great and I have made my first video ever!!!! I'm so proud of it...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8CBTKsHqFnuTZ85H8hyphenhyphenOGWzLLzJAfArp9ZJpYYzc3LJg01yJLG709zRdCyVaqDAe51gBbHErGo1d9-qB5bxJY4DW1oefmUhs4edmIU2oL70MAZv_HXzlpMXKo7yLFQASUyuY2vThLgI/s1600/scifund+start.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8CBTKsHqFnuTZ85H8hyphenhyphenOGWzLLzJAfArp9ZJpYYzc3LJg01yJLG709zRdCyVaqDAe51gBbHErGo1d9-qB5bxJY4DW1oefmUhs4edmIU2oL70MAZv_HXzlpMXKo7yLFQASUyuY2vThLgI/s320/scifund+start.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But the good news are that the public part of SciFund is starting now!!!! Finally, all the effort and the work we have been doing for the last month will pay off. Well, we hope so. Now we will see if we've done a good job or not. If people like our project, or not. It's pretty exciting.</div>
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Now it's time for a different job. Getting our projects funded by people. It's a proper job of marketing and a good experience for us, scientist, to go out and spread the word about our research. This is something that we don't do very often and can be scary. Well, it is scary. These last days since the SciFund went live have been also frenetic. Thinking about who to contact to get some publicity for my project and trying to convince my friends to donate to it.</div>
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It's something completely new for me and I'm loving it. Now there is almost one and a half months to see if I'm good at marketing my project and I can get people as excited about my project as I am. Let's see what it happens and good luck to all #SciFunders!!!</div>
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Check out my #SciFund project <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/projects/3753-cancer-yeast-has-the-answers">Cancer? Yeast has the answers</a> and fuel it!!!!<br />
Published originally in the <a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/scifund-is-really-happening/">SciFund blog</a><br />
And the same day in the SciFund blog my project as the <a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/featured-project-cancer-yeast-has-the-answers/">Feature Project</a> of the day!!!!Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-86812582716859884762011-11-01T10:12:00.000+00:002011-11-01T10:18:19.741+00:00Crystal violet lactoneThis is not a post written by me. This post is been written by a proper chemist called Sarah Murray who lives in Manchester, like me. You can find her in twitter as <a href="https://twitter.com/SarahScientist">@SarahScientist</a> I hope you like it.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggchSnwO5msVVX6afXG8GkvJBwk7ee6bU7MASsjIrkuWDte-bkv01Oqmw2GgrFgrUihkEnpDRwS-zIJ-kmiex3hkPCN8FEHgL-d9JEORo8C4tGZYcPcIdsms_6t9V3Mugso6t6apsK0Xw/s1600/sarah1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggchSnwO5msVVX6afXG8GkvJBwk7ee6bU7MASsjIrkuWDte-bkv01Oqmw2GgrFgrUihkEnpDRwS-zIJ-kmiex3hkPCN8FEHgL-d9JEORo8C4tGZYcPcIdsms_6t9V3Mugso6t6apsK0Xw/s200/sarah1.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cristal Violet. Courtesy of Chemblink</td></tr>
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One of
the great joys of being a scientist, is that there is always the opportunity to
learn something new ( and meet and work with amazingly talented and lovely people). It is now the end of
October and this means that in the UK, the half term holiday is over and so
sadly is the Manchester Science Festival which takes place during these
holidays. At this festival I reprise my role as STEM Ambassador, i.e. in essence
I'm a science communicator and I love it! I could write about what a STEM
Ambassador is, and what it means to be one. That could be an entirely separate
post altogether. Alas as I write, it is
over for another year, always a time of feeling a little sad but so very
pleased to have been part of it. As 2011 is officially the International Year of
Chemistry, I fully expected this years festival to have many chemistry themed
events and I wasn't disappointed.</div>
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On my second day (the fourth actual day of the
festival) I had the good fortunate to assist a great chemist from the
University of Bristol with his demonstrations. Declan was his name and he was
very enthusiastic. He managed to hold the children's interest even after demo's
were over whilst explaining the science. This I confess I always find to be the
tricky part. Amongst his entertaining demo's was one which truly amazed me too.
