Science in the Triangle

The first Science Communication Conference was held in Raleigh, at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences last Saturday, organized by the Museum, SCONC (Science Communicators of North Carolina) and UNC-TV’s QUEST.

This one-day meeting, attended by more than 50 people, was opened by Robin Ann Smith of NESCent, followed by a demonstration of the recent efforts by UNC-TV’s QUEST in their science educational media role, moderated by Jen Jones and Cathy Dobbins.

The second session, much more un-conference in style, was a panel “Old Media in a New Media World” with Scott Huler, Misha Angrist and Patric Lane. After lunch, the tone became more somber, talking about money, as Sabine Vollmer and Robert Panoff showed us the data - some of it grim, some very encouraging - in their session “Science and Society: The Business Side of Research in the Triangle”.

Finally, the meeting ended with a completely uncoference-style session (moderated by me, with help from Anton Zuiker): after discussing what topics were of interest to all the attendees, we all set in a circle and discussed blogging, state of science journalism, pros and cons of social media, definitions of what counts as “interactive” in education and museum exhibits, and the difficulties of writing brief text plates for museum exhibits.

The main take-home message from the meeting is how fortunate we are in North Carolina, where science, technology and media meet. With the UNC system and numerous state and private organizations devoted to scientific research, education, reporting and outreach, North Carolina - and especially the Triangle area - is at the forefront not just in research but also in new endeavors in communicating that research to local and global residents.

With the foundation of the Research Triangle Park 50 years ago, the region was provided with a structure not just for supporting academic research, but also for industrial research, technological development (including in communications) and the improved communication and collaboration between science and technology institutions in the area.

With technology companies, like IBM, making their home in the Park, it is also not surprising that the state is a home to pioneers in the use of online technologies in communication, including some of the earliest bloggers in history, and other innovators in the field. Triangle Tweetups attract several hundred attendees every three months. Science Cafes in Raleigh and Durham are monthly affairs that are always packed. Events like Ignite, Pecha Kucha and TEDx are now a regular part of the local scene.

Both online and offline science communication has really taken off in the state over the past few years. In addition to the old stalwarts, like American Scientist, the excellent popular science magazine published by Sigma Xi, located smack in the middle of the RTP, there are all sorts of new endeavors. The members of SCONC are busy building all kinds of new communications channels.

There is, of course, the site you are on right now - Science In The Triangle - the hub of local science and technology news. Several months ago, The Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer started producing a collaborative Science/Technology page on Mondays, often featuring interviews with science bloggers. Radio in Vivo is the local science radio program. The first ever blog carnival was invented in Chapel Hill, NC. ScienceOnline is an internationally renowned annual conference (now preparing for its fifth meeting next January, in RTP) on science and the Web. The North Carolina Science Festival and The Triangle Science Festival are in the making. The Open Laboratory, annual anthology of best writing on science blogs is produced in the Triangle and published by Triangle-based Lulu.com. ResearchBlogging.org, the aggregator of blog posts covering peer-reviewed research, was conceived in Davidson, NC. Those are just some of the most notable examples - there are many more.

Last week, another such project was unveiled - Scienceblogging.org. It is an aggregator of notable feeds from science blogs, aggregators and services. Just like general media watchers use services like JournalismNews, Memeorandum and Mediagazer, we felt a service like that is needed for watchers of science news.

It is not meant to be comprehensive (that is impossible), nor does it try to decide which blogs are “better” than others, but is designed as a good one-stop-shopping place where a busy journalist can, in a couple of minutes, glean what is new in the world of science, i.e., what has percolated up from the blogging community to a number of such sites and networks. The site contains the feeds for all the major science blogging networks, some of the media-hosted science blogs, and a few aggregators and news services. Interesting stuff from the thousands of independent blogs also shows up on the page, e.g., in the feeds for ResearchBlogging.org, Blog Carnivals, and several group-feeds of independent bloggers. More such combined blog feeds (as well as Twitter and Flickr feeds, etc.) are in the making for the future. The site is in Beta - it started with what was easy to gather and include - but we are asking the community to help with suggestions, technical know-how and whatever they are willing to do to help the site evolve over time into something that is useful both for the media and for other users. Read the posts on the site’s blog for updates, and post comments with your own suggestions or offers to help.