¿Tienes un minuto? ¿Podrías explicarme la mecánica cuántica por favor?
Hay gente que sí puede explicar lo complicado en un par de minutos y lo hace muy bien. Henry Reich en MinutePhysics explora la mecánica cuántica y otros conceptos difíciles a través del dibujo y la narración. Sus videos consisten en dibujos simples que van creciendo a medida que avanza la explicación. La combinación de dibujo, palabra escrita y narración hacen que las ideas sean fáciles de entender y entretenidas. Henry Reich logra explicar lo difícil de manera divertida y su canal MInutePhysics es uno de mis favoritos en YouTube.
Hoy MinutePhysics nos dio dos excelentes noticias. La primera noticia es que nació MinuteEarth, donde podremos aprender sobre la ciencia e historias de nuestro planeta y que ya tiene más de 25,000 subscriptores en las primeras 12 horas de funcionamiento. La segunda noticia es que ahora MinutePhysics y MinuteEarth son también MinutoDeFisica y MinutoDeLaTierra. La narración es ahora en castellano con la voz y traducción del venezolano Ever Salazar. Los sitios nuevos están geniales y el plan es traducir y narrar todos los videos en castellano, sin los subtítulos que distraen y le restan mucho al aspecto visual de los videos.No puedo dejar de preguntarme como traducirán el episodio de MinutePhysics: “Is There Poop on the Moon?“.
Te recomiendo visitar estos nuevos sitios en YouTube, vale la pena!
Batman delivering a punchline (Photo credit: renophaston)
A room full of science bloggers fell silent after Liz Neeley (compassblogs.org) asked how much effort they invested in headlines for their blog posts.
Apparently most of the public in the room, including myself, doesn’t fuss a lot about headlines. Seasoned blogger Brendan DeMelle (DeSmogBlog.com) told us that this inattention may cost your post a lot of its potential audience. Most viewers/readers will only read your headline. You have a few seconds of their attention, then they are gone, adios, sayonara, arrivederci. What you wanted to communicate is lost in the past. Can you say what you need to say in those 3 seconds? Can you hook your readers so they want to read more? To write great headlines is a difficult art to master, even with the help of A/B testing.
But, how can a superhero help you with a great headline? That is part of a story that started the day before Liz asked such a good question to the science bloggers audience:
It begins with a very cool post at the New York Times Bits blog. I don’t want to give away too many details. There is a video with scientist explaining their software and image analysis technique, and showing diverse examples of uses for it. One example shows video of a sleeping newborn. With the software you can make visible the small movement in the surface of the baby’s face due to blood circulation, and measure his pulse — without touching him. Another example shows that no special camera is needed; they take a clip from a movie with a famous actor sleeping on bed, just as shown in theaters, then the software shows his blood circulating up and down.
What was the headline of author Erik Olsen’s blog?
“Scientists Uncover Invisible Motion in Video”
Not a bad headline, but I read about the Bits blog from another blog first, and that blog had added more information to the headline. Aatish Bhatia (Empirical Zeal) added a little more explanation when sharing the link to Eric Olsen’s piece:
“A pretty amazing algorithm magnifies imperceptible motions, allowing you to see the invisible”
I was so excited about the link shared by Aatish that I decided to share it too. Not to be outdone, I wrote my headline with even more words (a bad initial decision that ended with a bad headline).
“Image processing at its best. Tiny movements are exaggerated: you may measure the pulse of a person using a camera”
Nevertheless, I believed the headlines where interesting enough and the research was so fascinating that people would feel really compelled to read more. Click for the awesome video and hopefully stay and learn a little about image processing. I did not find how wrong I was until later, when I opened my twitter feed and I saw this post from Ed Yong:
Ed Yong grabbed the amazing headline crafted by Robert Krulwich on his blog Krulwich wonders “MIT Invents A Machine That Can Look At Batman’s Face And See His Heart Beating” then added a WOWOWOW! at the beginning (meaning look guys this is awesome) and gave you the exact part of the video where you can look at Batman’s face and see his heart beating. The picture is already showing you batman… If you can resist to click on the link it can only be that you have no pulse.