So finally, I am now going to talk about what I learned from Declan about a
beautiful molecule called crystal violet lactone. I guess I have chosen this
because it combines my favourite science, chemistry, with my favourite colour
purple.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiev8jMabPjTZpI1e96oB08wm2EsHgdcTCFzNKvEXE5ZR5lRArQnVPx1s32pqcPwlu-eBDjexrYH8EUjTMmDsVemYmATMBoK6KZ-BaV4rlvnuKHajvXkPvx9hPkmUsHpWl7mO_mioG0ajs/s1600/sarah2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiev8jMabPjTZpI1e96oB08wm2EsHgdcTCFzNKvEXE5ZR5lRArQnVPx1s32pqcPwlu-eBDjexrYH8EUjTMmDsVemYmATMBoK6KZ-BaV4rlvnuKHajvXkPvx9hPkmUsHpWl7mO_mioG0ajs/s200/sarah2.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cristal Violet.Courtesy of 3D Wolfram Alpha</td></tr>
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There is an acid base indicator called
crystal violet which I personally somehow have never in my career managed to
use. Biologists also use it as a generic stain for looking at cell organelles.
As you may correctly suspect, crystal violet lactone is a derivative of this
indicator and its real chemical name is:
6-(dimethylamino)-3,3-bis(p-(dimethylamino)phenyl)-6-(dimethylamino)phthalide.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is
what is known as a leuco dye and it was the first dye to be used in carbonless
copy papers, and is still widely used in this application. Declan had a
molecular model structure of this lactone which was wonderful to see,
especially when used to explain what was going on. He took some crystal violet
lactone and blew some purple bubbles with it. I've never seen purple bubbles
before! They look like this:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3Qu5uATJYEVK0fjZ_MsKxJfyRjE1rs_b7kVXOLRJNDNg0Ya50cYIvCB1BD-69H8rSppXS6xxC3nQjDCKT-r_Mz6HYz_5AER8DjxWUbV2AxJk7cosQksai1G5uy9Ci9md5I6OKDyrZjY/s1600/sarah3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3Qu5uATJYEVK0fjZ_MsKxJfyRjE1rs_b7kVXOLRJNDNg0Ya50cYIvCB1BD-69H8rSppXS6xxC3nQjDCKT-r_Mz6HYz_5AER8DjxWUbV2AxJk7cosQksai1G5uy9Ci9md5I6OKDyrZjY/s320/sarah3.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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Courtesy of Geekologie<o:p></o:p></div>
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He
deliberately got some on his hands and the table and followed this up with the
question "what problem may a substance like this cause do you think?"
Of course he was given the correct answer from some of the kids. It is messy
and will stain things. Then amazingly he rubbed his skin and the splashes on
the table and we all watched fascinated as it disappeared! He explained, using
his molymod that it hadn't really disappeared and was still there and is a very
toxic substance. There is just a slight change in the structure of the molecule
which occurs when a bit of friction or pressure is applied. This happens quite
easily as the molecule wants it to happen readily. The 3 rings within the
structure are no longer exactly aligned, the one with the lactone group is
twisted slightly. Declan referred to this as a 'mousetrap' within the
structure. Now the molecule is absorbing light in the UV region rather than in
the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum as it was before, meaning it
is no longer visible to the human eye.</div>
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I find this truly stunning and is why I love
chemistry. So far, this is not a reversible process and researcher's haven't
found any applications for it though it is thought it may be useful for
security purposes. Detecting fingerprints on stolen /counterfeit money perhaps.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I hope
you have found this as interesting as I did. You have now learned as much as I
have about crystal violet lactone. This just goes to show that attending
science festivals in any capacity is good for you. Thank you very much Declan.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This post takes part of the VIII edition of the <a href="http://scienceboxen.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-post-of-viii-edition-of.html">Carnival of Chemistry</a> hosted in the blog Science Box. I know it's already November but it was written in October and because of different reasons it hasn't been able to be publish before.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-52258711260903048922011-11-01T01:33:00.001+00:002011-12-12T11:36:15.193+00:00Oh my cold!<br />
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<a href="http://mindingmarnie.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/i-sneeze-therefore-i-am-miserable/"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXBkgupy2w2aluMme9FPhfuiiSurtya0yCSEsgmyH-O_lkKGBfQ9XxZPavAK_3PMDln9_rjcetucmJRGVCJyze0Gn4QPtsbjBsgc7jo6JErx7mHZJRO8uJt8ejO7Sggh4iQoWZY7_kuu8/s320/red-nose.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I’ve had a cold for several days and I hate it. What I hate
the most is the running and stuffy nose. But the problem with cold is that you
cannot cure it. The only thing you can do is to pass it and treat the symptoms.
