Category Archives: science and technology reporting

Science, science and technology reporting

The Miniature Universe

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The Microcosmos Shows Us the Very Small

A Miniature Universe Under a Scanning Electron Microscope

We as astronomers are always looking out to space, to see the latest and greatest among the planets, stars, and galaxies. But, what’s out there isn’t the sum total of the cosmos. There’s a lot right here to study, too — and it takes an understanding of biology, chemistry, physics, and geology to appreciate the whole cosmos — even the planet we inhabit.

Have you ever wondered what happens when we turn our fantastic technology inward, to look at the universe of the very small? Say, what a rock looks like if you break it up into its component elements? Or, whether that piece of rock you found is a meteorite or an Earth rock? Or, what your hair or skin cells look like, up close and personal?  Of course, we know about atoms and molecules that make up all of the matter we can detect (the so-called “baryonic matter”).  But, what do they look like when combined, say, if we could look at a rock under a scanning electron microscope?

Gullies on the rim of a crater on Mars. Courtesy HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance/NASA.
A piece of granite as seen under a scanning electron microscope. Courtesy ASPEX Corp.
A piece of granite as seen under a scanning electron microscope. Courtesy ASPEX Corp.

The results often look as otherworldly as scenes from Mars or one of the moons of Jupiter. That micro-universe, the miniature cosmos, is what a number of scientists (like geologists and biologists and physicists) study at a level that is too small for our eyes to detect. And the images they produce using high-resolution microscopes and scanning devices are amazing!

Have you ever wondered what common, everyday objects look like under a scanning electron microscope?  Well, you have a chance to find out. Here’s how:  I got an email about my image of Mars and Moon posted a few days ago from a reader who works for a ASPEX, a company that makes this kind of equipment for use in research. He alerted me to a cool project his company is doing with scanning electron microscopes called Send us Your Sample, and it does just what you think the name suggests — scans a sample of whatever you send in.  There are instructions on the page linked above that tell you what to send and how to submit it. So, if you’ve ever wanted to know what a piece of dirt or candy or a dust bunny or whatever — looks like at high magnification, go to their website and put in an entry.

I understand the project is going on for another month and it seems like it would be a very cool way for schoolkids (for example) to learn more about the structure of things we see every day.  It’s a part of science that you need to know and understand if you’re going to know and understand the cosmos. Check it out!

CNN, Miles O'Brien, News, science and technology reporting, the stupid--it burns

Science Reporting on TV or Cable News?

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You Must be Joking!

Hard on the heels of the news (which I first read over at Media Bistro and then at Phil Plait’s shop)  that “news giant” CNN is closing down its science, space, and technology reporting division and folding it into something called “Planet in Peril” featuring the stunningly self-aware Anderson Cooper, I had to shake my head at the short-sightedness of it all. In the process of “folding science news into the mainstream” (which I’m sure sounded good to a non-tech-savvy suit), they are losing one of the best sci-tech reporters around in Miles O’Brien.

Stuff like this makes me wonder just what is happening in the executive suites of news organizations. Yeah, sure, I know that “news” execs must do whatever their corporate directors tell them to do, and that the decision-making suits worship at the altar of the Prophet Motive, but demoting science and technology reporting and losing a person (and his team) who knows how to tell science stories makes no sense.

Then again, more often than not, CNN’s sci-tech pages are chock-full of admiring adverts posing as stories about technology, and the actual content of explaining science is frequently quite slim.  Which is why, along with their pretty sorry political reporting, I have eased off reading CNN and have come to rely on specific sites relevant to science to get my science news (like Science News and Discover and many other places). Unfortunately, I’m not indicative of the mainstream of readers when it comes to that, so I imagine  most people who watch CNN will just shrug and say, “so what?” when informed that science and technology reporting aren’t important enough to merit a reporter.  Of course sports and medicine and politics and astrology and all kinds of other stuff get whole teams devoted to them. But science?  Apparently the word from the executive suite is “Ix-Nay on the Science stuff.”

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised at the “ewww” attitudes about science news from mainstream media executives. I can’t say I’m surprised by ignorant attitudes about how news should be reported either. Seems like lately journalists (on TV and cable “news” outlets) have come around more to the idea that THEY and their opinions should be part of the story they’re reporting.  This is NOT what we were taught in j-school way back in the day.  We were taught to be objective reporters, to get the story but keep ourselves out of it.  Now we get people (like the execrable and mean-spirited Bill O’Reilly (FOX “News”)) injecting themselves and their opinions into the stories they talk about — and I’m sorry, but opinion is NOT news. It’ s opinion. It’s slant. And it’s not done to let you have a choice about what you read and understand. It’s done to shape your opinion for you, to tell you what and how to think. And don’t get me started on some of the other cable talking heads. That’s a rant for another time. Suffice to say, I’m sure that the money spent on Miles and his good reporting will get spent to hire another talking head bloviator on the “opinion” side of the house.

Why doesn’t this  news surprise me more?  An experience I had in college may explain it better.

Back when I was in J-school, I was talking to a professor about a science class I was going to take. In fact, I minored in telecom engineering (and spent years studying astronomy and physics). It was an amazing amount of fun, but this professor (a long-time journalist turned educator) couldn’t see that. All the person could see was “geek” and, during an advising session, this person asked me, “Why do you want to take all that geeky shit?”  I was astonished that this otherwise decent veteran reporter could ask such a question.  What happened to that objectivity we were all taught?

I also noticed that J-school students weren’t (and for all I know, still aren’t) required to take very many science classes. They could skate by on things like “Astronomy for Poets” and “Rocks for Jocks” after taking their obligatory Bio 101.  I suspect that many of the undergrads took maybe 12 hours of science total their whole college careers. Many of the undergrads wanted to be sports reporters or “move into management”. And, so the chickens came home to roost when those same kids grew up and become news execs. If science wasn’t on their radar in college or throughout their early careers, then it wouldn’t be when they hit the executive suite.  And no, owning an iPod or high-tech stocks doesn’t make an exec sensitive to science and tech news in a storytelling, honest journalism kind of way.

Anyway, I guess the attitude that geeky topics are geeky and apparently TOO tough for the public to understand has pervaded upstairs at CNN. And hence, you get decisions that seem to assume that a network that is supposed to be reporting ALL the news objectively doesn’t have to put forth a good effort on what are some of the  most profound and awe-inspiring topics in our lives.  It’s MUCH more important to staff up the sports department (and mind you, I have no beef with sports — I watch the Broncos and Patriots and Red Sox and swear at the screen along with the best of ’em) or hire another bloviating pundit to yell his or her political opinions out at us for an hour at a time.

CNN: I stopped watching you a long time ago; now I see no reason to rely on your website for news. You don’t cover it all, anymore anyway.  You’re slanting toward FOXNews politically, which is pretty rich, considering that FOX is losing viewers because the public (and yes, we’re smarter than you assume) is starting to see that slanted news isn’t news. And, CNN, you’ve left behind a number of people for whom honest and good science and technology reporting is important.

My grade for CNN: epic fail!

As for Miles O’Brien, you had a good run — as you said in your own statement.  I can’t imagine watching a shuttle launch without you on the scene and I’ll miss your reporting on space and astronomy events.  I wasn’t wild about the OOFOE week series idea, replete with aliens, but you carried it off. I still think you’re one of the best science reporters among us and I’m sure you’ll land on your feet somewhere.  It’s CNN’s loss.

Best of luck to you!