Podcasts & Feeds
Blog: Our New Index; Liberal Science; Gazzaley in Time
May 13, 2008:
The long-promised index to Science Café topics debuted yesterday, in case you hadn’t noticed. Now you can search for everything I’ve discussed and written about for the last 21 months – from addiction science to xeroderma pigmentosum – quickly and easily. We’ve made a little headway on the transcripts, as well, and plan to add some more this week. Thanks to everyone who made a suggestion on how to speed up the process.
The next index will list the names of the scientists interviewed for Science Café. That should be live in the next seven to 10 days.
Included on that list, of course, will be Science Café’s resident Brain Man, cognitive neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, who has received prominent mention in a Time magazine story on memory. I hope to catch up with him later this spring and update my original episode, which so far has proven the most popular Science Café in 2008.
Speaking of catching up, if you missed Michael Gerson’s column, “A Phony ‘War on Science,’” in the Washington Post, I’ve linked to it here. His central point: There is war within liberalism because liberals have yet to resolve the conflict between humanitarianism and egalitarianism. In short, quoting liberally as he does from an essay by Yuval Levin in New Atlantis, he contends that because science is objective, it cannot concern itself with equality. This opens the door to authoritarian abuse.
Here is one response from a Post reader: “I have been a scientist for over 25 years, and I have never heard a scientist discuss such ideas or suggest anything that could be construed as ‘a war on equality.’ I hear scientists talking about preventing cancer, or treating Alzheimer’s disease or promoting recovery after brain trauma.”
More responses are posted on Nature’s blog.
You should send your comments directly to Michael Gerson or the Post’s Letters to the Editor, and copy me as well.
The Association of American Medical Colleges’ awards page for Science Café is now available online. Sad to say, both Thom Watson and Julie Bernstein no longer work at UCSF Public Affairs. But they both deserve considerable credit for the café’s success, which continues to build. The total number of podcast downloads for the year, now at more than 80,000, is way ahead of last year’s pace. It’s possible that we could sneak past 200,000 before the year is over.
— Jeff Miller
Blog: Euroscience Wants You; UCSF in Chile
May 7, 2008:
Does a July trip to Barcelona sound good?
This would not be a vacation, mind you, but a career-building quest to learn more about the state of science and science communication in Europe. Here is proof.
This is not idle musing. In 2006, I attended the last Euroscience Open Forum conference in Munich and from that gathering, Science Café was born. Call it a greater zest for science, a more literate population, or perhaps an awakening to what state-funded science based in universities can mean, but the Europeans bring a fresh perspective to the discussion that is instructive.
That breadth is obvious in the Barcelona program, which ranges from nuclear forensics and neurology to stem cells, addiction science and biofuels. Two years ago, few UCSF scientists or scholars had heard of Euroscience. But in my campus travels past laboratory bulletin boards, I have seen at least a half dozen posters advertising the conference.
Could this mean that UCSF will actually be represented by more than one person this time around? Please let me know.
For those who might remember a 2006 Science Café on the UCSF/Chile Exchange Program that featured the story of UCSF graduate student Monica Rodrigo-Brenni, I include an article she wrote for a recent issue of the American Society for Cell Biology newsletter. It’s good to learn that the ties to Chile remain strong.
“A developing collaboration between the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Fundación Ciencia para la Vida (FCV) in Chile has begun to connect these two diverse institutions in an unprecedented way. Students and faculty from the two countries have been meeting and discussing their research projects and sharing their experiences in science.
“To date, the primary basis for the program has been annual scientific meetings in Chile. In 2002 and 2003, faculty from both institutions conducted seminars. A 2004 microarray course – and 2005, 2006, and 2007 very successful UCSF/Chile Exchange Programs –involved faculty and graduate students from both countries. The 2005 contingent of UCSF researchers and graduate students was led by Bruce Alberts, Professor of Biochemistry; Peter Walter, Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics; Keith Yamamoto, Executive Vice Dean of the School of Medicine and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and Biochemistry and Biophysics; and Patricia Caldera, Academic Coordinator of the Science & Health Education Partnership (SEP). The 22 UCSF graduate students represented six different academic programs.
