Posts tagged as:

Engagement

Is nanotechnology suffering from “silent rave” syndrome?

by Andrew Maynard August 26, 2010

I couldn’t resist finishing the August in the Archives series with this piece on “silent rave” syndrome, which I am sad to say still seems to inflict the emerging technologies community! Originally posted October 5 2008 The silent rave might seem a rather bizarre social phenomenon; a group of strangers converging in a public place [...]

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I’m A Scientist – where the prize money went

by Andrew Maynard July 14, 2010

I love books – the old fashioned kind, printed with ink on paper.  As a kid, books were my source of education, inspiration and entertainment.  As an adult, I still find there’s something oddly satisfying about picking up a sheaf of printed and bound pages and immersing myself in them. So it’s perhaps not surprising [...]

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Scientist listen to the public? Surely you’re joking Mr. Mooney!

by Andrew Maynard July 4, 2010

With apologies to Chris Mooney, and all the many scientists that really do get the need to listen to people.  And also with a rather large tongue in my cheek: Dear Mr Mooney, I’ve been way too busy this week doing important sciency stuff to engage with the trivialities of the popular press.  But this [...]

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I’m A Scientist – A brilliant British idea that needs to come to the US!

by Andrew Maynard June 23, 2010

Today was a tough day on I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here – three live chats almost back to back, followed by the first evictions.  And believe me – even though I live to fight another day, the evictions were traumatic!  But more of that below.  At the end of a long day, [...]

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Welcome to real science!

by Andrew Maynard June 19, 2010

The way science is taught, the way it’s portrayed on TV and in the press, he way it’s promoted by science-advocates and science bloggers, often seems to adhere to a rather pompous and hubristic view of science as the ultimate bastion of truth and certainty.  So it’s been rather refreshing this week to see a [...]

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Day one of I’m A Scientist – It’s the teens who are training us!

by Andrew Maynard June 15, 2010

It’s a quarter to one in the morning Eastern Time, and I’ve just polished off the last question of the day on I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here!  I should be heading off to bed, but I wanted to capture some initial thoughts on this exercise first. I’ve lost count of how many [...]

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A spectator’s guide to I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here!

by Andrew Maynard June 13, 2010

If you want to participate in the rather fab science event I’m A Scientist, Get me Out Of Here I’m afraid you are out of luck – unless you happen to be one of the 100 scientists and 8000 teenagers taking part. But you can still get a thrill from watching the competition unfold on-line [...]

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I’m A Scientist – Check out the competition!

by Andrew Maynard June 1, 2010

Reading the Twitter feeds, it seems that a number of scientists participating in I’m A Scientist, Get me Out of Here have struggled with their profiles.  It’s one thing to design an elegant experiment or write a smart paper – but describing yourself in three words or telling a joke that’s actually funny isn’t something [...]

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Deja vu and synthetic biology – will we learn the lessons of nanotech and genetic modification?

by Hilary Sutcliffe May 25, 2010

A guest blog by Hilary Sutcliffe, Director of MATTER, a UK think tank which explores how new technologies can work for us all. The other day, I wrote a piece on the implications of synthetic biology where I  suggested that we “need to place discussions on a science basis, and not get over-distracted by ethical [...]

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I’m a scientist – and I’m going to be hanging on for dear life’s sake!

by Andrew Maynard May 17, 2010

I can’t sleep, I’m distracted, I keep breaking out in a cold sweat.  And the reason?  I have a deceptively simple question going my head – and I don’t know the answer! The question… well, I’ll come to that in a minute.  I’d rather put the moment of embarrassment off for at least a few [...]

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Found in translation – Journalist Andréia Azevedo Soares’ take on a Brazilian nanotechnology documentary

by Andrew Maynard April 25, 2010

Language is often seen as a barrier to communication.  But sometimes it provides a valuable buffer between hearing, understanding and responding, and allows unique perspectives that are often drowned out to be heard. A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Brazilian TV presenter Luís Fernando Silva Pinto for the TV Globo program Ciência & [...]

