Faster Higher Smarter by Simon Shapiro

It takes a lot of talent, skill, and hard work to become a world-class athlete. But it takes even more to make a sport better: it takes smarts! And whether innovators are aware of it or not, it takes an understanding of physics, mechanics, and aerodynamics to come up with better techniques and equipment. From swimming, soccer, and basketball to skateboarding and wheelchair sports, Faster Higher Smarter looks at the hard science behind many inventions and improvements in sports. 

Inside Your Insides by Claire Eamer

“Wherever you go, tiny hitchhikers tag along for the ride,” this intriguing illustrated nonfiction book begins. “The hitchhikers are actually microbes --- tiny living things so small that you need a microscope to see them. And every person carries around trillions and trillions of these critters.” Six of the most common “critters” that live in and on our bodies are introduced here: bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, protists and mites. Each one has its own preferred environment, and readers will be startled (and likely a little grossed out!) by the many places they live, including the hair follicles on our faces, the folds of our tongues and the lengths of our guts. Just as surprising, only some of them are “bad guys” that cause disease, and many of them are actually “good guys” that keep us healthy. There's even research currently being done on ways to improve or fix our collection of microbes as a way to make us healthier.

Monster Science by Helaine Becker

“What if the terrifying creatures of your nightmares were indeed prowling the big, wide world beyond your blankie?” begins the intriguing premise of this book. “Could they really exist? And if so, how?” In a completely original approach to exploring science, award-winning author Helaine Becker places six different kinds of monsters --- Frankenstein, vampires, bigfoot, zombies, werewolves and sea monsters --- under her microscope to expose the proven scientific principles behind the legends. For example, the chapter on Frankenstein delves into how electricity and organ transplants work in the human body, and whether they could really bring someone back to life --- all presented in short, readable sections.

To Burp or Not To Burp by Dr. Dave Williams and Loredana Cunti

Find out what happens to your body in space—from someone who’s been there. Of all the questions astronauts are asked by kids, the most frequent one is “How do you go to the toilet in space?” This book not only answers that question, but many others about the effect of zero gravity on the human body: How do you brush your hair in space? What happens when you sweat? What does food taste like? The best thing is that the answers are provided by someone who speaks from first-hand experience: Dr. Dave Williams, a NASA astronaut who has accomplished three space walks.

Dinosaurs of the Deep by Larry Vestraete

Driving across the North American Heartland, surrounded by prairie, it is almost impossible to imagine that this was once a huge inland sea. The Western Interior Seaway, which split the entire continent of North America in half, once teemed with predatory creatures—fanged fish and turtles the size of small cars; prowling sharks and giant squid; hungry plesiosaurs and immense crocodiles.Through a cooperative partnership with the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (CFDC), home to ‘Bruce’, the world’s largest mosasaur skeleton, author Larry Verstraete and paleoartist Julius Csotonyi combine fascinating facts, astonishing discoveries, and the latest paleontological information to bring the ancient marine creatures of the Seaway to vivid life.

A Field Guide To Lies: Critical Thinking In The Information Age

Daniel J. Levitin

It's becoming harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff. How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo-facts, distortions and outright lies from reliable information? In A Field Guide to Lies, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin outlines the many pitfalls of the information age and provides the means to spot and avoid them.

The Killer Whale Who Changed The World

Mark Leiren-Young

Killer whales had always been seen as bloodthirsty sea monsters. That all changed when a young killer whale was captured off the west coast of North America and displayed to the public in 1964. Moby Doll — as the whale became known — was an instant celebrity, drawing 20,000 visitors on the one and only day he was exhibited. He died within a few months, but his famous gentleness sparked a worldwide crusade that transformed how people understood and appreciated orcas. Because of Moby Doll, we stopped fearing “killers” and grew to love and respect “orcas.”

Let Them Eat Dirt:

Saving Our Children from an Oversanitized World

B. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta

In the 150 years since we discovered that microbes cause infectious diseases, we’ve battled to keep them at bay. But a recent explosion of scientific knowledge has led to undeniable evidence that early exposure to these organisms is beneficial to our children’s well-being. It turns out that our current emphasis on hyper-cleanliness and poor diets are taking a toll on our children’s lifelong health.

