Are journalists from Mars and scientists from Venus?

Are journalists and scientists from different planets? Do they speak different languages? Are they forced to not understand each other?
These questions are framed in a long debate that looks like a never ending one. This time it re-started with a post in the “Notes and Theories” blog of The Guardian written by Ananyo Bhattacharya, chief online editor of Nature. What does this post say? In few words, that scientists don't have a clue about how journalism works.

There was a quick reaction from different bloggers and scientists who replied to that post giving their opinion and saying why, in this case, journalists don't understand how science or science journalism work. Even Ed Yong published in his blog a diagram of the relationship between journalists and scientists.

Yeast in Cancer Research as a case study in the TEDxBrooklyn

I've just discovered that my project "Cancer? Yeast has answers" was one of the examples that Brian Meece, the CEO of RocketHub, mentioned in his talk about crowdfunding science at the TEDxBrooklyn.

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.

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)

Colaboration in "Partiendo de Cero"

Well, well... today I have good news... this week  a journalist from a national radio station in Spain (Onda Cero) got in touch with me. She saw the interview in "El Mundo" and she loved it, so she wanted me to colaborate in the program "Partiendo de Cero" this last Saturday night.

This is a science communication program where researchers present their work in different fields. It's a place where listeners can get some knowledge about what is going on in labs and libraries and about the result of the financial investment in science that get to the researchers. I hope you like it despite it's in Spanish. You can listen to it here.

Women scientists must speak out

This is an article wrote by Jennifer Rohn that I specially liked in Nature:


Female researchers still battle sexism. The media gives them an opportunity to be heard alongside male colleagues, says Jennifer Rohn

Interview for "el mundo"

Interview for elmundo.es
If you click in the link above you will have access to an interview (in Spanish) I gave to elmundo.es about what I research about and the situation of the research  in Spain.. I hope you like it... if you speak Spanish...