Studies show that how we dress generally affects what people think of our personalities and capabilities. For example, women are more likely to be hired if they wear more masculine clothes to an interview (such as a dress suit). People who wear conservative clothes are seen as self-controlled and reliable, while those who wear more [...]
How is a scientist supposed to dress? I posed this question in an interview with professional image consultant Kasey Smith. My last post contained the first half of our interview, where Kasey introduced herself and explained what image consultants are, and why scientists need them. Here, in the second half of the interview, are some of [...]
(This article was originally published in Nature.)
Scientists,
I imagine you’re cuddled up with your loved ones, recounting your favorite moments of the year. To amplify your joy, let me share with you this list of my six top science marketing successes of 2012, compiled with help from the Marketing for Scientists [...]
(This article was first published in Scientific American.)
This week, presidential candidate Mitt Romney got into hot water after made some remarks at a fundraiser attended by the wealthy that seemed to denigrate middle-class and poor Americans. Similarly, last week, Bill Nye released a frank video denouncing [...]
Last week, I was lucky to have the opportunity to pick the brain of communications expert Partick Donadio. Instead of having an abstract conversation on the topic of communicating science. I decided to ask him about a concrete example: Bill Nye’s recent video called “Bill Nye: Creationism is Not Appropriate for [...]
(This article was first published in Scientific American)
Have you seen the new video by Bill Nye called “Creationism is not appropriate for children”? The video simply shows Nye standing in front of a white background and speaking, for two minutes, thirty seconds. Yet almost three million people [...]
(This article was originally published in Scientific American)
Scientists are aloof and socially inept. That seems to be part of the message of the video that won the Flame Challenge, a science communication contest run by the Center for Communicating Science. The winning video, made by Ben Ames, was just
This article was originally published in Scientific American.
In magazine reporting (and maybe science blogging), they say three events suffice to indicate a trend. So let me announce a new trend: popular entertainers are sticking up for science. Here are three trendsetting entertainers turned notable science advocates.
Scientists,
The summer before the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came online, a key LHC press officer (Dr. Katie Yurkewicz) went on maternity leave. Kate McAlpine, who was then a science communication intern half a year out of college, stepped in to help. Her main duties were to arrange visits for U.S. journalists to the [...]
Scientists,
Once upon a time, Kevin Schawinski and Chris Lintott were working with a large surveys of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, trying to classify them based on their shapes: elliptical, spiral, irregular and so on. They ran into a problem. The computer software for making these classifications kept making mistakes.
The human brain, it turns [...]