Opium Eater: The New Confessions

Carlyn Zwarenstein

Amid headlines of overdoses and galloping addiction rates, an outspoken and darkly comic dispatch from the new Age of Opium. North Americans are the world's most compulsive and prolific users of legal opioids. Carlyn Zwarenstein, diagnosed with an inflammatory spine disease as a young mother, eventually turned to them to manage her pain. In this lyrical update of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, she recounts her search for relief and release — with its euphoric ups, hallucinatory lows and desperate pharmacy visits. Along the way she traces the long tradition of opium’s influence on culture and imagination, from De Quincey to Frida Kahlo.

Sorting The Beef From The Bull: The Science of Food Fraud Forensics

Nicola Temple and Richard Evershed

Sorting the Beef from the Bull is a collection of food fraud tales from around the world. It explains the role of science in uncovering some of the century's biggest food scams, and explores the arms race between food forensics and fraudsters as new methods of detection spur more creative and sophisticated means of committing the crimes. This book equips us with the knowledge of what is possible in the world of food fraud and shines a light on the shady areas of our food supply system where these criminals lurk.

CSWA RUNOFF VOTE RESULTS SUMMARY

Thank you to all members who participated in the runoff vote to name the association. By adding your voice you have provided valuable information that will help strengthen the association’s identity and shape its future. A total of 119 votes were cast, only 7% fewer than were cast in the first round. This consistent turnout suggests members continue to be very engaged in the question of what we call ourselves.

In the runoff vote, members were asked to answer a set of three questions to establish which name they prefer. The choice was between the current name and the two most popular alternatives that emerged from the first round of voting.

Here are the results:

Q1: When given a choice between Canadian Science Writers’ Association and Canadian Science Communicators, the vote was split almost evenly.

(CSWA = 59, CSC = 60).

Q2: When given a choice between Canadian Science Writers’ Association and Science Writers and Communicators of Canada, the majority vote (58%) was for the latter.

(CSWA = 50, SWCC = 69)

Q3: When given a choice between the two alternative names, 65% chose Science Writers and Communicators of Canada.

(CSC = 42, SWCC = 77)

Every set of answers also reveals how each individual voter would rank the three names. When compiled, these results show how many picked each option as a first choice.

FIRST CHOICE:   

Canadian Science Writers’ Association  = 34

Canadian Science Communicators = 34

Science Writers and Communicators of Canada = 51

This same method can be used to show what voters’ least favourite options were.

LAST CHOICE:

Canadian Science Writers’ Association  = 44

Canadian Science Communicators = 51

Science Writers and Communicators of Canada = 24

WHAT THE VOTES SHOW:

• More than two thirds of members who voted (71.4%) indicated the association’s current name is not their first choice.  

• Science Writers and Communicators of Canada is the most prefered (and the least disliked) among the alternatives.

• Science Writers and Communicators of Canada is preferred  over the association’s current name by 58% of those who voted.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

In the coming months,  the board will be be asking members  to consider a revised constitution and bylaws.  It would require a two-thirds (66.6%) majority to change the association’s legal name to the one that is most popular with those who voted: Science Writers and Communicators of Canada. The board must now decide whether or not to include this name in the revised constitution document and seek the approval of  two thirds of the members. What do you think? We invite comments and discussion.

The family of Karen Louise Birchard, an award-winning journalist, joyful story-teller, tennis enthusiast, loyal confidante, foodie and political junkie, sadly announce her passing, of cancer, on Nov 21, 2016 at the Provincial Palliative Care Centre in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

Tim Lougheed, President CSWA

The story of Karen’s life captures elements that bind so many of us in the Canadian Science Writers’ Association: curiosity about the natural world and the people who explore it, a desire to build working relationships that make for superior narratives, and above all, a dedication to building bridges between the scientific community and the wider world that is served by that community. Her diverse career path was very much a reflection of the times, such that the routes taken by the next generation of science writers and communicators are bound to be very different. Nevertheless, the core values she instantiated within our organization should transcend any particular place and time, something Karen herself undoubtedly appreciated.

Ian Wilhelm, Chronicle of Higher Education

Karen Birchard loved to tell stories. As The Chronicle’s Canada correspondent, Karen talked often with me when I was the newspaper’s international editor; I usually tried to keep our conversations focused on whatever article I wanted her to pursue. But her almost encyclopedic knowledge of Canadian higher ed would come spilling out along with her ebullient laughter. She’d tell me funny anecdotes about university presidents she’d met, describe a new campus building she'd just toured, and then offer a sidebar on how high the snow drifts were in Prince Edward Island, her home.