Lesson learned. Next time I write a headline I will remember Liz Neely’s question, and the treatment that Robert Krulwich and Ed Yong gave to this piece. In my opinion Batman kicked other headline’s but, and I will try to write more Batman headlines in the future.
UW Science Now at Town Hall. Science storytelling for the general audience.
There is a gap growing between the scientific community and the general public. The public can’t keep-up with what is happening in science daily, and often don’t even care. Overworked scientists rarely find extra time to communicate their science to audiences outside academia, and just publishing the science in journals doesn’t seem to bridge the gap fast enough.
Thankfully there is a growing army of science communicators determined to bring science back to the public, engaging in a useful dialog about science. The most powerful weapons of this small army are the scientists themselves. Contrary to public perception, scientists are a passionate, interesting bunch of people. They love what they do. That passion helps them overcome the difficulties, setbacks, and struggles that come with exploring the limits of human knowledge. Their ingenuity navigating the unknown is the raw material for captivating storytelling, but they rarely learn in school how to tell their story to the public. Engage is an organization of graduate students of the University of Washington that helps to reveal those stories. Engage organizes a seminar to train student scientists on presenting their research to a general audience, stripping jargon and scientific formality. I had the privilege of attending the Engage seminar series for graduate students this quarter and I am really happy I did. The seminar provides a wonderful review of the craft of storytelling, teaching how to speak with your voice and body; presentation content and design; and the “what” and the “how” of effective communication. For me, the take home message is that the respect you owe to the audience means that you must relentlessly simplify the content without dumbing it down. Hopefully, if you use the right tools to tell a compelling, engaging story, the public understands your science better and relates to the person doing the science too. I believe that is a great way to bridge the gap.
The best part of Engage: there is a science treat for the Seattle public too. This seminar is a preparation for the Engage science speaker series, this year happening at Town Hall from March to June. Attending this class I had the chance to learn about the amazing research of twenty graduate students at UW (you can learn more about them here). After more than two decades in academia, I can say that what I have heard from the students is all-fresh, super-engaging science storytelling. To give you a small sample, I learned how coral reduces the destructive power of Tsunamis in a video game analogy, why we may be loving killer whales to dead, and I saw evolution happening in front of my eyes. There is much more coming to Town Hall, starting on March 5th, please check this calendar and make sure to go to the UW Science Now presentations. You will be glad you did.
PS: Special thanks to Jessica Rohde and Ty Robinson, co-instructors of the seminar for allowing me to attend this amazing class, and to the graduate students for tolerating my presence.
Salsa is “sauce” in Spanish. It comes from the Latin “salsus” for savory food. Today, the word salsa means a lot more than a spicy dip for your chips. Salsa music took over the world and now salsa brings to mind the image of a gorgeous couple dancing in sensual embrace. I do not mind that you have this beautiful image in your mind when reading “Science Salsa”, but the truth must be said, I meant to call my blog that way because of the sauce.
Delicious, spicy, and flavorful, but common, home-made, family-recipe salsa. No fancy dancing here, even if we may dance salsa occasionally.
Why not “Science Sauce” or “Salsa de Ciencia”? Well, this is a bilingual blog, with a bilingual name, from a bilingual author. My personal recipe has a flavor that is unapologetic Latin-American, rooted in my childhood spent in Colombia and Perú. Sauce cannot describe it properly, it needs to be salsa! I did my PhD studies and postdoctoral work in the US and the science that I generate and consume is mostly in English language. It needs to be science!
I gave you some clues about my identity with the tittle of my blog. My information is public and you are more than welcome to visit the “about me” link to learn more about my background, or my page www.IvanFGonzalez.com for more information. Please don’t expect pictures of my (living) family or other private stuff, but you can read Science Salsa with my commitment that you will get my sincere attempt to bring you some flavorful science. Just the way I can tell you about it, with no gimmicks or imposter voices.