Many people think that you get stuffy nose because your nose gets filled up
with mucus but the reality is a bit different. The main cause of the stuffy
nose is the inflammation of the blood vessels in the nose. This makes the tissue
in the nose to swell and get closer blocking the nose. We can find this type of
inflammation in colds caused by viral infections and in allergic processes as
well. Actually the production of mucus is a defensive mechanism that cells use
to get rid out of the foreign agent (virus or particle that is producing the
allergy).</div>
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As a pharmacist I can tell you that there are different
anticatarrhal drugs and descongestant nasal sprays that you can use for these
symptoms. These drugs help to get through the cold but you have to be quite careful
with them. The anticatarrhal drugs usually have a combination of different
drugs to treat different symptoms. They often have a pain killer and
antipyretic drug like ibuprofen, paracetamol or salicylic acid, and one or two
more drugs for the mucus, sneezes and stuffy nose. The most common combinations
of these are salts of chlorphenamine and <span style="color: red;">phenylephrine</span>.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzj5alrBx7n6TEJX5pjGT4qT76cm6rHN_z5EyQ4WbU-VAaQXNNMnHgLd3S1mAMQWNo93Q5soDbtSo-TkTx7uMk0k4zdy7oY6KNzcAt25mz3xK_W2QxT9utHpQySQ8eAvHQ7_tLlCkScJ0/s1600/ephedrine+pheudoephedrine.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzj5alrBx7n6TEJX5pjGT4qT76cm6rHN_z5EyQ4WbU-VAaQXNNMnHgLd3S1mAMQWNo93Q5soDbtSo-TkTx7uMk0k4zdy7oY6KNzcAt25mz3xK_W2QxT9utHpQySQ8eAvHQ7_tLlCkScJ0/s320/ephedrine+pheudoephedrine.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: red;">Phenylephrine </span>is a derivative
of <span style="color: #00cc00;">ephedrine</span> and it has been used in
substitution of <span style="color: #7030a0;">pseudoephedrine</span>. The
chemical difference between these molecules is not very big. Actually <span style="color: #00cc00;">ephedrine </span>and <span style="color: #7030a0;">pseudoephedrine
</span>have the same chemical groups in their molecule but organised
(orientated) in different ways. They are diastereomers.. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTFPxBGhgOgnxv0BlNu3ueH7VfkGHQjbO8G4iBSCteeYxTP6yylTigWVbzfh3B8LiFupObuUSB8gWhiF4n8FqZuS0PTCcSbbYsB75RzZv-iTWQsCfklkzXaB4VoANLy34hq6w-rqp7aag/s1600/amphetamine+and+methamphetamine.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTFPxBGhgOgnxv0BlNu3ueH7VfkGHQjbO8G4iBSCteeYxTP6yylTigWVbzfh3B8LiFupObuUSB8gWhiF4n8FqZuS0PTCcSbbYsB75RzZv-iTWQsCfklkzXaB4VoANLy34hq6w-rqp7aag/s320/amphetamine+and+methamphetamine.png" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #00cc00;">Ephedrine </span>and <span style="color: #7030a0;">Pseudoephedrine </span>are obtained from plants of the genus
<i>Ephedra</i> and they act as alpha1
adrenergic agonist drugs (they bind to the receptors alpha1 of the nervous
system). What they mainly do is to promote the contraction of the nose blood vessels
to reduce the inflammation, reducing the stuffy nose at the same time. But
these drugs have a big problem. Their chemical structure looks like the <span style="color: #f79646;">amphetamine </span>and <span style="color: #f79646;">methamphetamine </span>a lot.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeTlk1DgWWxAfNJeTBjLlm_kFg5AsJcTYWD3Dq_BXhpP3kJsgySo2c355XZFsbimgBGHoYy3v2M96-hbIXgPn6LJq-oMY14qBx2hJ5QgKGJhcxDhXiZWGCw-I54vIABv-w0UHDQ4nXCc/s1600/220px-Phenylephrine.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeTlk1DgWWxAfNJeTBjLlm_kFg5AsJcTYWD3Dq_BXhpP3kJsgySo2c355XZFsbimgBGHoYy3v2M96-hbIXgPn6LJq-oMY14qBx2hJ5QgKGJhcxDhXiZWGCw-I54vIABv-w0UHDQ4nXCc/s1600/220px-Phenylephrine.png" /></a>These drugs are psycostimulants,
produce euphoria and create addiction. As you can imagine that’s not really the
effect a decongestant wants to produce and because of that the derivative used
nowadays to treat the stuffy nose is <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2000711/?tool=pmcentrez">phenylephrine</a>.
This<span style="color: red;"> </span>has an extra hydroxyl group that makes this
drug less similar to <span style="color: #f79646;">amphetamines</span>.