“The success of the meeting attracted increasing numbers of applications from graduate students to participate in the 2006 and 2007 programs. The UCSF/Chile Exchange Program has, in Alberts’s words, ‘enable[d] our graduate students to experience how science can contribute, as well as how it might best be structured, in developing national environments. For many students, this may profoundly affect future career directions.’ For their Chilean counterparts the meetings present a rare opportunity to interact closely with top international scientists and colleagues, as well as to arrange collaborations or training positions in the U.S.
“Sebastián Bernales, a Chilean scientist who recently received his Ph.D. in cell biology at UCSF, created the 2005 meeting and developed the UCSF/Chile Exchange Program. Inspired by the high level of collaboration that exists among laboratories at UCSF, he thought that such collaboration could be extended to two different institutes, even countries. With the goal of promoting the exchange of ideas and technologies between the two institutes, more than 70 students and 14 professors from UCSF have participated in these scientific and cultural meetings in the past three years. Having been a participant for the first two years and co -organizer in 2007, I can truly say how wonderful the meetings are. For one week, students and professors from multiple UCSF programs interact with students and professors from universities that make up the Millennium Institute for Applied Biology (MIFAB). These include the Catholic University of Chile, University Andrés Bello, and University of Chile. Interactions include scientific talks and poster sessions, as well as day trips in Santiago and surrounding areas.
“Another aspect of the conference is one that is very dear to me: For the past three years, I have taken a group of the visiting students to a Chilean middle school to teach hands-on science classes. This idea was shaped by Patricia Caldera’s visit in 2005 and by my personal experience in the SEP program with UCSF scientists and San Francisco Unified School District teachers.
“The meetings led to many friendships and collaborations. A tangible success story is the installation of a DNA microarray under the supervision of Joe DeRisi, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and members of his UCSF laboratory. This equipment has been invaluable for many projects at the MIFAB. Other significant results have been the temporary employment of some Chilean students as technicians or interns at UCSF and other research labs, as well as acceptance into Ph.D. programs as a result of such work experience.
“This meeting would not be possible without the support and generosity of Pablo Valenzuela, cofounder of Chiron and current director of the MIFAB. After stepping down from Chiron’s leadership, Valenzuela founded Bios Chile, a biotechnology group, as well as the FCV, a nonprofit research institute. His vision for the future of Chilean science was shaped by his experiences as a postdoc at UCSF. He wanted to create a high degree of collaboration between Chile and the rest of the world; what better place to start than with UCSF? He recruited Bernales, then a graduate student at UCSF and now a junior researcher at the FCV, to help him realize his vision. Walter, Bernales’s graduate advisor at that time, was also essential in developing this program and in validating these ideas from the beginning. Without these three individuals, the UCSF/Chile Exchange Program meetings and subsequent interactions would not have been possible.
“This network of interactions allowed the FCV to organize a unique meeting in January of 2008. For the first time ever, a new edition of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell was released outside the U.S.; all the authors (Alberts, Sandy Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Walter, and Tim Hunt) met with several hundred students, professors, and medical doctors in Santiago. Then the authors visited a research station in Antarctica, where they symbolically released the book.
“Overall, awareness of the significant differences between the two communities has encouraged self-reflection on the position of scientists in the global community. At the same time, participation in the program has inspired a feeling of belonging, not only as a scientist in a particular university, but as a scientist in a much bigger community – one without boundaries and united by common goals of knowledge and discovery. Few scientists have an opportunity to experience this early in their careers, at a time when it could affect their outlook on science. I believe that the experience provided by the UCSF/Chile Exchange Program gives the participants a unique perspective on our global community. Since most participants are graduate students, and future scientific leaders of the world, the benefits from this one-week exchange will be felt for years to come. Any program with the potential for such a significant impact should be embraced everywhere. One might go as far as to say that it should be part of the scientific training of students everywhere.”
— Monica Rodrigo-Brenni
Blog: Where Are the Transcripts?
April 29, 2008:
Brian Shoichet transcript now available
Robin Shaw transcript now available
Thiennu Vu transcript now available
We’ve been running our Science Café reader survey for a while now and the responses, although still fewer than 50, are revealing. Biggest complaint: Where are the transcripts?
Here’s the answer. We have tried to speed up the transcriptions by sending the recordings out to web-based transcription services, but the University requires that these companies sign a nondisclosure HIPAA agreement and file a W-9. Not huge obstacles, of course, but try to explain these requirements to someone whose business model is built on speed.
