In this paper we analyze the coverage of the pandemic influenza caused by the A (H1N1) virus by the main Brazilian TV news. Jornal Nacional (JN) – which can be roughly translated with National News – reaches an average of 25 million people throughout the country daily. We have observed that the attention cycle given to the new flu by JN lasted approximately five months with significant space given to the disease. Most of the news highlighted the number of illness cases and the health measures to control the infection. Only a small amount of news dealt with issues related to research and scientific development, and included scientists as interviewees or as information sources. We believe that the coverage made by JN may have contributed to the dissemination of what some authors refer to as a "pandemic of panic".

This article is a case study and rhetorical analysis of a specific scientific paper on a computer simulation in astrophysics, an advanced and often highly theoretical science. Findings reveal that rhetorical decisions play as important a role in creating a convincing simulation as does sound evidence. Rhetorical analysis was used to interpret the data gathered in this case study. Rhetorical analysis calls for close reading of primary materials to identify classical rhetorical figures and devices of argumentation and explain how these devices factor in the production of scientific knowledge. This article describes how abduction, dilemma, compensatio, aetiologia, and other tactics of argumentation are necessary in creating the simulation of a supernova. Ultimately, the article argues that rhetorical mechanisms may be responsible for making some simulations better and more sound than others.

Public images of scientific researchers –as reflected in the popular visual culture as well as in the conceptions of the public- combine traditional stereotypic characteristics and ambivalent attitudes towards science and its people. This paper explores central aspects of the public image of the researcher in Greek students’ drawings. The students participated in a drawing competition held in the context of the ‘Researcher’s Night 2007’ realized by three research institutions at different regions of Greece. The students’ drawings reveal that young people hold stereotypic and fairly traditional and outdated views of scientists and scientific activity. Research institutions are faced with the challenge of establishing a sincere and fertile dialogue with society to refute obsolete and deceiving notions and to promote the role of researchers in society.

Luckily enough, more democracy is always called for. Even in countries that can truly be described as democratic. And democracy (which is a constant reference in these pages) is increasingly related to knowledge, be it about whether growing GMOs, starting nuclear energy production or allowing the choice of a child’s gender through IVF techniques. The need to make democratic decisions on controversial issues, which increasingly imply scientific and technological knowledge, comes from the bottom, as citizens voice – sometimes even vehemently – the desire to express themselves.

Museums have a great potential to facilitate the political engagement of citizens, intended not in the sense of taking part to the “party politics”, but as full participation in the systems that define and shape society.

The first 18 volumes of the International Scientific Series published in both London and New York were reviewed to assess their contribution to transatlantic communication of popular science. The dominant flow of ideas was westwards on topics such as science versus religion, empiricism in psychology, survival of the fittest, jurisprudence versus mental illness, economics and development of cinematography. There was an eastward flow in philology. The preparation of volumes was rushed and many authors merely expanded previous notes, articles and pamphlets. Commercial and idealistic motives conflicted. There were disagreements among authors. Despite all this, the series had a lasting effect on social thought.

This article sums up key results of a web-based questionnaire survey targeting the members of the Danish Science Journalists' Association. The association includes not only science journalists but also other types of science communicators. The survey shows that science communicators have a nuanced and multidimensional view on science communication, science, and technology. Science communicators are thus more than the "mountain guides" of science, as a recent definition describes it. The survey respondents are not just interested in helping the public at large to a wider recognition of scientific knowledge, but also want to contribute to democratic debate and social legitimisation of science and technology. The respondents exhibit a certain amount of optimism in relation to science and technology, yet also take a sceptical stance when confronted with overly positive statements regarding science and technology. Finally they have a predominantly social constructivist perception of science and technology when it comes to external relations to society, while they lean towards a hypothetical-deductive science understanding when it concerns the internal dynamics of science

“From Earth to the Universe” (FETTU) is a collection of astronomical images that showcase some of the most popular, current views of our Universe. The images, representing the wide variety of astronomical objects known to exist, have so far been exhibited in about 500 locations throughout the world as part of the International Year of Astronomy. In the United States, over 40 FETTU exhibits have occurred in 25 states in such locations as libraries, airports, nature centers, parks and college campuses. Based on preliminary evaluations currently underway, this project – a large-scale, worldwide astronomy outreach in non-traditional locations – has unique opportunities and implications for informal science learning. We present some early findings from the observational section of the exhibit’s formal evaluation in five selected locations in the U.S. and U.K., including emphasis on inter-organizational networking, visitor attention and participant make-up as well as generative aspects of the exhibit.

In this essay, I argue that the rise of personal genomics is technologically, economically, and most importantly, discursively tied to the rise of network subjectivity, an imperative of which is an understanding of self as always already a subject in the network. I illustrate how personal genomics takes full advantage of social media technology and network subjectivity to advertise a new way of doing research that emphasizes collaboration between researchers and its members. Sharing one’s genetic information is considered to be an act of citizenship, precisely because it is good for the network. Here members are encouraged to think of themselves as dividuals, or nodes, in the network and their actions acquire value based on that imperative. Therefore, citizen bioscience is intricately tied, both in discourse and practices, to the growth of the network in the age of new media.

The Makers is the latest novel of the American science fiction writer, blogger and Silicon Valley intellectual Cory Doctorow. Set in the 2010s, the novel describes the possible impact of the present trend towards the migration of modes of production and organization that have emerged online into the sphere of material production. Called New Work, this movement is indebted to a new maker culture that attracts people into a kind of neo-artisan, high tech mode of production. The question is: can a corporate-funded New Work movement be sustainable? Doctorow seems to suggest that a capitalist economy of abundance is unsustainable because it tends to restrict the reach of its value flows to a privileged managerial elite.