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The secrets of engaging teens with science

by Sophia Collins April 13, 2010

A guest blog by Sophia Collins, producer of the on-line teen science event “I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!” “itz hometime but we want to stay and ask questions” These are the words of a 14 year old student, at a school in inner-city London. The school has some of the poorest academic [...]

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Making sense of nanotechnology – a piece of cake!

by Andrew Maynard April 4, 2010

The quality’s a bit flaky, but I thought I would upload this video for a bit of fun.  It’s the first – and possibly the last – time I will simultaneously attempt to unravel the mysteries of nanotechnology… while baking a cake! Filmed at the National Museum of American History as part of Nanodays 2010, [...]

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“I’m a Scientist…” – Seriously addictive science engagement!

by Andrew Maynard March 24, 2010

The website “I’m a Scientist – Get me out of here” should come with a government warning – something along the lines of “Visiting this site could seriously disrupt your professional, social and personal live while altering your perceptions on getting kids hooked on science – proceed with extreme caution.”  In fact I would probably [...]

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Scientist just wants to have fun – a compendium of mindless games for the holiday season!

by Andrew Maynard December 22, 2009

Brain-candy for the intellectually incapacitated. To help the brain cells recuperate from over-exertion (and quite possibly over-indulgence) this Holiday season, here’s a short compendium of mindless games – the sort of things scientists and others indulge in when they think no-one’s looking!

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Completing the circle: Coupling science & technology outputs to inputs

by Andrew Maynard December 7, 2009

Part 9 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century Writing about completing the circle of science and technology policy at the start of the Copenhagen climate summit seems particularly fitting.  Although the climate change context was far from my mind when I started this series, it stands as a stark [...]

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Researchers are real people too – thoughts on interviewing scientists

by Andrew Maynard November 29, 2009

Andréia Azevedo Soares has just posted an excellent blog on how to interview scientists over at YS Journal – an on-line journal written, edited and published by students.  The piece is aimed specifically at students from 12 to 20 years old who are engaged with the Young Scientists Journal project from around the world, and [...]

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Science: So what? – So what?

by Andrew Maynard November 27, 2009

I sat down this morning to write a light-hearted blog about the UK government’s “Science: So what? So everything” campaign.  The angle was going to be: Why write about this when people want to read about this? But the more I dug around, the more apparent it became that this is an initiative that seems [...]

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Riding the wave: Rethinking science & technology policy

by Andrew Maynard October 15, 2009

Part 8 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century Much to my embarrassment, I’ve just realized that it was over four months ago that I wrote the previous blog in this series – a series that was supposed to evolve over just a few weeks!  Most inconveniently, other priorities ended [...]

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So you’re curious about nanotechnology…

by Andrew Maynard September 28, 2009

Curious, concerned or just plain confused about nanotechnology?  The new website Nano & Me might be just what you are looking for. Funded in part by the UK department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and developed by the Responsible Nano Forum, Nano & Me is aimed at providing clear and balanced information on an [...]

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Experiments in science engagement – the exquisite corpse!

by Andrew Maynard July 14, 2009

Tim Jones has just posted a video of a new science engagement technique he’s working on over at his blog Zoonomian.  I was so impressed with the result that I asked his permission to post it here also. Before explaining what this is, take a look at the video – it’s ten minutes long, but [...]

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Engaging the public on nanotechnology

by Andrew Maynard July 7, 2009

Following up on my last post – Geoengineering the planet with nanotechnology ice-cream? – here’s a short video Zoe Papadopoulou and colleagues put together on The Cloud Project from my visit in June: Get the Flash Player to see this content. var params = { ‘allowfullscreen’: ‘true’, ‘allowscriptaccess’: ‘always’, ‘wmode’: ‘transparent’ }; var attributes = [...]

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Geoengineering the planet with nanotechnology ice-cream?

by Andrew Maynard July 5, 2009

Scientists and engineers have their moments. But it they are hard pressed to beat art students when it comes to sheer audacious creativity. Earlier this year I received an email so intriguing I couldn’t help but follow up on it. The email was from Zoe Papadopoulou, an MA student at the Royal College of Art [...]

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