<span style="color: red;">Phenylephrine </span>is
used mainly in oral preparations but several studies carried out in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16815167">2006</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17264159">2007</a> and 2009 (<a href="http://www.annallergy.org/article/S1081-1206(10)60240-2/abstract">two</a>
<a href="http://www.annallergy.org/article/S1081-1206(10)60339-0/abstract">studies</a>) have doubted its effectiveness, saying that its effect is not better than the placebo one.
Interestingly, another study carried out by GlaxoSmithKline in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149291807001506">2007</a>
showed that it does have effectiveness. The controversy is still out there but
the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration" title="Food and Drug Administration"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Food and Drug Administration</span></a> has
stood by its 1976 approval of phenylephrine for nasal congestion as the debate
continues.</div>
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<br /></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYv2lxeR8Q-LcCsbd5OQraaZPSq2CtXDhwEeaI7yUZmHDhA2hsF7-vazaXBGuatxgZRAmPBWEB-v3NE4B2q7-9ayTHzr2Xnn4WVtJtamUFVW9wW29CRo9NibsHEGs2Mus4ZyU5g-bQGuw/s1600/220px-Oxymetazoline_structure.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYv2lxeR8Q-LcCsbd5OQraaZPSq2CtXDhwEeaI7yUZmHDhA2hsF7-vazaXBGuatxgZRAmPBWEB-v3NE4B2q7-9ayTHzr2Xnn4WVtJtamUFVW9wW29CRo9NibsHEGs2Mus4ZyU5g-bQGuw/s1600/220px-Oxymetazoline_structure.png" /></a>But there are also topical preparations, like nasal sprays,
that act specifically in the nose because it’s where the drug is delivered. In
this case the drug used is called <span style="color: #4bacc6;">oxymetazoline</span>. This drug is an alpha1 and partial alpha2
adrenergic agonist, and due to this effect in the alpha2 receptors its effects
last for longer but are slower than the <span style="color: red;">phenylephrine </span>ones.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However topical decongestants as <span style="color: #00b0f0;">oxymetazoline
</span>can cause rebound congestion when the effects of the drug fade off. This
will cause the use of the decongestant again in a vicious circle of persistent
and worsening congestion, creating a kind of addiction to the decongestant.<br />
<br /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As you can see there is no magic drug to get rid out of the
stuffy nose and that’s quite annoying but I can tell you that if I have a cold I
would never get on a plane without a decongestant spray. If you don’t use this drug on time the pain
can be really horrible. And that’s the least you want for starting your trip.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
This post takes part of the VIII edition of the <a href="http://scienceboxen.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-post-of-viii-edition-of.html">Carnival of Chemistry</a> hosted in the blog Science Box.<br />
<br />
References:<br />
<br /></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Journal+of+Allergy+and+Clinical+Immunology&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1016%2Fj.jaci.2006.03.002&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Oral+phenylephrine%3A+An+ineffective+replacement+for+pseudoephedrine%3F&rft.issn=00916749&rft.date=2006&rft.volume=118&rft.issue=1&rft.spage=279&rft.epage=280&rft.artnum=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0091674906006336&rft.au=Hendeles%2C+L.&rft.au=Hatton%2C+R.&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Hendeles, L., & Hatton, R. (2006). Oral phenylephrine: An ineffective replacement for pseudoephedrine? <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 118</span> (1), 279-280 DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2006.03.002" rev="review">10.1016/j.jaci.2006.03.002</a></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=The+Annals+of+pharmacotherapy&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F17264159&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Efficacy+and+safety+of+oral+phenylephrine%3A+systematic+review+and+meta-analysis.