Science has a problem. A communication problem. At the beginning of this semester I posted about EO Wilson's call to arms for young scientists to become proficient and prolific workers in decoding the universe's mysteries. Later on, I posted a Science Friday post about how scientists face a particular challenge when communicating basic research to the public. Indeed, a recent article from ScienceInsider outlines how a senator wants to further restrict science funding, based on "waste" research.
Being able to communicate results to the public and have them understand importance in a meaningful way is a monumental challenge. The Science Friday post earlier was key to that idea. On the other hand, we must avoid making outrageous claims or overstate possibilities. For example, the little animal called a "water bear" or Tardigrade, can survive being frozen and dehydrated for around 10 years. However, claims first listed this little one to be able to survive such extreme environments for over 100 years! The authors of that first paper were over zealous in their reporting and as the scientists in the 2001 paper report:
"The story about century-long cryptobiotic survival in
tardigrades provides a good example of how some
biological phenomena, especially those related to
extreme life spans, easily give rise to sensational jour-
nalism in popular science. More importantly, the story
shows that incorrect information, if spectacular enough,
may persist for several decades when perpetuated also
by the scientific community."
Watch what you say. It may come back to bite you, and in ways not directly related to your results. But for more interesting animal "superpowers", check out this WIRED article!
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/04/us-lawmaker-proposes-new-criteri-1.html
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F30329_E64E804ABAE44FC6A4062DC2B6ABFA1C_journals__ZOO_ZOO255_01_S0952836901001169a.pdf&cover=Y&code=54cc5d956fe8512c83c2e95bce65491e
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/animal-superpowers?pid=6773
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