Compared to expert-to-expert - or peer-to-peer - communication, the language of popular science is characterised by a wider use of figurative devices. This applies to all forms of verbal and non-verbal communication. Specialized texts are characterised by a restricted and rigorous lexicon both in spoken and - even more so - in written language. Namely, a widespread use of terms which are monosemic, unambiguous and non context-dependent terms, and a minimum amount of natural linguistic choices. The few polysemic, ambiguous and context-dependent words encountered in a scientific text are highly functional, since meaning is mainly conveyed through field-specific terms. The same rules apply to the iconography of a scientific text, where most pictures are graphs, diagrams or schemes. Their purpose is to give the reader a visual photo-like equivalent of the concepts discussed in the text. These images are all the more effective thanks to the use of colours, external references, highlighting and other devices, which make them functional to their explanatory purpose.

In recent weeks, Britain's Better Regulation Task Force report on scientific research regulation asked the Government to evaluate the risks associated with the development of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies. The Government was also asked to prove its implementation of a specific policy to protect human, animal and environmental safety, were it to be threatened by the development of this emerging field of knowledge. These requests may sound rather alarming.

In a brief article published by Science1 last October, British scientists stated that the expression "Public Understanding of Science" (PUS), which was traditionally employed in Anglosaxon societies to refer to the issue of the relationship between science, technology and society, is out-of-date. It should be replaced by "Public Engagement with Science and Technology" (PEST), a new acronym that clearly invites to reconceptualise the relationship between science and the public. The new approach involves the engagement of the public or rather the publics of science, through dialogue, in particular through an open and equal-to-equal discussion between scientists and non-experts that would enable non-experts to become the actual protagonists in the scientific decisions producing social effects.

Terms such as gmo, genetic tests and pharmacogenomics, which were once used only by experts, belong today to everyday language. The new vocabulary of molecular biology shows an increase in the interest of society in scientific problems, and in particular the recent cultural supremacy of molecular biology. For all of us, the gene symbolizes progress and power, the hope of fighting incurable diseases, and the fear of terrifying genetic manipulations. These aspects become real events and characters in the Human Genome Project. But this great international project has also shown that the relation between science and society is changing. This event can actually be seen as a metaphor of science leaving academic laboratories to settle new areas of society. From economics to sociology, from epistemological discourse to bioethical debate, from medicine to basic research, in all these fields genome becomes the main topic of discussion and food for thought. Public attention to this international project has grown constantly throughout its development, and it peaked when science came into contact with the press.

Communicating modern biotechnologies is certainly no easy task. To tackle such a complex and future-oriented assignment, help may arrive, paradoxically, from the past, from ancient rhetorical tradition, and in particular from Aristotle, the most renowned rhetoric teacher of all time. In his Rhetoric, Aristotle suggested that to be persuasive speakers should make use of widely accepted opinions (endoxa), i.e. the common sense shared by all. Common sense is expressed in common truths and value-laden maxims. Common sense, however, is not flat but dialectical, in that it includes contrasting subjects. While reasoning, orators do not just passively report a conception of an unchanging world, but they reproduce the contrasting conceptions included in common sense. In the case of the debate about Biotechnologies, the contrasting conceptions can be found in the Natural/Artificial dualism, in the dichotomy between an attitude marked by obscurantism and suspicion of scientific and technological innovation and that of a scientistic attitude.

A survey has been recently carried out for the first time in Italy concerning science communication through the media and the result has been that science hits the headlines. It is often front-page news in the press and it is also often among the main points of the news on TV. This is not very surprising.

This work analyses how the theme of the creation of thinking machines by man, particularly through artificial intelligence, is dealt with on stage, with reference to three plays addressing different topics and characterised by different types of performance. This analysis reveals the particular effectiveness of plays dealing with scientific topics, when the relationship between theatre and science results in reflections transcending the boundaries of its contents to address man and his essence and gives voice to the ancient question of the sense of the world.

Enrico Fermi's work gave birth to a real cultural revolution in the Italian scientific scenario. His scientific studies concerned almost every field in physics and had far-reaching effects of which virtually everybody, above all in Italy, is still taking advantage. Two important "by-products" of Fermi's ideas and initiatives will be here taken into consideration: the new way of carrying out research and communicating science invented by Fermi and his group and his publications for the general public, which often stood for high examples of scientific popularisation. Then the focus will shift on Ettore Majorana's role to try to understand why his work in the field of communication within the School of Physics of Rome was basically non-existent despite the excellent communicative skills he demonstrated both during his university lectures ­ also published in this magazine ­ and in his article "Il valore delle leggi statistiche nella fisica e nelle scienze sociali", the only one which does not deal with pure physics issues and which will be also taken into account in this paper.

This article presents the results of a study carried out in Italy by the Permanent Observatory on science communication through the media. The aim of this research project coordinated by the staff of the Master’s Degree in Science Communication, ISAS, Trieste, in collaboration with Ilesis S.r.l., Rome, is to monitor and analyse systematically the amount of scientific information on TV and in the press.

This paper is concerned with the interactions between information technology and the humanities, and focuses on how the humanities have changed since adopting computers. The debate among humanists on the subject initially focuses on the alleged methodological changes brought about by the introduction of computing technology. It subsequently analyses the changes in research that were caused by IT not directly but indirectly, as a consequence of the changes effected on society as a whole. After briefly summarising the history of the interactions between information technology and the humanities, the paper draws on literature to examine the way humanists have perceived the evolution of their disciplines. The paper concludes by fitting the phenomenon into a model of scientific revolution.