&rft.issn=1060-0280&rft.date=2007&rft.volume=41&rft.issue=3&rft.spage=381&rft.epage=90&rft.artnum=&rft.au=Hatton+RC&rft.au=Winterstein+AG&rft.au=McKelvey+RP&rft.au=Shuster+J&rft.au=Hendeles+L&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Hatton RC, Winterstein AG, McKelvey RP, Shuster J, & Hendeles L (2007). Efficacy and safety of oral phenylephrine: systematic review and meta-analysis. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Annals of pharmacotherapy, 41</span> (3), 381-90 PMID: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17264159" rev="review">17264159</a></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Annals+of+allergy%2C+asthma+%26+immunology+%3A+official+publication+of+the+American+College+of+Allergy%2C+Asthma%2C+%26+Immunology&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F19230461&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=A+placebo-controlled+study+of+the+nasal+decongestant+effect+of+phenylephrine+and+pseudoephedrine+in+the+Vienna+Challenge+Chamber.&rft.issn=1081-1206&rft.date=2009&rft.volume=102&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=116&rft.epage=20&rft.artnum=&rft.au=Horak+F&rft.au=Zieglmayer+P&rft.au=Zieglmayer+R&rft.au=Lemell+P&rft.au=Yao+R&rft.au=Staudinger+H&rft.au=Danzig+M&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Horak F, Zieglmayer P, Zieglmayer R, Lemell P, Yao R, Staudinger H, & Danzig M (2009). A placebo-controlled study of the nasal decongestant effect of phenylephrine and pseudoephedrine in the Vienna Challenge Chamber. <span style="font-style: italic;">Annals of allergy, asthma & immunology : official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, 102</span> (2), 116-20 PMID: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19230461" rev="review">19230461</a></span><br />
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Annals+of+allergy%2C+asthma+%26+immunology+%3A+official+publication+of+the+American+College+of+Allergy%2C+Asthma%2C+%26+Immunology&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F19441605&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Efficacy+of+loratadine-montelukast+on+nasal+congestion+in+patients+with+seasonal+allergic+rhinitis+in+an+environmental+exposure+unit.&rft.issn=1081-1206&rft.date=2009&rft.volume=102&rft.issue=4&rft.spage=328&rft.epage=38&rft.artnum=&rft.au=Day+JH&rft.au=Briscoe+MP&rft.au=Ratz+JD&rft.au=Danzig+M&rft.au=Yao+R&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Annals+of+allergy%2C+asthma+%26+immunology+%3A+official+publication+of+the+American+College+of+Allergy%2C+Asthma%2C+%26+Immunology&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F19441605&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Efficacy+of+loratadine-montelukast+on+nasal+congestion+in+patients+with+seasonal+allergic+rhinitis+in+an+environmental+exposure+unit.&rft.issn=1081-1206&rft.date=2009&rft.volume=102&rft.issue=4&rft.spage=328&rft.epage=38&rft.artnum=&rft.au=Day+JH&rft.au=Briscoe+MP&rft.au=Ratz+JD&rft.au=Danzig+M&rft.au=Yao+R&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Day JH, Briscoe MP, Ratz JD, Danzig M, & Yao R (2009). Efficacy of loratadine-montelukast on nasal congestion in patients with seasonal allergic rhinitis in an environmental exposure unit. <span style="font-style: italic;">Annals of allergy, asthma & immunology : official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, 102</span> (4), 328-38 PMID: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19441605" rev="review">19441605</a></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Clinical+therapeutics&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F17692721&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Meta-analysis+of+the+efficacy+of+a+single+dose+of+phenylephrine+10+mg+compared+with+placebo+in+adults+with+acute+nasal+congestion+due+to+the+common+cold.