Fun fact about spicy salsa: did you know that the “hot” chemical in peppers affect small proteins in your body called TRPV1 ion channels? TRPV1 are normally in nerve fibers that sense pain and extreme heat. That is why spicy hot food makes you sweat and it is sometimes painful to eat. The “science salsa” idea came when I was thinking about my research on TRPV1 channels and their influence in chronic pain. TRPV1 channels are all around our body, not only your tongue. Nobody realizes their eyes are covered by nerve endings that have TRPV1 channels… until they are cutting hot peppers for salsa and make the mistake of rubbing their eyes. Why we have those pain receptors in our corneas? How did pepper plants develop a chemical that affect our pain receptors (but not bird’s pain receptors)? Why humans like a little pain with their food? Those are some of the questions in science that I think would we fun to discuss with you in the future.
Pacific Science Center, Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington lit up at night. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
La ciencia que no despierta el interés del público corre el riesgo de acabar en los anaqueles olvidados de la universidad. Para evitar esta suerte hay que publicar y comunicar, sabiendo bien a cual público está dirigida la comunicación. En Seattle hay muchas experiencias de comunicación científica exitosas, pero hoy voy a hablar de dos que me parecen muy interesantes por la manera en que se relacionan con el público. La primera es el portal para el público del “Pacific Science Center” que baja del podio al científico y lo pone a hablar cara-a-cara con el público, y la segunda es el “Citizen’s Climate Lobby” que le da conocimiento y poder a los ciudadanos para que influencien a sus representantes políticos.
Portal para el público del Pacific Science Center: Esta iniciativa recibió un apoyo inicial de dos millones de dólares de parte de la NSF (Sociedad Nacional de Ciencia de los EEUUAA) en el 2007 para sus primeros tres años de funcionamiento. El objetivo principal es promover una mayor apreciación y entendimiento de la investigación científica actual por medio de interacciones cara-a-cara entre el público general y científicos que explican su investigación y responden preguntas sobre ella.
Como parte de esta iniciativa hay un programa de entrenamiento para científicos interesados en comunicar su investigación fuera del ambiente académico. Estos reciben una semana de entrenamiento intensivo en técnicas para conectar con el público y son certificados como “embajadores de la ciencia”. Como parte del curso los científicos desarrollan una actividad educativa o demostración que les permite explicar parte de su trabajo actual de una manera interactiva. Luego los científicos exponen su trabajo, ya sea interactuando con el público en una mesa de demostración en el museo de ciencia, o en charlas divulgativas abiertas al público general.
El público que generalmente asiste al museo o a la charla es un grupo cuyo mayor interés es la ciencia por sí misma, o lo que yo llamaría “ciudadanos apasionados por la ciencia”. Sin embargo, el público tiene diferentes opciones para ver en el museo y hay muchas diferencias de edades e intereses, así que los científicos deben “sudarla” para atraer y mantener el interés tanto de niños como adultos. La interacción entre el público y el científico no solamente aumenta el conocimiento y entendimiento público de la ciencia “Made in Seattle”, pero también permite que el científico entienda mejor el tipo de inquietudes, interés y conceptos equivocados que la gente tiene sobre su área de conocimiento. El resultado final es que el público ve al científico como un ser humano apasionado por lo que hace, en lugar de un ser extraño con el que no se puede conectar, y el científico entiende que la simple exposición de resultados por más importantes que sean no logra llegar al público a menos que se pueda primero interesarlos y establecer una conexión humana.
Citizen’s climate lobby: El objetivo de este grupo es inspirar en los miembros del congreso de EEUUAA para que se conviertan en abanderados de un “clima sostenible” y actúen en legislación que permita frenar el calentamiento global. Este grupo actúa a nivel nacional pero se basa en grupos locales separados por distritos electorales del Congreso de los EEUUAA.