Since these companies also only take credit cards, someone here has to front the money and then wait to get reimbursed. That takes time, too. And the automatic web transcription services don’t handle scientific terminology well, which means we have to read and edit them carefully, in any case.
The only alternative is to have someone on the Public Affairs team listen and transcribe the conversations in painstaking and laborious fashion. So, to those readers who keep asking, we’re working on the problem and trying to fix it. More transcripts will be available soon.
So, too, will be an index that allows you to search both topics and the names of scientists interviewed for Science Café.
Now for some other results. The bulk of survey respondents want to hear first about scientific breakthroughs – an interesting bias, considering that Science Café was originally conceived as something that would provide a little more context and back story. Close behind is a preference for insights into disease. How the brain works, science literacy and how serendipity figures into discovery are the other top vote-getters.
I will take all of this into consideration as Science Café branches out in the months ahead.
Now you can help me.
Send me a general question you would like me to ask scientists during future conversations.
I’m waiting.
— Jeff Miller
Comments:
Hi Jeff,
I enjoy Science cafe.
The webpage below is for local company that does transcripts for both UC and other technical/medical types.
I think they arre pretty good.
http://www.editcetera.com/index.html
thanks,
Paul
Blog: A Presidential Science Adviser?
April 22, 2008:
Sorry to tease you with that headline. We all know that no such animal as a presidential science adviser exists in the US, a sad fact that David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail mentioned prominently in their April 17, 2008, Wall Street Journal editorial, “We Need a Science White House.”
The words of woe and warning were aimed at policymakers and presidential candidates who seem strangely silent on what Baltimore lists as the trinity of benefits attributable to science: health, security and prosperity.
Also mentioned was the American Competitiveness Initiative, which, if you recall, was a pet project of an early Science Café interviewee, Ken Dill. Here’s Baltimore’s Wall Street Journal summation of what happened.
“Last year things seemed hopeful, at least for the physical sciences. The National Academy of Sciences issued a report, ‘Rising Above the Gathering Storm,’ that helped drive Congress to pass legislation – the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) – aimed at bolstering the sciences. It was supposed to beef up the study of science in high school. In the end, no money was found to fund the initiative. It was a commitment made, but not kept.”
No wonder cynicism flourishes. That assumes, of course, that you know enough to be cynical. An editorial entitled “Critical Journalism” in the March 27, 2008, issue of Nature details the decline of substantive science reporting in the US, based on the Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media 2008.
True, as the editorial acknowledges, the Internet has filled some of the information gap created by the decline of science desks at print publications and television networks. But the operative word here is “substantive.” Online science reporting needs to shake off its news release-driven “me-tooism,” the editorial urges. Citing data that the public is indeed hungry for science news, the editorial concludes with a lament. No science reporters. No watchdogs. And no truth tellers.
Keep the pressure on for Science Debate 2008.
— Jeff Miller
Blog: Library Duo Bucks Database Censors; Parkinson's and Pesticides; Science Debate 2008; and Tejal Desai to Speak on Nanomedicine
April 15, 2008:
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| Gail Sorrough and Gloria Won |
OK, it’s a stretch. But in talking about science, how could I not publicize the exemplary behavioral science of UCSF Mount Zion librarians Gail Sorrough, director of the Fishbon Memorial Library, and Gloria Won? Last week, the two became blogging celebrities for notifying librarian colleagues that the Johns Hopkins University reproductive health information database, called Popline, had removed the word “abortion” from its search list.
Johns Hopkins manages the population database with money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). As reported in the April 5, 2008, edition of the New York Times, USAID authorities had recommended the change in February after finding abortion advocacy references in the database.
Won first became aware of the restriction when she noticed that a January search of the database, which included the term “abortion” as one of many parameters, returned far more results than one conducted in March. She queried Johns Hopkins about the discrepancy and ultimately learned via an email that the word “abortion” had been blocked for political reasons.
The UCSF duo put out the word on a listserv – as well as informed Sara Newmann, MD, the UCSF clinician who had asked for their help in searching the database originally – and before you can say, “We don’t know how this happened,” the resulting dustup forced the dean of Hopkins’ School of Public Health to lift the ban.
