Skulls in the Stars

I think I love a challenge but in truth I hate failing, and will usually not undertake a task unless I think I have a good shot at excelling at it. That may be the reason why when my friend and former neighbor gg suggested I write a guest blog entry on his site, I said NO WAY! What if everyone thought I was boring or worse…stupid! I definitely have not mastered correct punctuation and grammar (gg, will you proof read this for me?) Well, maybe my friend gg is the brave one for letting me post my first ever blog post on his site. I changed my mind about the entry a few weeks back when I was at the Council for Chemical Research annual conference in St. Louis, and heard a most impressive talk by Bill Hammack, Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois-Urbana, entitled “How should chemical scientists and engineers talk to the public?” Bill Hammack is widely known for his pieces on public radio http://www.engineerguy.com/ Interestingly, Bill points out when discussing demographics “If you are over 40, you might well listen to public radio, under 40 almost no chance!” I do not listen to public radio and had never heard of Bill Hammack, so you can guess what age group I belong to.

One component of Bill’s talk was the idea of the “Civic Scientist”. Bill went on to say that the term was coined by Neal Lane the former director of NSF, when referring to researchers that made it their mission to reach out to the public, which he argued is essential to continued public support of science. What really caught my attention was the suggestion that we as a new generation of scientists have an unprecedented opportunity to reach out to the public because of the internet. According to Hammack, You Tube gets 2.5 million hits a day! That is when it all made sense to me why my friend gg spent so much time posting blog entries on the internet. In an effort to try and live up to the concept of the Civic Scientist, I will begin posting chemistry videos on You Tube. So look out for our first attempts at utilizing this new media outlet in the next few weeks and any feedback/comments would be greatly appreciated.

A little bit about me, if anyone is interested: I am, as my name implies, a chemist from Cairo. My husband is also a chemist but he is from N. Ireland and we met as postdocs. I think only in America can an Irishman and an Egyptian find themselves at a university in the middle of nowhere and fall in love. I used to be a faculty member at the same institution as gg, but have since left for a new position that is more management than research. I am still active in teaching and science education.

The deadline for the “Classic Science Papers” challenge has passed! The collection of entries will be permanently bookmarked here, for future reference.

Entries ranged over a wide variety of disciplines: biochemistry, biology, geology, neuroanatomy, medicine, physics, physiology, and psychology. Entries ranged from studies of works done in 1543 through 1973 (‘classics’ can of course be from any era). Entries came from workers from the undergraduate to the faculty level.

It’s amazing how much interesting history is out there in old papers that rarely get discussed in detail any more; I learned a heckuva lot from every entry, and I’m grateful that everyone took the time to write up nice entries and submit them. For those who want the ‘classics’ to continue, Coturnix has suggested turning this into a regular blog carnival, and that sounds like a great idea that we’ll hopefully make happen.

Thanks again to ecoli at thoughts from gut bacteria, Mary at The OpenHelix Blog, Gerlach at Off Resonance, Coturnix at A Blog Around The Clock, Epicanis at The Big Room, Winawer at Mild Opinions, Tuff Cookie at Magma Cum Laude, coconino at Ordinary High Water Mark, BrianR at Clastic Detritus, barnowl at Guadalupe Storm-Petrel, catatau at catatau, Arunn at nonoscience, Tom at Swans on Tea, SciCurious at Neurotic Physiology, Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily, and podblack at PodBlack Blog.

Just thought I’d put out a reminder that the official deadline for the ‘classic science paper challenge’ is only two days away: May 31st.  It will probably take me a couple of days to write up a wrap-up post about the ‘challenge’, so there’s a little leeway in submitting.

We’ve got such great entries so far; I encourage everyone to take a look at the links page!