El grupo en Seattle es bastante activo y tiene como objetivo llevar su mensaje a través de los medios de comunicación, servidores públicos electos y comunidades del distrito séptimo del estado de Washington. Los miembros del grupo son bastante heterogéneos, desde científicos con PhD, a estudiantes terminando la escuela secundaria. En Seattle los jubilados constituyen la mayoría de voluntarios. El ambiente es de camaradería y todo el mundo está allí para aprender a usar técnicas de comunicación efectiva para dar argumentos tangibles, respaldados por mediciones científicas, modelos climáticos y estudios económicos. El financiamiento es donaciones de los propios voluntarios.
Cada mes hay una teleconferencia nacional con un orador invitado, normalmente un científico que trabaja en el área del Clima, y se tiene una sección de preguntas y respuestas. El valor se pone en cuáles son las inquietudes e intereses de los voluntarios. Al final de la llamada se practican “laser talks” que permiten discutir el tema del mes de manera sucinta durante una conversación con diferentes públicos: la prensa, un senador, el vecino. Este punto es muy importante, porque no sólo se dan las bases científicas sobre el cambio climático, pero se dan herramientas para hablar de manera efectiva sobre un tema que es controversial para parte del público en este país. Luego el grupo transforma ese conocimiento y lo pone en sus propias palabras. Se comparten las experiencias del mes, las cartas al editor publicadas en la prensa local y otras actividades interesantes como conversaciones con miembros del Congreso o charlas públicas. El público en este caso es el motor del cambio. Es el interés y esfuerzo de los voluntarios el que transforma conocimiento científico en acción y contagia a familiares, amigos, vecinos, periodistas y políticos.
* Parte del texto es extraida de mis contribuciones a la clase “Comunicación Social de la Ciencia”de la OEI
Stand with Science newest letter to Congress, please consider signing – via SciencePolitic
My grandfather with sister at their Dairy farm in Colombia. It was a large family to feed, but they never starved.
This week the Radiolab show on “Inheritance” mentioned a study by Lars Olov Bygren suggesting your health and life expectancy are determined not only by your diet, but also by your grandfather’s diet when he was a kid.
According to Radiolab, Olov Bygren “grew up in a remote village north of the Arctic Circle. It wasn’t an easy place to be a kid, and he has cold, hard data to back him up: book after book of facts and figures on the lives of generations of the town’s residents, from their health to their financial success, to detailed records on the boom and bust years for crops. The numbers tell a story of wild swings in fortune — feasts one year, harsh winters and famine the next.”
Olov Bygren studied the health and crops records from this isolated region to figure out if there was a relationship between how much food was available during a period of time and how long people lived afterwards.
Radiolab explains Bygren’s results beautifully, but John Cloud in an article of Time magazine summarizes them perfectly: “To put it simply, the data suggested that a single winter of overeating as a youngster could initiate a biological chain of events that would lead one’s grandchildren to die decades earlier than their peers did.”
Cloud continues explaining that this inheritance is possible due to “[…] changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome […]. It is these epigenetic “marks” that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.”
We are what we eat, but we are what our young grandfather ate too. This adds a new dimension to the epidemics of diabetes and heart decease among Latinos in the US today. Would starving conditions of the farmland in Latin-America, three or more generations ago, help sustain the “Latino epidemiological paradox”, and increasing the life-spam of Latinos compared to other populations in the US?, or would a time of plenty long time ago derail any efforts to improve the Hispanic health in the US?
I know that my paternal grandfather did not starve as a kid. His family had a dairy farm that provided food and an extra income to a very large family. No good news for my epigenome, except because it is difficult to overeat when you are burning so many calories at the farm. The situation changed drastically when my father was a kid, during “La Violencia” they left their farm in a rush, before armed men “confiscated” all their cattle. They became refugees at the great-grandfather house in the town nearby. But despite poverty, they did not starve.
