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If you are a science enthusiast and want to keep yourself updated with the latest happenings in the world of science, there are many resources available today – some time-tested resources and some new-generation resources.
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HE very fact that you are reading Science Reporter affirms that you are a science enthusiast, keen to keep up with the latest happenings in the world of science and technology. Making science and technology developments accessible to the masses comes under the realm of science communication – wherein science gets popularized and disseminated without many technicalities and jargons. Given the rate at which existing scientific theories are getting falsified and paradigm shifts happening on a daily basis, keeping up-to-date with the latest research developments is of paramount importance for all science enthusiasts including students, teachers and researchers. There are many resources for enhancing and supplementing one’s knowledge-sphere with contemporary scientific research. There are some time-tested resources, such as magazines, newspapers, radio and TV; and then there are today’s newgeneration resources, such as PodCasts, Audiobooks, RSS Feeds, Google alerts, MOOCs and online multimedia. Let’s take a look at some of these.
about latest scientific discoveries and their significance. These can be distinguished from primary research journals such as Nature, Science, or Current Science, which publish domain-specific peer-reviewed original research papers intended for specialists. Popular science magazines are indeed a significant resource and tool for the popularization of science, even for the specialists sometimes. Scientists may catch-up with the latest scientific developments besides their domain of specialization by reading these magazines, and they may contribute to them for propagating developments in their domain in a non-technical style.
Popular Science Magazines Popular science magazines intend to cater to a wider non-specialist audience by disseminating quintessential information SCIENCE REPORTER, OCTOBER 2015
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Some examples of popular science magazines published by international publishers include Scientific American, New Scientist (both published from London), and Popular Science (published from USA). Some of the Indian popular science magazines include Science Reporter in English, Vigyan Pragati in Hindi and Science Ki Dunya in Urdu (published by CSIR-NISCAIR, New Delhi), Resonance (published by Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore), Dream 2047 (published by Vigyan Prasar), Awishkar (published by NRDCIndia), Safari (published from Gujarat), and Scientific India (published from Dehradun). Apart from these, a number of popular science m a g a z i n e s are available in regional languages in India, such as, Eureka and Shastra Keralam, published in Malayalam by Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad and several others.
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Newspapers Most major newspapers in India carry S&T news. Some newspapers such as The Hindu, The Telegraph, and The Tribune, carry special segments on Science and Technology.
Radio and Television There are a number of science-specific programs and channels now available on radio as well as television. Examples of radio programs/stations include Vigyan Bharati programme of All India Radio, and Gyan Vani FM radio station broadcast from several cities. Of course, there are special programmes too specifically based on scientific topics from time to time. Examples of television channels include Discovery Science, Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Doordarshan’s Gyandarshan, and Rajya Sabha TV’s Eureka and Lok Sabha TV’s Science This Week.
physics, and so on. Most of the abovelisted podcasts also offer video podcasts, which can be downloaded and synced in the same manner as audio podcasts. Compared with audio podcasts, video podcasts are a lot heavier, which is a distinct disadvantage for those using slow or limited-bandwidth internet connections.
audiobooks that are either freely available or ready to purchase through commercial websites such as iTunes and Amazon. Examples of popular science audiobooks that I have listened lately and recommend to everybody include Skepticism-101, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Tipping Point, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and David and Goliath.
Audiobooks
MOOCs
Audiobooks are books that are narrated by professional artists. These are similar to podcasts such that the files can be synced to electronic gadgets (such as iPod, portable music player, smartphone, etc.) and listened offline (for example, when you go out for morning walks!). There are a number of popular science
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are comparatively a new e-resource offered by a number of firms in partnership with universities in which enrollees can take the course online free of charge. MOOCs typically include recorded video lectures, lecture handouts, discussion forums and periodic assessment of progress by way
Podcasts Podcasts are recorded radio shows/ talk shows freely available online. The audio file can typically be downloaded automatically (using software such as iTunes or MusicBee) as and when a new episode is released, and be synchronized (“sync”) with portable mp3 player or phone for listening offline. There are a number of informative science podcasts that discuss the latest development in a non-technical language. Some of the popular science podcasts include NakedScientists, NPR Science Friday, BBC Discovery, Nature Podcast, Science Mag podcast, Scientific American 60S Science, National Geographic Weekend and Skeptic Podcast. There are a number of specialized podcasts available as well, catering to such subjects as astronomy, biotechnology, chemistry, genetics, microbiology, geology, marine biology, mathematics,
MOOC on Evolutionary Biology offered at http://sg.sg/bastfelix. Contents disseminated via this site include recorded video lectures of the class hosted at YouTube, audio-stream of lectures, PowerPoint presentations, lecture hand-outs, course materials including free e-books, pdf files of scholarly literature referred in the class, solved quizzes and question papers, consolidated student assignments and term papers, and pertinent hyperlinks to news items.
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A page. Alternately Twitter allows users to search for content using the hashtag (“#”) symbol. For e.g., the hashtag #science allows users to follow in real-time all posts where this hashtag is used.
Google Alerts
Feedly RSS/Atom Feed Aggregator works like a virtual magazine with the sources that we specify. In this view, consolidated stories from sources expanded in the left menu bar are shown; for example, The Naked Scientists. Astronomy Picture of the Day, Bad Astronomy, BBC News Science, National Geographic, etc. of online-based quizzes. Upon successful completion, a number of MOOCs offer valid certifications. Some notable MOOCs are Coursera (www.coursera.org), Udacity (www. udacity.com), edX (www.edx.org) and Khan Academy (www.khanacademy. org). MOOCs for a number of bioscience courses are offered through my website as well, which is accessible at: http:// sg.sg/bastfelix.
