- from 'The Phantom Tollbooth' [Norton Juster]
[Readings:03] Reporting on Science
Friday, July 16, 2010Human genetic variation — Science’s ‘Breakthrough of the Year’
From Museum Basement, a `New’ Dinosaur
For Male Finches, Range Comes With Muscle
I have always heard it, time and again, that scientists sometimes can not communicate well to non-scientist people. It’s pretty much an overspecialization, but it does seem to me to be true. And so, there goes the need for writers to “translate” what our devoted scholars want the public to know.
Dr. Suarez’s tried to make the non-members of the scientific and research community to empathize with the “Realities in RP Science.” I could see the effort to explain what would have been unfamiliar concepts and processes to the general reading public.
The first half of the second article, “Human genetic variation — Science’s ‘Breakthrough of the Year’” was able to make the reader (or me at least) to understand that these “breakthroughs” are important to my life. However, the latter part seemed to forget that the readers might not actually know what a “spintronic computing equipment” and T cells are.
The style of the third article by Mr. Torbati seemed to be interesting and effective for me. He was able to relate the peculiarity of the name given to a dinosaur genus by Nicholas Longrich to the general state of paleontology practice. Fitting quotes were also effectively used.
As I read the first paragraph of the fourth article, I thought, “Why should I care if these male birds sing higher notes than their female counterparts?” But the article, short as it was, was able to tell the significance of these findings on the voice of finches. (Although I flinched a bit when I came to the sentence “Researchers operated on male and female birds, cutting the nerves that control vocal muscles in the syrinx.” Poor bird.)
