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Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Commentary

Not in front of the children! The controversies of science and science communication for children and youth

by Luisa Massarani

Dialogue in science communication is a necessity - everybody agrees on it - because science and technology issues are involved in so many aspects of the citizens life, and in so many cases can raise suspects, fears, worries or, on the contrary, expectations and hopes. But who are the possible interlocutors for scientists and policy-makers? Everybody, says Luisa Massarani, beginning with children and teenagers. Also in such controversial and sensitive issues like AIDS or GMO.

Volume 7Issue 012008
Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Commentary

Are museums places where science and society can really engage in a dialogue? A positive example related to the rubbish emergency in the Campania region

by Luigi Amodio

Science musums and science centres are wonderful places to host, support and mediate the dialogue between science and society. In fact, they are a natural crossroad where scientists, general public, media and insitutions for formal and informal learning meet. During the recent political and health crisis concerning the rubbish treatment in the Italian region of Campania, the science centre "Città della Scienza" has promoted an unusual dialogue between citizens and scientists.

Volume 7Issue 012008
Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Editorial

A total society of knowledge

by Pietro Greco

The major Lisbon goal is to give Europe back the primacy as a society of knowledge. `Giving back' is a more appropriate term than `giving', as Europe long held that primacy in the past, and virtually as a monopoliser from the 17th century throughout the 19th. Then, Europe shared it with North America for a long portion of the 20th century.

Volume 7Issue 012008
Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Article

Metaphors of DNA: a review of the popularisation processes

by Sergi Cortiñas Rovira

This article offers a 1953-present day review of the models that have popularised DNA, one of the fundamental molecules of biochemistry. DNA has become an iconic concept over the 20th century, overcoming the boundaries of science and spreading into literature, painting, sculpture or religion. This work analyses the reasons why DNA has penetrated society so effectively and examines some of the main metaphors used by the scientists and scientific popularisers. Furthermore, this article, taken from the author's PhD thesis, describes some recent popularisation models for this molecule.

Volume 7Issue 012008
Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

Individuals, knowledge and governance in the 21st-century society

by Andrea Cerroni

The knowledge society is a new social species that, despite many uncertainties and some (old and new) ambiguities, is emerging on the horizon of the 21st century. Placed at the convergence of two long-term processes (society of individuals and knowledge society), it is characterised by the social-economic process of knowledge circulation, which can be divided into four fundamental phases (generation, institutionalisation, spreading and socialisation). The current situation also sees the traditional (modern) structure of knowledge being outdated by the convergence of nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and neuro-cognitive technologies (NBIC). In the background, the need arises to cross the cultural frontier of modernity.

Volume 6Issue 042007
Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

The knowledge society

by Pietro Greco

In 2007, global investments in R&D have increased by 7% on the previous year and have reached an absolute historical peak, exceeding for the first time the threshold of 1,100 billion dollars (calculated in the hypothesis of a purchasing power parity between the currencies). The world invests in scientific research and technological development 2.1% of the wealth it produces. At the same time, there has been an increase in the exchange of high added-knowledge value goods and high tech represents now the most dynamic sector of the world economy.

Mass technologies and ignorance in the society of knowledge
by Luciano Gallino

Six critical remarks on science and the construction of the knowledge society
by Cristiano Castelfranchi

Individuals, knowledge and governance in the 21st-century society
by Andrea Cerroni

Knowledge, responsibility and culture: food for thought on science communication
by Giancarlo Quaranta

Volume 6Issue 042007
Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Editorial

A Nobel prize to public science communication

by Pietro Greco

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has bestowed the 2007 Nobel Peace Price equally upon the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore, former vice-President of the United States of America, with the same motivation: «for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change».

Volume 6Issue 042007
Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

Knowledge, responsibility and culture: food for thought on science communication

by Giancarlo Quaranta

The past few decades have been marked by a rapid scientific and technological development. One of the most paradoxical, and perhaps more disturbing, features of this process is the growing divide between the increased importance science has acquired in economic and social life and a society persistently showing spreading signs of contempt, mistrust and, most of all, disinterest in research.

Volume 6Issue 042007
Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

Mass technologies and ignorance in the society of knowledge

by Luciano Gallino

An advanced expression of culture and of social evolution, contemporary technology, which increasingly incorporates endless quantities of scientific knowledge, has acquired a decisive power on human existence and on the natural system supporting it. It has the ability, now demonstrated, to attain a vast improvement in the quality of life if one can benefit from proper amounts of it and to prolong life for decades. On the other hand, its results may also go in a totally opposite direction, either against ourselves or our descendants, or other populations. A similar theory is true for life-supporting systems.

Volume 6Issue 042007
Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Book Review

It's science after all, Homer!

by Daniele Gouthier

Within just a few months, new releases in the world of publishing have seen two books dealing with science and The Simpsons, one published in the US and the other in Italy: last spring, What's science ever done for us? by Paul Halpern (John Wiley & Sons, New York 2007) and, this autumn, La scienza dei Simpson by Marco Malaspina (Sironi Editore, Milano 2007).

Volume 6Issue 042007

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