RSS/Atom feeds of relevant research Journals/Blogs: Real Simple Syndicate (RSS)/Atom feeds make it very easy to track new articles published in peer-reviewed research journals in the relevant subject field. Feeds of journals can be subscribed using web-based feed aggregators like feedly.com. Instead of checking at each journal’s website for new articles, the aggregator consolidates articles from each journal, making it extremely convenient to get updated. This works great for blogs too. Blogs, or weblogs, are websites that get updated every so often. These are discussion or information sites with posts or entries displayed in chronological order. Some wellknown science blogs include that of the popular science journals, BBC Science & Technology, New York Times Science, Bad Science, HowStuffWorks, LiveScience, and Smithsonian Mag. SCIENCE REPORTER, OCTOBER 2015
This works in a similar fashion to that of RSS/Atom feeds, but for a particular keyword. Google alerts let us monitor the Internet for interesting and specific new contents and delivers results via email at a set frequency. For example, if you are interested to know about new species discoveries from India, you can head to https://www.google.co.in/alerts and create an alert using the keywords italicized above. You may filter the alerts, restricting to a particular region (for example, India), language, etc.
Google alerts let you monitor the web for interesting new contents at set frequency
Facebook Science Pages Facebook is a social networking site hugely popular among the youth. Facebook allows the user to track new updates/posts from friends. There are a number of science-related pages too hosted inside Facebook. These include pages of popular science magazines, science & technology supplements of newspapers and science podcasts. Some other Facebook pages that can be listed are that of the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, ScienceNow, Discovery Health, Shedd Aquarium, Physics Today, Wired, LifeHacker, and The Oatmeal.
Twitter Handles Twitter is another hugely popular social networking and microblogging site. This works in a similar fashion like individual blogs that allow users to share short 140 character messages called “tweets”. Twitter handle is the user name preceded with “@” symbol, for e.g., @MarsCuriosity, @NASA, @ sciam, @newscientist, @scifri, @NatGeo, @RichardDawkins, @TheHinduScience, @nytimesscience, @DiscoverMag and @ TEDTalks. A user may subscribe to as many handles that he or she likes, and posts of those handles get displayed in the home
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Online Multimedia Resources A number of free online resources are also available for science enthusiasts. Examples include a number of hypertext books like that offered by MIT and Nature Education, educational videos available in YouTube and presentations on science available in TED/TEDx. Probably the best online periodic table is PTable (http://www.ptable. com/#) that lets the user view element information, properties, orbitals, isotopes, and even possible compounds
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in interactive visualizations. The website ResearchGate is a platform for scientists and science enthusiasts; anyone may pose questions on science there, which are answered by experts. This site also enables researchers to share their datasets and electronic reprints of their publications with the world.
Virtual tour of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Virtual Museums/Field Trips A number of Science & Technology museums around the world offer 360 degrees virtual tour (rendered using panorama images) of the museum made available through their websites. A visitor to these pages may enjoy simulated feeling of having actually visited these museums to see their curated exhibits. Examples of virtual museums include Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, The British Museum, Science MuseumUK, The Fields Museum, American Museum of Natural History and World Wide Museum of Natural History. A number of websites also offer visitors to take them on virtual field trips, e.g., Digital Field Trip to Rain Forest, Arctic Tour, Moon Tour, Virtual Field Trips, Planets in Action, and World Wonders Project. Virtual field trips to specific places on the flight simulator are also available via Google Earth software. Google Moon offers 3D field trip to the moon. A number of sites offer virtual tours of specific science-related objects as well, for e.g., the human body (www. visiblebody.com).
Apps Apps are executable applications that the users can install in the suitable electronic devices, such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc. Apps are specific to the operating system (OS) used in the gadgets. Three popular mobile OS are Google Android, Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows Mobile. A number of science-
Finding Mars using Google Sky Map (right) The IndianBirds app (extreme right)
related apps are available to download for science enthusiasts. Android users may download Google Skymap app to identify planets and constellations in a night sky, rendered using the built-in gyroscope and accelerometer sensors. This app also enables the user to search an astronomical object (e.g., Mars) and direct the user with a pointer to find the object in the night sky (Fig. 5). RealCalc offers a full-function scientific calculator, ConvertPad app allows unit conversion, SoundMeter allows the user to measure the sound in decibels, FirstAid-American Red Cross explains the most important first aids everyone should know, SmartTools app enables user to measure length, angle, slope, level, distance, height, and direction (compass). There are a number of biodiversitymonitoring apps available as well, for example, IndianBirds, Snakes of India, and FrogFind. Some of these apps make use of Google “Search by Image” tool, where user may take a picture of an
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unknown organism using the app and built-in camera, and the app will suggest possible species names. The app “Google Goggles” is another tool that makes use of searching the web by images; the user may take a photo of any scientific object (for e.g., a diode, or any other electronic components), the app will automatically identify the object. This app can also be used for automatic translation of texts inside the image (for example, photos of Japanese popular science manga-cartoons). Dr. Felix Bast is Assistant Professor, Centre for Biosciences, Central University of Punjab, Mansa Road, Bathinda-151001, Punjab; Email: felix.
[email protected] SCIENCE REPORTER, OCTOBER 2015
