Celebrating Science Celebrities with the Sci-Schmooze

by Meenakshi Prabhune

Hello Science fans,

Hope you all are having a great summer. If you run out of ideas for things to do in the Bay area, here’s some help. By the way, in case you are finding it hard to keep in touch with science between vacations, I do have some innovative ideas. I am sure you have heard of the Skype a Scientist initiative wherein scientists talk to a classroom of students. Recently, I came across another idea along the same line that connects students with scientists. Both students and scientists can register on this platform called Letters to a Pre-Scientist and write letters to one other. It is almost like individual mentoring, but the goal is that scientists provide inspiration to the students rather than actual help in the work. Plus, I think letters have that personal touch that will help students realize that scientists are just like other humans without stereotypes.

Let’s get to the title of this Schmooze, because I am sure you have been wondering what that is all about. In the past one month, I have had the chance of interviewing two very cool science-related celebrities and I wanted to share my experience and their wisdom with you all.

The first one was a shark specialist, Dr. Toby Daly-Engel from the Florida Institute of Technology. She had her own show, Great White Shark Babies, during Shark Week, which is a weeklong marathon of shark related shows on Discovery every year. I was introduced to her when I was looking around for shark experts to interview for a Shark Week special article. What I loved during our interaction was that she spoke to me with such enthusiasm about her work, explaining in detail her research and why sharks are so amazing, despite her super hectic schedule. I felt like she deserves a shout out for being an inspiring woman researcher and science communicator. Read her interview where she spoke about lots of other great topics including representation of women in science and misconceptions about researchers.

The second celebrity that I interviewed was someone that has been an inspiration for a lot of science writers, including myself! Carl Zimmer is a New York Times columnist, well known for his science journalism over the last two decades. I reached out to Zimmer for an interview about his latest book She Has Her Mother’s Laugh as I was reviewing it (read review &interview here). The book itself is great, covering the vast topic of heredity in detail, bringing to our attention how little we understand about it. The interview overall was a very special experience and we discussed lots of great topics. An interesting point that especially struck true was when he mentioned how science writers bear the burden to ensure that ideas percolating from scientists to public are neither diluted too much nor too spiced up. It is indeed a great responsibility for writers to maintain this balance; even with the Schmooze we research every week to make sure that we put forth accurate science facts before our readers.

On that thought, here are my picks for the upcoming week.

Permanently Temporary: Living with Rising Seas Wed 6:00 PM San Francisco
Pairings: Smoked Foods @ After Dark Thu 6:00 PM San Francisco
Shark Day Sat 10:00 AM Redwood City

Have a great week and stay curious!

Greetings,
Minu
Science writer and journalist

Upcoming Events:
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Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

WHAT: Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

FOCUS: Becoming better consumers of information

This is a casual night of socializing with fellow skeptics who live in various locations around the oblate spherical planet Earth.

Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.

WHEN: Wednesday December 25, 7-9pm Pacific (GMT-8)

HOW: Online. Join HERE. Passcode: 1023

SkepTalk

Ann Gibbons

WHAT: Lone Survivors: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Us

In the past decade, new studies of ancient DNA from fossils have shown that, until as recently as 40,000 years ago, our ancestors shared the planet with two close relatives, the Neanderthals and a mysterious group called the Denisovans. Both of those groups became extinct, but traces of their DNA remain in the genomes of modern humans. Meanwhile, researchers are discovering diverse types of human ancestors who were living at the same time in the same fossil sites millions of years ago, suggesting that we were never alone—that there were always other types of hominins alive in Africa and elsewhere on the planet until recently. Join us for a discussion with Ann Gibbons about new research that has changed perceptions of the Neanderthals, shed new light on the mysterious Denisovans, and our place in the human family tree.

WHO: Ann Gibbons is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine and the author of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors, which was a finalist for the LA Times best science and technology book. She also has taught science writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and written about human evolution for National Geographic, SLATE, Smithsonian magazine and other publications. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, she was also a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a science writing fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

She was awarded the 2019 American Geophysical Union’s Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, the 2018 and 2013 National Academy of Sciences Communication Awards for best magazine/newspaper article; the 2014 Society of American Archaeology Gene S. Stuart Award; and the 2012 Anthropology in Media Award from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) for a decade’s worth of stories on human origins and evolution.

WHEN: Thursday January 9 at 6:30PM PT (GMT -8)

HOW: (details coming soon)