My father has indelible memories of the weekly menu during his “barefoot childhood”. Saturday was market day, and they had liver with onions the same day, he loved Saturdays for that. The rest of the beef was salted and smoked in the patio to keep it from spoiling during the week. Friday was often a meat-less day, but they had some hens and they ate eggs that day. Soup was their staple food, either plantain, bean, arracacha, or the famous “sancocho” soup; a chicken stew with potato, yuca, plantain, and pork or beef. The corn for the arepas, powdered milk, soy oil, and yellow cheese came via the catholic parish and were “donated by the people of the United States of America”– the first English phrase my dad can remember. My family complemented its diet with panela, home-grown yucas and cabage, and they ate the fruit available on the fields: guamas, mango, pomas, and moras.
So far there is no clear sign of overeating in my recent ancestral past, good news for my life expectancy! Too bad I did not have this information when I was a kid. I hope by the time my grandchildren are born, there will be a method to revert all the damage I did to my family’s epigenome while watching TV and eating cookies.
Diabetes complications drastically affect your quality of life and cut your life expectancy. Some risk factors such as age and ethnicity are unavoidable, but type 2 diabetes is often preventable and can be treated by changing what you eat and by exercising more.
This advice is well-known, but the number of new patients is not decreasing. More than 371 million people have diabetes worldwide, and the number of people with diabetes is increasing in every country. In the US, the Latino population has experienced an increasing percentage of people diagnosed with diabetes; from 6.3% in 1997 to 9.3% in 2010 (CDC age-adjusted data). Hispanics are hit harder than other populations in the US. The Office of Minority Health reported that: “Mexican Americans are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be diagnosed with diabetes by a physician. They have higher rates of end-stage renal disease, caused by diabetes, and they are 50% more likely to die from diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.” Latino mortality rates caused by diabetes even break the “Latino epidemiological paradox” that seemly gives some protection to Hispanics against the health pitfalls associated with lower average socioeconomic standing. Why?
I do not have an answer. The Latino/Hispanic population is very diverse and difficult to characterize, and is by no means a monolithic block: there are differences in how hard diabetes is affecting Latinos of different heritages: Puerto Ricans are the most affected with 11.2% of their population diagnosed with diabetes; followed by Mexican Americans with 10.2%; and Cubans with 7.3%.
As a Latino, I know I have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than the general population. I can’t change that, but I can cut other risk factors, such as obesity and sedentary lifestyle.
Here is where I get to the part of “we area what we eat”. My grandfather in rural Colombia never had salad. He wouldn’t eat “grass” (salad), because that was cow’s food. His meals were high in calories from starch and fat that he needed for the hard work at the dairy farm, and later as a blue-collar worker for the city of Medellin. Fruit, however, was easily available and he ate it very often. He moved from rural to urban without changing his diet, and I cannot blame him. One of my favorite traditional Colombian dishes is the “bandeja paisa”: white rice with red beans, pork sausage, blood sausage, ground beef, fried plantain, fried pork belly, fried egg, arepa (corn bread like fat tortillas), avocado, and onion-and-tomato sauce. It is delicious, and I highly recommend you to try it, but eating it regularly is a recipe for obesity. The estimated caloric value for a portion of bandeja paisa is 2,000 calories, more than the total recommended daily value for a 200-lb male working in an office. That was lunch for my grandfather after having a hefty breakfast and before a similar dinner. He worked hard and he wasn’t overweight, but after retirement he started gaining weight fast despite being quite active and not having a car.
Latinos living in a city cannot eat as many calories as our grandparents used to eat. We need to adapt our traditional cuisine to a new environment and requirements and balance our meals. While it might seem easy to “abandon ship” and start eating what the rest of America is eating, the prevalence of sodas, high-sugar snacks and fast food don’t make this jump the best option. I believe it is possible to keep our traditions but to improve them and modernize them to reflect new realities. Less fat is not necessarily less flavor, and we have a lot to gain by reducing our chances of becoming diabetic. Enjoying delicious Hispanic recipes with lower calories is possible, and to have fruit and fresh vegetables available at home for snacks is easy. If eating better and being more active will keep us healthier, why not to start today?
