Volume 5 • Issue 04 • 2006

Editorials

Dec 21, 2006 Editorial
Systematically sceptical

by Pietro Greco

One can no longer rely on the presumption that scientists comply with the Mertonian value of disinterest and assume that they always tell the truth when spreading the results of their research projects. This can be rightly considered as the gist of the four-page report submitted to the board of the American journal Science by the committee chaired by the chemist John Brauman, from the Stanford University, and comprising three members from the Senior Editorial Board of the same journal, two eminent biologists specialised in stem cell research and a top editor from the other major general press medium of the Republic of Science, the British journal Nature.

Volume 5 • Issue 04 • 2006

Articles

Dec 21, 2006 Article
Challenges of an exhibit on nanoscience and nanotechnology

by Sandra Murriello, Djana Contier and Marcelo Knobel

This article presents some of the challenges faced in developing an interactive exhibit on nanoscience and nanotechnology in Brazil. Presenting a scientific-technological area which is still in formation and which is little known by the population leads to a (re)consideration of the role of museums and science centers in the conformation and consolidation of scientific practice itself. Museographically, the exhibit deals with the challenge of making matter visible in an expression which is distant from the human perception. Some reflections are presented here on the option of musealization chosen which come from a broader evaluation of the exhibit.

Volume 5 • Issue 04 • 2006

Dec 21, 2006 Article
Apriti Cielo: the public’s astronomical imagery as a key to evaluate a museum project

by Stefano Giovanardi

An effective communication of astronomy cannot take place without considering the view the general public has on the universe. Through a number of narrative interviews with non-experts, a research was carried out on personal cosmologies, to outline the public’s heterogeneous astronomical imagery. The result is a bundle of conceptions, perceptions and attitudes which are useful to interpret the difficulties the public experiences when facing the contents of astrophysics, and to establish an ongoing dialogue.

Volume 5 • Issue 04 • 2006

Commentaries

Dec 21, 2006 Commentary
John Ziman

by Pietro Greco

What pushed His Excellency Enrico Fermi, acclaimed Academician of Italy entitled to a state car and driver, to leave Italy all of a sudden in December 1938 in order to reach New York, after a short stop in Stockholm for the ceremony that celebrated him as a Nobel laureate for physics, and to accept a job as a simple physics lecturer at the Columbia University?

Volume 5 • Issue 04 • 2006

Book Reviews

Feb 02, 2006 Book Review
Science, Technology, and the public in the European Periphery

by Agustí Nieto-Galan and Faidra Papanelopoulou

From 1 to 3 June 2006, the 5th STEP Meeting devoted to the “Popularisation of Science and Technology in the European Periphery” was held in the city of Mahon in the island of Minorca (Spain). STEP ("Science and Technology in the European Periphery" [http://www.cc.uoa.gr/step/]) was founded in Barcelona in 1999, and gathers around hundred historians of science from all over Europe with a special interest in the role of Science and Technology in countries that traditionally have not played a leading role in the advancement of science and technology. The main results of the 5th STEP meeting are presented in this paper.

Volume 5 • Issue 04 • 2006

Archive