&rft.issn=0149-2918&rft.date=2007&rft.volume=29&rft.issue=6&rft.spage=1057&rft.epage=70&rft.artnum=&rft.au=Kollar+C&rft.au=Schneider+H&rft.au=Waksman+J&rft.au=Krusinska+E&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Biology%2CCancer%2C+Genetics%2C+Biochemistry%2C+Cell+Biology%2C+Microbiology%2C+Molecular+Biology">Kollar C, Schneider H, Waksman J, & Krusinska E (2007). Meta-analysis of the efficacy of a single dose of phenylephrine 10 mg compared with placebo in adults with acute nasal congestion due to the common cold. <span style="font-style: italic;">Clinical therapeutics, 29</span> (6), 1057-70 PMID: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17692721" rev="review">17692721</a></span>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-11495029635012614162011-10-06T07:19:00.000+01:002011-10-09T02:17:22.684+01:00Steve Jobs did what he loved the most<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6zlHAiddNUY" width="420"></iframe></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>"You've got to find what you love"</i></span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition</i></span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>"</i></span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">- Steve Jobs-</span></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-19107723957782536532011-10-01T11:45:00.000+01:002011-10-12T21:52:23.828+01:00Opening post of the VIII Edition of the Carnival of Chemistry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYH_TnHykKr-gbKx83ygknaE2hOhD4FTSubF7u47hj7N76Q3DQuMDP6QlaJypsxjQEJ0H83y8lJc1_AccFpSvd6wCpKnLiKoGvnG8YhaKYaVKPHY2q6Qa2Pn4BlBttXJN4NH-dMKVODmg/s1600/carnival+chemistry.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYH_TnHykKr-gbKx83ygknaE2hOhD4FTSubF7u47hj7N76Q3DQuMDP6QlaJypsxjQEJ0H83y8lJc1_AccFpSvd6wCpKnLiKoGvnG8YhaKYaVKPHY2q6Qa2Pn4BlBttXJN4NH-dMKVODmg/s400/carnival+chemistry.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It looks like the VIII Edition of the Carnival of Chemistry starts today!!!! And this month I have the honor of hosting it here, in this blog. The quality of the last edition, that Eroyuela has hosted in his blog, has been really high and it´s going to be very difficult to beat. But because I am the way I am, I'm going to try it... this is like life... we learn from the good and bad things of our predecessors, to try to make it even better... and I'm not saying that there has been anything bad, ok?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I have to thank the organisers of the previous editions for the richness that they have given to this "carnivalistic" idea during these months, starting with <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/DaniEPAP">Dani </a>(<a href="http://esepuntoazulpalido.blogspot.com/">Ese punto azul pálido</a>) who is the daddy of this idea due to the fact that this year is the <a href="http://www.chemistry2011.org/">international year of chemistry</a>, and following with <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/Cendrero">Cendrero</a> (<a href="http://elbustodepalas.blogspot.com/2011/01/el-busto-de-palas-organizara-la-ii.html">El Busto de Palas</a>), <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/EDocet">César</a> (<a href="http://www.experientiadocet.com/2011/03/iii-edicion-del-carnaval-de-quimica.html">Experientia Docet</a>), <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/jmmulet">J.M. Mulet</a> (<a href="http://www.losproductosnaturales.com/2011/04/iv-edicion-del-carnaval-de-quimica.html">Los productos naturales ¡vaya timo!</a>), <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ScientiaJMLN">Jose Manuel</a> (<a href="http://scientia1.wordpress.com/">Scientia</a>), <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/_Argi_">Patricia</a> (<a href="http://investigadoraenapuros.wordpress.com/">Divagaciones de una investigadora en apuros</a>) and of course, <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/eroyuela">Quique </a>(<a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/pg/blog/owner/Quique">Eroyuela's blog</a>) who has given me the opportunity of hosting the carnival this month.<br />
<br />
I would like to contribute to this carnival with something that is mine and I thought that it could be a good idea to enrich it even more by fostering the presence of articles in English. What do you think? Do you think that it will work? and that we will get at least a couple of posts in English?... I think so, so here we go!!!! This is the English version of the Spanish "Carnaval de Química". The idea is to collect all the posts in Spanish in the Spanish twin blog of this one (<a href="http://cajadeciencia.blogspot.com/">Caja de Ciencia</a>) and use Science box to collect the English ones. At the end I will write a final post in both languages with all contributions (in English and Spanish).<br />
