1471638908000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Faaron-dubrow%2Fturn-your-eyes-to-the-skies_b_11571190.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Turn Your Eyes To The Skies For The Latest Explorers

6 ways National Science Foundation-supported research is improving unmanned aerial systems for scientific and societal benefit

From strengthening wildlife conservation efforts to improving disaster response, researchers are finding new ways to use small, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) -- also known as drones or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) -- to gather data, improve communication, and explore environments where humans and larger aircraft dare not go.

These advances are due, in part, to improvements in UAV technology, as well as clearer ground rules that govern the many uses of unmanned aircraft.

Increased federal funding, too, including a recent $35 million commitment from the National Science Foundation (NSF), are helping to advance the basic research required to design UAVs that can save lives, improve safety, and enable more effective science.

"Designing and developing highly-capable UAS platforms requires basic research in the theoretical principles of UAS, including sensing, perception, control and communications," says Lynne Parker, NSF director of the division of information and intelligent systems. "Once these agile and robust UAS systems are developed, they can be extended to operate in a variety of challenging domains, such as serving as vital tools for scientific exploration."

Since 2010, NSF has funded dozens of UAV research projects related to computing, engineering, earth science and biology. NSF has supported UAV entrepreneurs through its Small Business Innovation Research program too.

The examples below demonstrate the potential for researchers to advance their scientific knowledge and provide benefits to society through the use of unmanned aircraft.

1. Wildlife conservation

With their ability to travel at altitudes and in environments where manned aircraft cannot, UAVs can study species in difficult-to-reach locations, and help researchers address a number of important questions about ecosystems.

"2016-08-17-1471460832-3311664-Shafer1.jpg"

Michael Shafer, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Northern Arizona University, is working on an NSF-funded project to better track wildlife -- particularly small animals such as bats and birds -- in non-intrusive manner. By developing low-cost, UAV-mounted radio telemetry systems that can receive radio signals from tagged wildlife, and by making the pre-engineered systems available to wildlife researchers via open source publishing, he hopes to significantly reduce the barriers to tracking animals in the wild.

Shafer's lightweight modules leverage the flight capabilities of UAVs to better detect signals from wildlife transmitters. This involves developing signal-processing algorithms to assist in detecting and localizing very high-frequency radio tags, and assembling a radio system capable of providing the required sensitivity. It also involves designing a system compact enough to fit on a UAV, along with special vehicles for field researchers and the radio-sensing modules they carry.

In addition to the technical development effort, Shafer and his team plan to work with the Upward Bound program at Northern Arizona University to guide first-generation, low-income high school students from the Four Corners region -- Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico -- toward successful college careers.

2. Increasing the accuracy of weather forecasts

UAVs are particularly well-suited for gathering data in the lower atmosphere (1,000-4,000 meters) where many weather phenomena begin and where manned aircraft are too dangerous or expensive to fly. Radar cannot always track conditions at this level and weather balloons have too short of a duration at these altitudes.

Through the $6 million, four-year Collaboration Leading Operational UAS Development for Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics (CLOUD-MAP) project, Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Nebraska are working together to develop UAV capabilities so meteorologists and atmospheric scientists can use unmanned aircraft as an everyday research tool.

The CLOUD-MAP project recently completed its first flight campaign, which resulted in nearly 250 unmanned flights of 12 separate UAV platforms over a three-day period -- one of the largest scientific unmanned aircraft operations ever. The effort, which brought together more than 65 researchers and students, collected important meteorological, climatological and operational data that will increase the accuracy of weather forecasts, ultimately saving lives and property.

3. Enhancing communications in a disaster

NSF CAREER awardee Yan Wan from the University of North Texas is developing aerial networking systems that use directional antennas on UAVs to deliver on-demand communication to first responders in emergency response situations.

Typical wireless communications have a range of only 100 meters, or just over the length of a football field. Wan and her colleagues, however, developed technology that extends the Wi-Fi reach of drones to 8 kilometers, or about 5 miles.