Kudos to Won and Sorrough from Science Café.
Please mark your calendar. On Monday, April 21, UCSF bioengineer Tejal Desai, PhD, who has already made her podcast debut on UCSF’s Science Café, will be speaking live to a Down to a Science audience at the Atlas Café at 20th and Alabama streets in the Mission. The program runs from 7 to 9 p.m. Down to a Science is hosted by my colleague Kishore Hari, a true Science Café entrepreneur.
Just like Science Cafés in general, the Science Debate 2008 movement continues to grow. From Charlie Rose to Science magazine, promoters of a presidential debate about science and the science funding crisis are attracting more media attention. The candidates are noncommittal. Learn more here.
You might also want to ponder this statement: “What we noticed in our [Parkinson’s disease] research was that recreational pesticide use in the home and garden was more of a source of exposure than occupational use.”
With that finding, Parkinson’s researchers in the United States put a new twist on the danger of household pesticides. The BBC story prompted this reply from Parkinson’s expert Rob Edwards, MD, whose work was featured on Science Café in 2006.
“Basically, the association of pesticide use with Parkinson’s disease has been quite well established by a series of epidemiologic studies, and most prominently by Caroline Tanner at the Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale [California],” says Edwards.
“I am not sure what the new study adds beyond confirmation, but it does seem to have stratified exposure, and the evidence that low-level exposure can predispose to PD would be new. This contrasts with the huge doses of pesticide needed to produce a model in animals, and does make one wonder about using even the so-called organic pesticides.”
We should all be wondering a lot more these days.
— Jeff Miller
Blog: UCSF Science Café "Cooks" in San Diego
April 9, 2008:
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| Jeff Miller, left, Oriana Aragon and Kishore Hare conclude the first part of their Science Cafe presentation in San Diego. |
San Francisco is a hotbed for the growing Science Café movement, so it’s no wonder that the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) looked to the Bay Area for inspiration when it came time to plan their meeting set for late March 2008.
First contact came last summer – before I knew that Science Café had won an award of excellence from the AAMC – and after hashing out the details, what emerged was a professional development session entitled “How to Build a Science Café,” co-hosted by me and my colleague Kishore Hari, founder of San Francisco’s Down to a Science.
Our goal was to show, as much as tell, in the 90 minutes set aside for our “discipline track session” (which ended up in the Public Relations category, not Public Affairs, but what do I know?). To that end, I drafted a student scientist from UC San Diego’s Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Oriana Aragon, to be my live interviewee. That required, of course, that I carry to San Diego my podcast recording gear – two microphones, two mic stands, a digital recorder and assorted cables.
We met Oriana in the lobby of the San Diego Marriott and walked the short distance to the meeting room. Oriana and I had talked on the phone and I had reviewed her lab’s work with mirror neurons and how that relates to autism, so I knew we had a great topic. But Oriana also came with a standout personal story. She had once been a jazz singer in France. This kind of detail is an interviewer’s dream. And true to expectations, when the room filled and I turned on the microphones, we struck up a great rapport and danced through some of the details of her work effortlessly and engagingly.
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| Jeff Miller discusses autism and mirror neurons with Oriana Aragon, a neuroscience researcher at UCSD. |
After about eight minutes, I turned the room over to Kishore, who worked the audience like a seasoned pro. Our intention was to simulate the kind of question-and-answer format that his physical café settings evoke. It all went well – in fact, so well that we had to cut the questions short so that we could proceed with our more formal presentations.
What does this tell me? The Science Café movement has tapped into a hunger for context about scientific discovery and the desire to meet, challenge, question, hear and otherwise interact with scientists themselves. While UCSF Science Café is a virtual gathering place – not replicated at other universities, as far as I know – its strength is that it gives science a real human voice. And because it’s weekly, those voices multiply into a roar. I like the sound of that.
— Jeff Miller
Photos by Sarah Paris
Comments:
I listened all the way through and she didn't sing once. Seriously tho, these shows are equally good at presenting science AND the intriging people behind it.
Steve
Thanks for your comment Steve. I hope that you enjoyed the topic. I just heard it myself. It was a neat experience. I would be happy to send you a recording of me singing. You see the singing is upon request.
Oriana