So, the only thing I have left to say is that this VIII Edition of the Carnival of Chemistry is open starting today, 1st of October and finishing the 31st of this month. I'm really looking forward to receive all your contributions.<br />
<br />
Here you have the list of the previous editions of the carnival (they are in Spanish) so you can check them... they are really worth to read!!<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://esepuntoazulpalido.blogspot.com/2011/01/recopilacion-de-entradas-que-han.html">I Edition in “Ese punto azul pálido”.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://elbustodepalas.blogspot.com/2011/02/ii-edicion-del-carnaval-de-quimica.html">II Edition in “El Busto de Palas”.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.experientiadocet.com/2011/03/iii-edicion-del-carnaval-de-quimica-la.html">III Edition in “Experientia Docet”.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.losproductosnaturales.com/2011/05/resumen-iv-edicion-del-carnaval-de.html">IV Edition in “Los productos naturales ¡vaya timo!”.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scientia1.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/resumen-de-la-v-edicion-del-carnaval-de-la-quimica/">V Edition in “Scientia”.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://investigadoraenapuros.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/vi-edicion-del-carnaval-de-quimica/">VI Edition in “Divagaciones de una investigadora en apuros”.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://feelsynapsis.com/pg/blog/read/117772/lista-de-entradas-participantes-en-la-vii-edicin-del-carnaval-de-qumica">VII Edition in “Eroyuela's blog”.</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<u>Participation Rules</u><br />
<br />
1.- The publication of posts for this VIII Edition of the Carnival of Chemistry starts today, 1st of October and finishes the 31st of this month. The 1st of November I will write a final post with all the posts that have participated.<br />
2.- The subject is free, but it has to be related to chemistry, of course, in all its variants. It can be just a communicative post or be related to the history of chemistry or even something with a bit of humour. The posts can be based on something of chemistry but related to other disciplines as well. I'm pretty sure you will manage to get very good ideas to write about.<br />
3.- If you don't have a blog but you want to take part don't worry. You can publish your post in a friend's blog or something like that. If this is not possible write a comment in this post or contact me through the contact form of the blog with the subject "Carnival of Chemistry" and I will contact you to get your post and publish it in this blog with your name (or pseudonymous).<br />
4.- The posts that will take part on this will have to be communicated in the same way than in the previous point or through the twitter account @CarnavalQuimica. In addition, they will have to have a reference to the VIII Edition of the Carnival of Chemistry and a link to this post.<br />
<br />
If you have any doubt about the rules don't hesitate to contact me<br />
<br />
You can find the Spanish version <a href="http://cajadeciencia.blogspot.com/2011/10/post-inaugural-de-la-viii-edicion-del.html">here</a>.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1655785462860414274.post-15294176886309155622011-09-29T04:07:00.000+01:002011-12-06T20:18:57.489+00:00Our little contribution to science funding: the SciFund challenge<br />
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<a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdXENhJWRP6tvl-Bb3oH86Bwkfgi3J6JKepCTR8z0Il7Zy5SIR9L-GT3yo75gGCiuIfMQ-OPo7YTTJ9EMskJh5dxETplo8RDFw3lgwtCBC6BPVX7oNUl7fHPK4avLePjoAKxMR-QKowU/s320/scifundlogo1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Nowadays we are suffering an economic crisis and one of the fields that is noticing this a lot is the scientific research. National and regional governments are cutting their budgets and some of the biggest cuts are in science. We, researchers, are having a very hard time to do our research and people in general doesn't like these cuts in science.</div>