Wan and her team have worked with emergency agencies across Texas to test their system's ability to quickly establish emergency communications in disaster drills and exercises. In May 2015, working with researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Austin Fire Department, she demonstrated how UAVs can establish aerial communication in a search-and-rescue operation, providing emergency responders with the aerial views they need to direct robots to find victims quickly and to transmit video streams of survivors to control centers.

For this, and other activities, she and her colleagues won the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex's 2015 Tech Titan Award.

4. UAVs in hurricane and nuclear disasters

Robin Murphy, the director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) at Texas A&M University, has deployed UAVs to some of the worst natural and man-made disasters in recent memory.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Murphy directed UAVs to explore buildings along the Gulf Coast -- the first time an unmanned aircraft was used for emergency structural inspections. During the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, she was part of a team that flew UAVs to determine radiation levels and inspect damage at the reactors. And in the days following the 2016 floods in Texas, Murphy led a team that deployed UAVs to inspect the storm-ravaged area.

Murphy determined that one 20-minute drone flight generates roughly 800 photographs, each of which takes a minute to inspect. This led her to conclude that data analysis tools, deployed alongside unmanned aircraft, are necessary to make UAV technology useful in time-sensitive situations.

Working with collaborators and students, Murphy has developed software that uses computer vision and machine learning to improve UAV flight paths, as well as anomaly detection techniques to better locate survivors with UAVs.

Combining the capabilities of UAVs with tools that allow them to work in a targeted way is the secret to developing effective search-and-rescue UAVs, Murphy believes.

5. Sea ice mapping

Last year, scientists aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel carried out two separate UAV trials as part of a research cruise in the Southern Ocean. The flights evaluated the aerial mapping capabilities of UAVs and their ability to determine the distribution of floating sea ice. [Watch a video of the flights.]

Researchers on the trip were exploring the vulnerability of Antarctic ice to melting due to the presence of relatively warm ocean water below it. Melting ice would drive glaciers into the sea faster and raise sea levels worldwide. This data will inform future integrated observation programs.

In separate research, scientists from the University of Kansas-led Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) are developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the response of sea level change to the mass balance of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

In remote and dangerous locations such as Antarctica, UAVs can help to gather critical information without endangering human pilots, which is why the NSF-managed U.S. Antarctic Program is developing a policy on the safe and environmentally sound use of UAVs in Antarctic research.

6. Safer, cheaper infrastructure monitoring

As U.S. infrastructure ages, its operators need more efficient and affordable techniques to monitor and assess bridges, railroads, power lines, dams and other large systems. UAVs enable innovative approaches for monitoring the health and stability of structures from above and below.

Ivan Bartoli of Drexel University leads a project that focuses not just on UAVs, but on what those unmanned aircraft look at. Using novel manufacturing processes, his team designs special surface coatings -- like paint -- that enable UAVs to rapidly collect multi-spectral imaging data. Advanced algorithms then analyze that data to find structural deformations, allowing engineers to quickly identify damage to critical components of monitored structures.

Scientists and engineers are already moving many of these technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace. Hung La of the University of Nevada, Reno is building on NSF-funded research to create low-cost UAVs and robotic systems that can efficiently inspect steel and concrete bridges.

La is part of an NSF Innovation Corps Team that has completed more than 160 customer interviews, helping him focus on customer uses as the research team finalizes their designs and thinks about the long-term commercialization of the technology. Their product has been tested and deployed in the field, and La is working with his university to patent the technology.

These and other new ways of thinking about infrastructure are leading to a safer, more stable future.

