Crastina is a platform for the exchange of experience, knowledge and inspiration regarding both scientific peer-to-peer communication and science dissemination

What? An international network of (mostly young) people who love to communicate science & tech.
Why? We think science needs to be communicated with more passion and professionalism.
Where? On our website with interviews & resources + on social media + on Skype and IRL.
Who? A content group (the Crew), a think tank (the Academy), + lots of friends & contacts.
When? Right now – as a matter of fact, we’ve just geared up.

Atomic Size Matters–a doctoral thesis in comic book format

Atomic Size Matters (probably) represents the first doctoral thesis ever which is presented in a special comic book version. Veronica Berns, structural chemist from University of Wisconsin-Madison, wanted to make sure that her family and friends understood her research about quasicrystals.

Opinion & Reflection

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.

Interviews

Anna Ajduk, brain circulator: “One of the key words in present-day science is networking”

Anna Ajduk, reproductive biologist, decided to move back to Poland after some very successful years in the UK. Forming her own research group at the University of Warsaw, she represents the professional repatriation movement which has been referred to ”brain circulation”.

Our current theme: “SciComm in Africa”

Pearl Osirike: “The beginning of a new era: science communication in Africa”

A Crastina Column by Pearl Osirike, Ph.D. student at West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana.

Read the Crastina Column

This time, we will learn more about SciComm activities emerging from a geographical area which is often overlooked in the general discussion about science and its communication: Africa.

On the one hand, it is true that African academia has to cope with persistent challenges like poor funding, inadequate infrastructure, staff shortages and recruitment problems. The everyday struggle of experimental scientists is hard to imagine for those who work in labs in Europe and North America. For example, the difficulty of transporting tissue samples and biomolecules sometimes add weeks and months to projects – parcels are lost, frozen samples become thawed and are ruined on the way, et cetera.

On the other hand, anyone who studies the websites of African universities and research institutes will be met by an impressing vitality and optimism. Innumerous projects are ongoing across this vast continent, and many of them include SciComm activities which all provide a lesson for anyone ready to read, ask and reflect.

We have rarely felt such anticipation when initiating a theme here at Crastina; we are confident that we all – authors and readers have much – to learn.

For The Crastina Crew

Olle Bergman, Project Leader