I was very fortunate that my homework for Coursera’s “Writing on the Sciences” was selected by Kristin Sainani as an example to edit during class. I got high quality editing for free! This is a short summary of an amazing technique for directing cell movement using laser light. You can read the result here (and the unedited version at the bottom if you want to compare them).
Traditional methods for controlling biological signals in cells are a sledgehammer: global, slow, and often non-specific. But in a 2009 paper in Nature, Levskaya et al. describe a new technique to generate local, fast, and targeted cell signaling in live cells. They reported the first control of cell movement in real-time using light-sensitive proteins.
The researchers genetically altered cells to contain plant proteins name Phytochromes which detect red and near-infrared light. When exposed to red light, Phytochromes bind to phytochrome interacting factor (PIF); when exposed to infrared light, they release PIF. Levskaya et al. added a membrane-localization domain to the Phytochrome and attached a signaling protein to the PIF. The system works for any signaling proteins that are activated by interactions with the membrane. When the scientist points a red laser at the cell membrane, membrane-bound phytochromes bind to PIF, thus bringing the signaling proteins close to the membrane and increasing their activity. Turning off the red laser frees the proteins and turns off the cellular signal.
To demonstrate the feasibility of this new technique, they performed three main experiments focusing on the signaling proteins Tiam and intersectin which help organize actin cytoskeleton during cell movement. The first experiment showed that membrane recruitment of a small part of intersectin (ITSN-DH-PH) transiently increased local protein activity and that this effect disappeared a few seconds after turning off the red laser. The second experiment showed that membrane recruitment of a part of Tiam (Tiam DH-PH domain) was sufficient to induce changes in the shape of NIH3T3 cells. When they illuminated the whole cell with red light for 20 minutes almost 80% of cells made new lamellipodia (acting skeletal projections on the mobile edge of the cell) compared with 10% of control cells. Even more interesting, in a third experiment they pointed a red laser dot on the edge of one cell and gradually moved it outward, slowly extending this red-targeted region from the cell body. They show in movies that they effectively guided the direction followed by the new lamellipodium—thus controlling the movement of the cell.
Swiftly control of local cell signaling has applications beyond cell movement. It allows us to study membrane-receptor cell signaling without the confounding effects from extracellular signal molecules activating multiple intracellular signaling proteins. Using this new technique we will be able to dissect the consequences of each different pathway by recruiting a single kind of signaling protein at a time. Finally, the sledgehammer will be put to rest.
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Original file:
“From the sledgehammer to a laser dot; using light-sensitive proteins to start signals in small regions of the cell”
Traditional methods for controlling biological signals in cells are a sledgehammer: they are global, slow, and often non-specific. The authors of this paper describe their effort creating a new technique to generate local, fast, and targeted cell signaling in live cells that are genetically altered to have light-sensitive proteins. They engineered a cellular perturbation system applicable to many signaling proteins. The main requirement for the candidate signaling protein is to be naturally activated by interactions that re-localize it to the membrane.
Levskaya et al. built this membrane recruitment system using photosensitive proteins named Phytochromes. These proteins from plants detect red and near-infrared light through the photoisomerization of a bound chromophore. This light detection changes the Phytochrome’s conformation between a state under red light that binds directly to a phytochrome interacting factor (PIF) and a state under infrared light that doesn’t bind to PIF. The scientist added a membrane-localization part to the Phytochrome, and attached a signaling protein to the PIF to complete their system. A cell illuminated with infrared light under the microscope will have inactive, free-floating, PIF-attached signaling proteins. When the scientist points a red laser in the phytochrome-rich membrane, the PIF-attached proteins are forced to stay close to the membrane; effectively increasing the activity of the signaling proteins. Turning off the red laser frees the proteins and turns off the cellular signal.