------------

Image credits/captions:

A low-level flight test by Michael Shafer and his team at Northern Arizona University. Credit: Michael Shafer

Oklahoma State University research engineer Taylor Mitchell launches a CO2-sensing UAV while the University of Nebraska student team tests in the background. Credit: CLOUD-MAP

At the Smart America Expo, Yan Wan from the University of North Texas exhibited unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) she developed that are capable of providing wireless communications to storm-ravaged areas where telephone access might be out. Credit: NSF

CRASAR small UAS Assisted Fort Bend OEM with Determining Flooding (Apr 20, 24, 2016) Credit: Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station)

NSF-funded KU researchers successfully test unmanned aircraft system in Antarctica. Credit: Produced by Dena Headlee, NSF; Video courtesy of University of Kansas/NSF

Hung La of the University of Nevada, Reno is building on NSF-funded research to create UAVs and robotic systems to inspect steel and concrete bridges. His goal is to develop an efficient, low-cost and safe tool for inspecting bridges. Credit: University of Nevada, Reno

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

science

1471624499000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fadi-gaskell%2Fthe-communal-nature-of-sc_b_11579688.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
The Communal Nature Of Science And The Gender Skills Gap

I've written a few times in the past about the increasingly collaborative nature of modern science. Most of the time, these posts have focused upon the productivity gains we see when scientists work together on research.

A recent paper suggests that an equally powerful reason to laud the virtues of collaborative working could be in attracting the next generation of scientists to the fold.

Changing perceptions

The study, from researchers at the University of Miami, set out to test whether attempts to shift perceptions of science away from the lone genius to a more social and collaborative endeavor might attract those that are not typically represented in the field.

The study saw participants reading a fictional account of a scientist's daily activities. Half of the participants read about a scientist going about their work in solitude, whilst the other half read a description of a more collaborative way of working.

They were then surveyed to understand their perceptions about working in the field. This simple method of framing the profession helped shift perceptions in the participants, so that those who had read about collaborative science reported that their social goals for their career would be met by working in science, and therefore they'd be more likely to pursue a career in the field.

Breaking the gender divide

What's more, these findings were consistent across the genders, so it shows that men value the communal aspects of science just as much as women do. It also didn't seem to matter too much if the scientist in the description was male or female.

That isn't to say that women aren't inspired by fellow women in science however. A second study depicted female scientists as having more traditional female interests outside of the workplace. Once again, when the participants were quizzed on their perceptions of science rated it as more communal when the female scientist enjoyed yoga in her spare time compared to more neutral activities such as running.

The authors suggest that framing science as more communal and collaborative in this way can widen access to the sector. This is especially so if any women used in such campaigns are allowed to be seen as exhibiting feminine characteristics.

Of course, this shouldn't be taken to mean that women have to act like stereotypical women, but more that when marketers set out to promote the profession, a more multi-dimensional perspective on the scientists could make a positive impact.

This can also be achieved by ensuring that the collaborative nature of science is promoted to its fullest by making it as accessible as possible. That this has many other advantages is surely a win-win.

This post was originally made on The Horizon Tracker

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

science

1471604654000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2016%2Faug%2F19%2Fhelen-macdonald-hawk-tree-man-natural-world&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Helen Macdonald: the unsettling encounter that inspired H is for Hawk

Ten years ago, a confusing encounter changed Helen Macdonald's understanding of the connection between humans and the natural world

It was the autumn of 2006 in Uzbekistan, a few months before my father died. I'd driven with a group of other fieldworkers in a Russian jeep down to the banks of the Syrdarya river in Andijan province. Once we'd pitched our tents, I went for a stroll in the hot, blank forest sunlight. It was very still and quiet. My feet crunched on salt-crusted mud and across leaf litter sparking with grasshoppers and sinuous silver lizards. After a mile or so, I found myself in an open clearing and looked up. And that is when I thought I saw a man standing in a tree. That's what my brain told me, momentarily. A man in a long overcoat leaning slightly to one side. And then I saw it wasn't a man, but a goshawk.

Moments like this are very illuminating. Despite my lifelong obsession with birds of prey, I'd never thought before, much, about the actual phenomenology of human-hawk resemblance, which must have brought forth all those mythological hawk-human bonds I've studied for so long. Back in the early 2000s, I had been working on my doctoral dissertation in natural history at the University of Cambridge, but I never finished it. I wrote a book about falcons instead. I recounted tales that didn't fit in my PhD of the mafia threatening to drive a falconer out of New York City because his falcon was a threat to their pigeon-flying activities, stories of fan dancers, jet pilots, astronauts and the diplomatic shenanigans of early modern royalty. But everything I'd written about this strange symbolic connection between birds of prey and human souls felt as if it had a different kind of truth, now, one forged of things other than books. I looked up at a hawk in a tree, but I saw a man. How curious.