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Well, there is a way for all of us to make a contribution in order to alleviate this money problem in research, or at least to help funding some interesting and useful projects. It's called <b style="color: red;">SciFund challenge</b> and it's an experiment of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_funding">crowd funding</a>. Several scientists will present their projects in a creative way to get funding from people for those projects. Everybody will be able to fund several research projects through small donations and help these scientists and their groups to do their research.</div>
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Crowd funding has been used traditionally in the fields of journalism, music or film making, but it has been used lately in science communication as well. Two different examples (in Spanish) are the <a href="http://www.lanzanos.com/proyectos/revista-amazingses/">Amazings magazine</a> funded thanks to people collaboration and interest, and the <a href="http://www.taracea.fecyt.es/">Taracea platform</a> from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) to give people the possibility of funding science communication and public engagement activities through donations.</div>
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Until now crowd funding hasn't been used to get funds by the scientists themselves for their projects. However, a similar system has been used to raise money for charities. In UK many people do marathons, or long walks, or something that requires an effort to be sponsored by their friends and family and donate the money they get to the charity they choose. A clear example is <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/">Cancer Research UK</a> (CRUK). This organisation is basically funded by personal donations and is one of the organisations that fund cancer research in UK (actually they pay my salary and most of the stuff we use in the lab). In Spain a new foundation (similar to a British charity) has been establish recently following the spirit of CRUK. It's called <a href="http://www.vencerelcancer.org/">Fundación Vencer el Cáncer</a> and one of its aims is to fund cancer research done in Spain with personal donations from people.</div>
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But the originality of the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">SciFund challenge</span> is that the scientists themselves are the ones presenting their projects in an interesting and understandable way for the people to choose those that they want to fund with their donations. So far 146 scientists from all around the world have signed up to be part of this experiment and I am one of them. The deadline to participate is the 1st of October so, if you are a scientist and want to raise money for your projects, you are still on time to <a href="http://scifund.wordpress.com/sign-up/">sign up</a>. All of us, the scientists, will have to prepare a campaign to give the information about our projects and they will be hosted in one of the most important platforms of crowd funding in internet: <a href="http://www.rockethub.com/" style="color: #0065ff; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">RocketHub</a>. This is another way of doing public engagement and science communication, although all scientists should communicate their science, even if it is not to get funding.<br />
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I think the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">SciFund challenge</span> is a new initiative in which society will be able to get involved in science funding and even more, in funding the science that they like, understand or think it is more useful. It's a different and new way of involving people in research, of making them realise that they are very important in research. That, at the end, scientists depend on the society willingness to commit with the advance of the knowledge through research.</div>
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03301136461956925758noreply@blogger.com0