Strong opinion, deep reflection. Stuff to make you think.

,

The (non-)necessity of PowerPoint – a personal reflection

I am a traveling student who has seen a lot of PowerPoint and Prezi presentations at many universities in different countries. Here is my message: in many cases, they were not necessary to make! Let me explain why.

Science communication is no joke. But it should be (Dean Burnett, September 2015)

Some people in the scientific community think that humour shouldn’t be involved in communicating science. Here, Dr. Dean Burnett—who is a neuroscientist, stand-up comedian and belongs to the blog team of The Guardian–explains why they are wrong.

The Slow Death of the University Seminar (David Schultz, August 2015)

Online communication becomes more and more intense, but it seems that we spend less and less time in the same room. David Schultz, Professor of Synoptic Meteorology at the University of Manchester, mourns the slow death of the traditional university seminar.

Occupy Science! (Javier Rodríguez Laguna, April 2015)

‘Science is anarchist’ according to Javier Rodríguez Laguna, Researcher at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Yet it seems that ‘we have accepted to many unnescessary power structures’ Is it time for science to open up and follow in the tracks in the free software community?

Natural history research—a supply and demand industry? (James O’Hanlon, March 2015)

We have a product: popular science communication. And we have a market: the public. Can there be a business model that caters for this demand? James O’Henlon, Australian zoologist, raises the question whether exploratory research should be driven by a supply and demand mechanism.

Break the mold with a graphical abstract (Luc Cox, February 2015)

Graphical abstracts is one of many ways to adapt scientific communication to a quickly evolving media landscape. Luk Cox, scientific illustrator with a background in molecular biology, has a clear message: it is time for old dogs to learn some new tricks.
,

Scientific Sketching—amazing artwork in the bio labs of IDIBAPS, Barcelona

An urban life drawing event in Barcelona inspired the staff at IDIBAPS, a center dedicated to research in the field of biomedicine. In the fall of 2014, the doors to the labs were opened for drawing artists—with stunning results.