Young African bloggers present the results of a Science Week

Asking young people to blog is a good way of publicising symposium results, as the Africa AgricultureScience Week (AASW), held from 15-20 July in Accra (Ghana), has proved. More than 150 young Africans, organised into a 'AASW Social Reporting Team' are right now writing blogs and tweets about agriculture in Africa. The Social Reporters do not need to attend the workshops, they can also track them on line.  

Idowu Ejere, a young Nigerian diplomat, came up with the idea a few months ago. A born communicator she already had accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogger but she used them mostly for personal purposes. Until she attended a Social Media Training in Uruguay. In one of the blogs she explains that this course was a turning point in her life as she came to understand the power of social media'

Ejere knew from previous meetings that one of the challenges was to ‘get the message out to people outside the usual audiences, including policy makers, young people and the general public’. Her organisation (the FARA) teamed up with other stakeholders and together they started a capacity building program for Social Reporters.

Today, the second day of the Week, three o'clock in the afternoon, there are already more than 25 blogs on the new blog site; 1720 followers including me (in Wageningen) get every new blog in their mailbox. The blogs provide (research) news and opinions. Several blogs seem to be from a program leader or communication officer at a NGO or research institutes. But other young people (traders, students, maybe even farmers) will definitely follow. The last blog, 'Learn to farm from your computer', is from an experienced Ghanian blogger, Dominic Kornu, who had nothing to do with agriculture before this Week. You can find out more about the training he got in his blog from 14 July, entitled Quaphui's Cafe.

One thing is a pity. The Science Week homepage shows mainly pictures and descriptions of the official speakers - ministers, famous professors and company leaders. Although the F (for facebook), the T (for Twitter), and the In (for LinkedIn), mean a visitor is only one click from the blogsite or the tweets, I am not sure if this is clear enough for older people. I for one  (> 30) had missed it.

According to the blog of the CGIAR (one of the stakeholders): '87 blog posts and over 2800 tweets were published at the end of day 2, reaching almost 800,000 people'. 

Book 'Regenesis': Science marketing or Science journalism?

The 30-year old Dutch Association for Science Journalists (VWN) is going to change its name in ‘Dutch Association for Science Journalism and Science Communication’. A good decision. Most members, including me, earn their money mainly with communication. But actually the term communication is rather vague. ‘Communication’ conceals it is often marketing: well-written stories increase the chances to catch up new research funds. Nothing wrong with that, but shouldn’t we call ourselves science marketers instead of science communicators?  We are always advocating for plain language.

I had already decided to sign my mails with ‘Marianne Heselmans – Science Marketer’,  when I received ‘Regenesis. How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Written by system biologist George Church and science writer/philosopher Ed Regis in 2012. That book makes me doubt. It may not always possible to say: ‘Now I am a marketer. And now I am a science journalist, searching the truth to support democracy.  

George Church is a leading synthetic biologist, professor at MIT in Harvard and founder of the young company Gen9. Gen9 makes synthetic DNA on microchips. Synthetic DNA can be used to construct more effective bacteria, plants or animals for industry.

The authors have used the writing techniques of thorough science journalism. They have based their stories on published research results from different research institutes and not on vague expectations, or on only Harvard’s results. All stories can be checked and are full of fine (historical) details. 

Meanwhile, the wider story is a sketch of a future world in which all kinds of industrial bacteria, plants and animals are made with….. synthetic DNA. That new ‘synthetic’ organisms are then going to deliver us thousands of new, convenient products such as bio plastic cups and carpets, disease free plants and animals, bacteria for data storage and resurrection of the Neanderthal man. 

So we get a clear impression of the results and goals of the synthetic biologists. The book serves democracy too: who is against genetic modification, has got more idea’s, names and research programs to ‘attack’.  And possible negative side-effects of synthetic biology are described in detail.

But this convincing sketch of a world in which ‘nature and ourselves are reinvented’ is also the ultimate marketing for the company of George Church. The more believers in new bacteria, plants, animals and men  with (only) synthetic DNA, the more synthetic DNA Gen9 is  going to sell.

Do they promis too much? Not really. Gen9 now sells its synthetic DNA for 20 dollar cent per letter (per base pair). Still far too expensive to make bacteria and plants with only synthetic DNA. But if you realize how fast the price of sequenced DNA has been lowered in the last ten years (from 1 sequenced letter for 1 dollar in 2003, to 3 million sequenced letters for 1 dollar now), it is not 100 % unlikely that the Church’ and Regis' world  becomes reality. In 50  years or in 100 or 200 years (the authors don’t mention a time).