Continue reading...
science

1471559659000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fjeff-schweitzer%2Fskeptical-about-climate-d_b_11595100.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Skeptical About Climate Deniers
Few concepts are more poorly understood or more abused than skepticism. The best example of this abuse is to attribute the moniker of "climate change skeptic" to those who ignore the overwhelming data concerning global warming.

The shortest definition of skepticism is "an attitude of doubting the truth about a claim or statement." Something a bit more meaningful would be "suspending judgment and applying systematic reservation about a claim or statement."

So why can't we rightfully call a denier a skeptic since he doubts or has reservations about the truth about climate change claims, which would at first glance meet the definition of skepticism? We shall see.

Michael Shermer, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, has rightfully noted that "skepticism is not a position, it is a process." It is the application of critical thinking to evaluate the validity of an assertion. Saying that "I am a skeptic" has little meaning because that is a stance; more meaningful is a statement like, "I am open to accepting a claim if presented with sufficiently convincing evidence."

What we are talking about here, even though everybody uses the term skepticism, is actually "ordinary incredulity." We are not including here what is technically "philosophical doubt" -- a more formal version of skepticism, an intellectual exercise to deny the validity of an entire class of claims by positing that certain knowledge is not attainable even in theory. Yeah, I know, that is a little opaque. But we really do need to understand the distinction between ordinary incredulity and philosophical skepticism before we can nail down why deniers are not in fact skeptics. The best way I've come across is a review of the Truman Show and the Matrix as put forth in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Truman is placed, without his knowledge, in a contrived environment so that his "life" can be broadcast on television. Truman comes across clues that something is wrong. In The Matrix, where everything is running as programmed by the machines, there is no possible way for the "people" in the matrix to determine that the world as experienced is only a "dream world" and not the real world (the world of causes and effects). The Truman Show is a depiction of a case of ordinary incredulity because there is some evidence that is, in principle, available to Truman for determining what's really the case; whereas The Matrix depicts a situation similar to that imagined by a typical philosophical skeptic in which it is not possible for the Matrix-bound characters to obtain evidence for determining that things are not as they seem (whenever the virtual reality is perfectly created). Put another way, the philosophical skeptic challenges our ordinary assumption that there is evidence available that can help us to discriminate between the real world and some counterfeit world that appears in all ways to be identical to the real world.

So from that we conclude that ordinary incredulity (what people typically call skepticism) arises when in principle doubt can be removed by discovering the truth of some claim or statement.

And here is precisely why climate change deniers do not have the high privilege of being called skeptics. No amount of data, no convincing evidence, and no degree of proof would ever convince a denier that climate change is real. Even in principle a denier's doubt cannot be removed because a denier is relying on faith rather than evidence to support his position. If doubt cannot be removed with new knowledge or advances in understanding, then that is not skepticism - it is just a form of religion.

Cynicism Is Not Skepticism

Offering a skeptical perspective is not cynical; in fact quite the opposite is true. Cynics doubt and mistrust not on the weight of evidence or lack thereof but on suspicions of underlying motivation. Cynicism can lead to the rejection of a claim but not to new discoveries, unlike skepticism which can lead to both.

Provisional disbelief is often mistaken as cynicism; the two are not equivalent. It is perfectly reasonable to start out unconvinced that humans are causing our climate to change. But that shifts to cynicism and faith-based opposition with the inability to modify that position in the presence of overwhelming evidence. What matters, independent of one's starting hypothesis, is the willingness to draw conclusions when a claim is confirmed "to such an extent that it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement."

Skepticism is fully embedded in the scientific method: the application of systematic observation, reproducible measurements, and experimentation in order to gain new knowledge about and a deeper understanding of our physical and biological world. The entire reason for applying systematic observation is that we are open to but remain skeptical of any claim's validity until observation, reproducible measurements and experimental confirm or reject the claim.