To demonstrate the feasibility of this new technique they focused on the signaling proteins Tiam and intersectin, precursors of the Rho-GTPases Rac1 and Cdc42 that have crucial role in the organization of actin cytoskeleton during cell movement. They performed three main experiments: The first experiment tested if membrane recruitment of a small part of intersectin (ITSN-DH-PH) that regulates Cdc42, was effectively inducing transient increases of local protein activity. They shown images of local enrichment of biosensors responsive to Cdc42 activity in the membrane that disappeared few seconds after turning off the red laser. The second experiment tested if membrane recruitment of a part of Tiam (Tiam DH-PH domain) was sufficient to induce changes in the shape of NIH3T3 cells. They illuminated the whole cell with red light for 20 minutes and inmediatly after counted the percentage of cells that made new lamellipodia (actin cytoskeletal projection on the mobile edge of the cell). The result was that almost 80% of cells made new lamellipodia under red-light treatment, compared with a 10% of control populations. To make things even more interesting, in a third experiment they pointed a red laser dot on the edge of one cell and gradually moved it outward, slowly extending this red-targeted region from the cell body. They show in movies that they effectively guided the direction followed by the new lamellopodium– the first reported control of cell movement in real-time using light-sensitive proteins!
Brian Kobilka gave a talk at University of Washington just two weeks after his Nobel Prize announcement. I will write about my experience live-tweeting his talk; why I think it is important to do it, and why you should put all the information together in a single place afterwards. To learn about Kobilka’s amazing work and G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) I recommend you to check the Nobel Prize announcement and Ash Jogalekar blog post at Scientific American.
What is the value of live-tweeting scientific talks?
Live-tweeting engages multiple voices, widens audiences, and builds communities. Every person in the audience has a unique perspective. Reading a stream of tweets from a talk is more than reading a timeline; a live-twitter stream carries multiple perspectives, each one accentuating the parts of the talk that affected each person. People outside the auditorium will track the hashtag associated with the talk and become part of the audience themselves. It is not uncommon to start dialogs or to share relevant links using the same hashtag. Pretty soon you find yourself in a community of people with similar interest exchanging information on Twitter.
How do you start live-tweeting?
First check if the talk is open to the public. If it is not open to the public, ask the organizers and the speaker about their policies for live-tweeting. The key for starting live-tweeting is to find the right hashtag. Some speakers may have a hashtag for you to use, making the first step of live-tweeting very easy. But very often you need to come up with the right hashtag. Try to make it short, clear, and unambiguous. Try searching for keywords related to the talk and see if other people is live-tweeting with you. In Kobilka’s talk I started using #ChemNobel2012 but soon realized that @MillerLab was using #KobilkaSeminar. I started using both hashtags to merge the Twitter streams and then felt very relaxed knowing that other person was there to help cover the content-heavy talk.
Even if the organizers give you a hashtag you should follow the stream to check if there is no interference with other Twitter conversations. For example, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center “Monster Seminar JAM” was happening the same day as the #MonsterJam concert in Boston, so I switched hashtag mid-talk. Don’t be afraid to switch hashtags during the talk, but communicate this change as clearly as possible to the Twitter audience.
Live-tweeting is simple: set the stage and introduce the subject and the hashtag with the first tweet. Add the Twitter handlers of the speaker and organizers if they have one. Pay attention to the talk, check the Twitter stream periodically. Use quotation marks if you are quoting directly, and make sure to let people know when the talk is over.
Why is important to collect the tweets afterwards?
We live in an era of short attention span, it is hard to get pass the headline and to get complex knowledge. We give the first engagement in Tweeter a place for growth by building a timeline or topic list with more information to click. The fast-moving Twitter feed is replaced by a place where you can take your time, gain perspective, and review contrasting opinions. Make sure you add context and explanations, and links for the original data and figures, if possible.