So what I see in Regenesis is that thorough science journalism may well support democracy and science and technology marketing. And that writing a book together with a science writer is also a good marketing idea. 

Blogging to change a malpractice

Yesterday I gave an in-company-training The art of blogging at the environmental research school Sense in the Netherlands. Our question was: How to start a blog? None of the 32 participants had experience; half of them were intend to start a blog.

According to me, the best way to start a blog is getting inspired by a great idea, or rather, by a strong drive to change a certain abuse. And one of the best examples I have seen is the site/movie/blog/tweetaccount Theygotodie from epidemiologist  Jonathan Smith, lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health (US). Smith investigates the epidemiology of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) among mine workers in South Africa. These diseases are preventable, but many miners still die from them.

During his Phd research, Smith realized that nothing will change if he only publishes in peer reviewed journals. So he decided to mobilize people to improve the working conditions for the many thousands of people who continue to work in South Africa’s mines. He first made a 4-minutes-movie (trailer), to attract funding for a larger project, a one-hour-documentary in which he should follow he life of four miners. He succeeded and now his group has a professional site with video’s, blogs and tweetaccounts. These provide news about the miners (some of them are already dead), and about the campaign- and research results.

So Smith’s’ blog is embedded  in a broader strategy to change an injustice, using science and other means. That seems successful: more awareness makes it more likely that mine companies and politicians improve the working conditions. And also more likely that the research - visible changing an injustice - can continue.

2060: Browsen in science apps

Een week na de bijeenkomst Science on line op 30 mei in Leiden, viel mijn oog op een schrijfwedstrijd,  georganiseerd door Science. Het blad had jonge onderzoekers gevraagd hoe ze zich voorstelden dat de wetenschapscommunicatie er in 2063 uit ziet. De uitkomsten pasten - niet verwonderlijk - uitstekend bij de discussies tijdens die Leidse bijeenkomst. Want uit de 150 ingezonden essays, was volgens Science van vjjf april maar een conclusie mogelijk: over 50 jaar zullen onderzoeksresultaten  vanaf hun eerste formulering online beschikbaar zijn.

Manuscripten gaan niet meer langs een besloten clubje reviewers, schrijft bijvoorbeeld de Nederlandse neurowetenschapper Annelinde Vandenbroucke. Ze worden in plaats daarvan gepost op een gespecialiseerde subsectie van een openbaar, General Platform. Wie wil, geeft openlijk commentaar, waarna de auteur zijn onderzoek en zijn artikel bijstelt. Intussen jagen editors van journals naar het onderzoeksverhaal dat hun doelgroep aanspreekt. Vandenbroucke hoopt dat haar artikel dan wordt geselecteerd door een breed gelezen blad. ‘Liefst met een commentaar erbij.’

Moleculair bioloog en informaticus Matthew Oberhardt denkt dat science communication voor een groot deel via apps gaat verlopen, waarbinnen we inzoomen in kaarten. Bijvoorbeeld in de driedimensionale kaart van ons eigen DNA. Daar zoomen we dan in op DNA-stukken betrokken bij borstkanker, harfalen of MS, waarna allerhande blogposts, infographics, wetenschappelijke artikelen, leefstijltips of zelfs verhalen van patienten op kunnen ploppen.  In een tweede app browse je bijvoorbeeld over een wereldbodemkaart, waarna je al klikkend gaat naar bodemeigenschappen, landbouwtips, filmpjes en wetenschappelijke artikelen over de bodem in het Noorden van Congo, of de Amazone. Daarnaast kun je dan ook, zoals de Ghanese biochemicus Patrick Kobina Arthur dat noemt ‘fan pages’ downlooaden. Fan pages zijn de sites van onderzoeksgroepen waarin ze dagelijks verslag doen van hun inzichten over actuele kwesties. ‘Voor hun lol’, schrijft Arthur, ‘maar ook omdat crowd funding het belangrijkste financieringsinstrument is geworden.’

Ik las vandaag in De Metro dat er al 30.000 Nederlandstalige apps zijn die mensen vertellen over gezondheid. Al met al lijkt het dus zeker geen vijftig jaar te duren voordat  dergelijke visies werkelijkheid worden.