Climate change denial is a form of cynicism and as such is the antithesis of skepticism; it is the closed-minded pre-determined rejection of any and all data that might validate the claim that our climate is changing, and the blind credulous acceptance of any unsubstantiated assertions that support the denial. Here is the bottom line difference between a denier and someone currently convinced the climate is changing: if presented with convincing contrary evidence that demonstrates the earth's climate is not warming, or is changing by natural cyclical variation alone, one who temporarily accepted that the earth is warming because of human activity would modify his conclusion based on this new knowledge. In contrast, no mountain of data demonstrating that humans are causing a changing climate would cause a denier to modify his conclusion. Skepticism demands an open mind and allows for and encourages the advancement of knowledge by seeking explanations of phenomena anchored in the natural world; faith-based denial is immune to modification.

A denier may come back and say that in fact those who claim the climate is changing are the ones with closed minds since they openly reject what deniers believe. But no, that is false equivalency; deniers could indeed make headway if they could present convincing data but the inverse is not true.

Open Mind, Gullibility and Conviction

We must not confuse an open mind with gullibility. A mind open to change in the face of convincing data is not equivalent to credulous acceptance of a claim absent of evidence. Nor can we confuse an open mind with lack of conviction. Climate change experts are secure in their conclusions based on overwhelming evidence across multiple disciplines, confirmed independently by thousands of scientists in hundreds of countries. They have no less an open mind because they are firm in their conclusion. With overwhelming evidence in hand the threshold for modifying one's temporary acceptance becomes ever higher. The threshold for change is elevated on the basis of accumulating evidence, not faith. We can confidently conclude, without being accused of being closed minded, that atoms are a building block of nature, that DNA contains the genetic code, and that the earth orbits the sun. Being highly confident about these statements is justified by incredibly precise measurements, reproducible observations and extraordinarily refined experimentation performed by tens thousands of scientists over decades or centuries. Yes it would be possible to overturn these conclusions with sufficiently convincing contrary data, but given the history leading to our understanding of these aspects of the natural world, that is not likely to happen. That does not make us closed-minded; it makes us firm in our convictions but open to being convinced otherwise by overwhelming data. Climate change deniers in contrast can never be otherwise convinced.

Deep Irony

Climate change deniers bring to the debate a deep irony and terrible hypocrisy that add another disturbing element beyond the important difference between cynicism and skepticism. We know that deniers demand more proof that the climate is warming even in the face of a growing body of accumulating evidence. We know too that while they demand such proof no quantity of date would ever be sufficient because the denial is not based in skepticism but in cynicism and faith. And yet. And yet this same demand for proof is conspicuously and gloriously absent when the question turns to patently false claims about fat-burning foods or a host of bogus promises relating to diet and nutrition, or the link between autism and vaccines, or the economic viability of nuclear power, or clean coal, or alien landings, or the Bermuda Triangle, or virtually anything that is not climate change. Only with climate change is such proof demanded; meaning we have the circumstance in which deniers reject a conclusion for which we have overwhelming evidence but accept wild claims for which there is none. Some significant number of Republicans, even if not a majority as sometimes reported, believes that Obama is a Muslim; where is the demand for proof? Such is the dangerous brew of faith stirred with cynicism in the absence of reasonable credulity.

There are no climate change skeptics; only faith-based climate change cynics.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

science

1471555476000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Falbert-einstein-college-of-medicine%2Fbridging-a-gap-between-sc_b_11535268.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Bridging a Gap between Scientists and the Public
By Travis J. Bernardo, Ph.D.

What do the following stories have in common?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, endemic measles was eradicated from the U.S. in the year 2000, the result of decades of vaccination efforts. But the last few years have seen a dramatic spike in the number of nationwide measles outbreaks, attributed in part to rising public fears over vaccination use.

The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation together receive just under $40 billion in funding annually, less than 1 percent of a federal budget dominated by transfer payment programs, health insurance spending and military expenditures. Yet medical research projects, often misunderstood as wasteful spending, are routinely placed under the political microscope as a prime target for cuts.

