What Science Communication and Cooking Have in Common

While preparing a stir-fry, I realized that I make an assumption in the kitchen which is very similar to one that people make about science communication.

Since I cook regularly, I know how to identify all the spices in the cabinet near my stove. And because I buy spices in bulk, most of the spice bottles are unlabeled.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to leaf through a science article you couldn’t understand, you’ll see where I am going with this analogy.

The red spices on my shelf include Cajun spice, two types of paprika, and three varieties of curry. If house guests choose the wrong bottle, the results will not be what they expected. Even if they miss the strongest curry, I don’t think they would want to substitute Hungarian paprika for Cajun spice.

Mistakes in science communication can have worse effects than spoiling a dinner recipe. Often, people who are communicating about science make assumptions about how much audiences will understand. For example, I’ve seen the word “nanotechnology” used without a definition in many articles. A large fraction of the United States population doesn’t understand what this word means.

Finally, I often see the assumption that decision makers and experts in other fields will automatically be aware of issues in a science field – even though a MBA, for example, may not include courses that relate directly to nanotechnology.

Science Writing and Modernism

I fell asleep while watching the movie Helvetica last week. Like the font it describes, the film seems simple and empty. But it also sets the letters in context. Helvetica is a product of the reconstruction of Europe during the 1950s, when architects and designers idealized the possibility of creating a better, more modern, more democratic society.

Science writing and Helvetica often reflect the same ideals – readability, transparency and user-friendliness. When science writing isn’t stylistic, it blends into the page. The focus is on content, not verbal flourishes. There is an element of storytelling in news stories, but the value of clarity crosses genres. Technical writers strive to make their prose sound like Helvetica. It takes a huge amount of work to unravel scientific information and shape it into this seemingly simple form.

Although I value transparency, I’ve realized efficient writing isn’t the goal I want to pursue. I think we should go beyond putting human interest into stories and start writing expressively. We should put the curlicues and flourishes back into our writing. (That would make it more difficult for The Guardian to satirize the “formula” for BBC science stories, too.)

As a person in a creative field, I don’t want to wear gray every day. Why should my writing be gray, then? Why do we continue making our writing styles uniform when we are really a diverse group of people?

Although “gray” writing styles are user-friendly, they erase the diversity of people’s ideas and visual tastes and create a culture where clarity matters more than personality. I think it’s time to reverse that trend. Let’s be clear, but let’s write in our own voices for a change.

How to Make People Think Twice

In May, I spent a day at the Museum of Science and exploring downtown Boston. What caught my attention at the museum wasn’t the IMAX or the dinosaur. Instead, I saw that the exhibits are full of brain teasers designed to nudge us out of our everyday assumptions about science and nature.

If you walk through the  exhibit called “A Bird’s World,” you’ll see the museum staff have avoided labeling some of the birds. A sign comments wryly that birds don’t have name tags in the wild.

Strolling toward the Natural Mysteries exhibit, you can look to the right – near the door – and see a wall-mounted board inviting you to play a guessing game. You can lift up different flaps labeled with descriptions and find surprising information underneath them. Lifting one flap, labeled “an animal,” shows people their own faces in a mirror.

The Natural Mysteries exhibit asks visitors to imagine they’ve woken up on the shore of a desert island. The “island” takes up an entire corner of the room. The challenge? Using a list of shells from different parts of the world, figure out where you’ve landed.

Other challenges throughout the room include identifying when a deserted schoolhouse was built; learning which mammal skulls are which; and understanding mountain lions by reading their footprints.

Just when you think you’ve escaped the brain teasers by going up to the second floor, the Seeing is Deceiving exhibit is waiting to confound you. The artwork consists of a series of images which change their appearance depending on one’s location and perspective.

If you’re getting tired of thinking after staring at the Mobius strip in the Mathematica exhibit, you can spend a few minutes in the butterfly garden taking in the sunshine. Make sure there aren’t any orange and blue hitchhikers hanging onto your jacket when you leave.

A butterfly close-up from Boston.com

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Physics

Last night, the Coolidge Corner Theatre was crowded with science buffs eager to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and to hear about the physics that underlies its moments of airborne suspense.

But are martial arts flicks really based on physics?

Do you think this could be one of the impossible moves?

A scientist was there to tell us the answer. This movie was part of the Science on Screen series, where professors demonstrate how “getting” science principles can add zest to a regular diet of pop culture.

Andrew Cohen, who teaches a course at Boston University called Cinema Physica, explained how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon violated the laws of physics. During ordinary-looking combat scenes, the law of conservation of momentum was suspended – just for a moment –  at key points in the plot.

The results were visually striking. In a movie where people toss each other into somersaults as easily as they might hand each other a teapot, a punch or kick loses the impact it would have in a more peaceful film. But when the fighting suddenly becomes physically impossible, that contrast wakes up the audience.

This was the third time I saw this movie. But because I was watching for turning points – signaled by impossible physical feats – I paid extra attention to the story line and character development. While the actors leaped over buildings or flew backward in improbable positions, I was busy watching for clues to the plot.