Precise genome editing using the CRISPR/Cas9 system offers the potential to revolutionize scientific research and medicine. The prospect of directly modifying the human genome certainly has ethical implications, which are being openly debated by scientists. But any future groundbreaking therapeutics based on genome editing face strong headwinds due to substantial public opposition.

If the answer isn't clear to you, let me suggest the following: they highlight a significant perception gap between scientists and the public when it comes to important medical advances. Indeed, on a whole host of policy issues, the public simply sees things differently from the way scientists do.

An Obligation and an Opportunity
What is the appropriate response to this gap in perception? For those of us steeped in science and medicine, it's easy to forget that not everyone has the rich knowledge of subject matter and rigorous critical thinking skills ingrained in us by our training.

And perhaps it's just as easy to keep our noses to the grindstone, move our own research forward and survey the public mood with a sense of detachment.

But it is our responsibility to explain to the public why our work is valuable and deserves support. We are the ones who understand the depth and complexity of modern science. We have the ability to translate that information to nonscientists. And while it may sound like a burdensome obligation, it's really an opportunity, not only for personal growth but for securing the future of scientific progress. After all, it is the public and its elected representatives who ultimately determine the fate of funding for basic medical research.

What Can You Do?
Fortunately, there are many opportunities for scientists to engage the public and bridge the perception gap. Here are just a few ideas.

Blog your heart out. Is there a scientific issue near to your heart that doesn't receive enough attention? If you want to add your two cents to the national conversation, start a blog. With many free platforms to choose from, getting going is easy. While your audience will start out small, with a little persistence you may find your message catching on. You can also offer articles to established blogs that have a preexisting readership. For instance, I was invited to write this post by the editors of The Doctor's Tablet after they saw an earlier post I wrote for the ASCB Compass blog.

Edit a Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is one of the most frequented sites on the Web. It is openly editable, relying on contributors to maintain quality. Many pages on scientific topics, however, still lack sourcing or do not meet Wikipedia quality standards, which may lead to incomplete or erroneous content. Given its reputation as the "first place to go" for many laypeople seeking scientific knowledge, consider editing pages in your area of expertise. This small, but significant, contribution can help eliminate the spread of misinformation online.

Practice communicating in a low-stakes environment. Communicating science effectively often means talking in public. If you have a shy streak or feel your public-speaking skills need honing, practice in a risk-free setting. Einstein, for instance, hosts a local Toastmasters chapter where members deliver impromptu speeches and receive constructive feedback from peers.

Poster presentations and conference talks are also good opportunities to practice, and will train you to communicate science to different target audiences. Even consider giving an elevator pitch about your research to family members and friends who aren't scientists.

Advocate for science. If you're comfortable in public forums, consider becoming a science advocate. Here, you'll have the chance to communicate directly with holders of the public purse strings. Advocacy includes a range of activities, such as writing to your local representatives, starting a social media campaign or participating in a Congressional Visits Day, during which you will speak directly to members of Congress or their staffers.

Recently an Einstein Science Policy Group has been formed to promote advocacy efforts on campus. You may want to look at starting such a group at your institution. Examples across the country can be found at the website of the National Science Policy Group, and a beginner's guide to getting started locally was recently published in Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Consider a career in communication. For graduate students and postdocs, finding a job that aligns with your interests and values is an important goal. If you're truly passionate about communicating about science, you might consider making a career out of it. Science communication is a diverse field, encompassing journalism, educational animation and everything in between.

There are many opportunities out there for scientists to bridge the divide with the public. It is up to us to step up and lay the planks.

"2016-08-15-1471300855-8618221-TravisJ.BernardoHuffpo.png"

Dr. Bernardo is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Arthur I. Skoultchi, Ph.D., in the cell biology department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also an associate member of the Einstein BETTR-IRACDA program. Dr. Bernardo writes online about issues related to science policy, education, and communication.

***

This post was originally featured on The Doctor's Tablet, the blog of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

science

Don't drop that wrench, whatever you do