I’ll miss those talks. Karen died of cancer this week at age 70. In the 18 years she worked for us, she wrote many, many stories, but a few stood out: a debate over changes in Canada’s science policy; how anti-intellectualism entered the country's politics; and a university’s focus on lobster research.

In this week of giving thanks, I’m thankful for Karen’s enthusiasm for telling stories. It was infectious, and it helped our readers — and me — better understand the world. —Ian Wilhelm

Karen Britchard

Born Aug. 9, 1946 in Toronto, ON and raised in St. Catharines, ON, she rejoiced in her 20-year relationship with her partner Doug Payne (Michael, Elizabeth, Sam) who predeceased her in 2008.

She was a cherished daughter of the late Thomas Michael and Kathleen Elizabeth Birchard. A beloved sibling of Thomas (Mary Anne) of Toronto and children Kyle, Meghan and Garrett; Monica Kington (Richard) of Burlington and children Andrew and Kathleen; and Keith (Diana) of Silver Spring, MD and children Alexander and Christopher. Karen was predeceased by her sister Maureen (2008).

Karen was a trail-blazer for Canadian women in journalism. She earned a degree in Journalism from the University of Detroit and worked for the campus radio, TV station and newspaper.  She landed her first job at CKTB in St. Catharines, becoming one of its first women reporters.

She began working at the Toronto offices of CBC-Radio in 1972. There she was hired for general reporting and editing duties.  In 1979, she became CBC-Radio’s first female National Science and Technology correspondent. In 1982-83, she was a recipient of the prestigious Vannevar Bush Inaugural Fellowship for Excellence in Science and Medical Journalism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  One year later, she moved to Ireland to begin a new career as a freelance journalist and so began a love affair with a country she would call home for the next 16 years.

Relocating to Prince Edward Island in 2001, Karen continued her freelance career with various publications in Canada and the U.S. Stories she wrote for University Affairs in 2013 and in 2015 were recognized in gold medal wins for the magazine in the annual Canadian Online Publishing Awards. As a member of the Canadian Science Writers Association, she earned the trust of many scientists often wary of the media.

Over the years, she never lost her natural curiosity, a child-like exuberance for life, a gleeful sense of humour, a deep devotion to friends, a love of food  and her enthusiasm for oddball presents much sought-after by nieces and nephews.

While the impact of Karen’s work was well known by colleagues and peers, her legacy is found in the friendships she formed and the bonds she made with people. Karen’s greatest accomplishments were the numerous friendships she made and kept with individuals around the world. We will miss her musical good wishes and Advent calendars that arrived via email regularly. Karen touched many lives and will be greatly missed by all who loved her.

Mentally-strong, optimistic and uncomplaining in the face of adversity, Karen was grateful for the unconditional support of family and friends.

Karen’s family and friends wish to thank staff from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Provincial Palliative Care Centre for the high degree of compassion and care provided in recent months.

Awards For Books Published in 2016

DEADLINE DECEMBER 9, 2016

The Canadian Science Writers’ Association offers two annual book awards to honour outstanding contributions to science writing 1) intended for and available to children/middle grades ages 8-12 years, and 2) intended for and available to the general public. Competitors must be Canadian citizens or residents of Canada, but need not be members of the CSWA. Entries, in either French or English, must have been published in Canada during the 2016 calendar year. The winners will be announced during Canada Book Week in April 2017 and will receive a prize of $1,000 each.

Judging Criteria

Entries may deal with aspects of basic or applied science or technology, historical or current, in any area including health, social or environmental issues, regulatory trends etc.

Books will be judged on literary excellence and scientific content and accuracy. Specific judging criteria will include initiative, originality, clarity of interpretation and value in promoting greater understanding of science by the general reader.

Books must be understandable to the layperson or children, with appropriate clarification of medical and scientific terminology, and an orderly marshalling of facts.

Also the subject matter should be significant and relevant for the majority of the public or children, and so presented that it increases public awareness.

Rules for Submissions

Include a fully completed entry form with each submission, entry forms  are available on our website in English and French

Submit a brief  biography of the author(s)

 Submit 6 copies for judging purposes

Entry must have been published in Canada during the 2016 calendar year and must be received at the CSWA National Office by Dec 9, 2016

Entries failing to comply with these rules will be rejected. For more information please phone the CSWA office at 1-800-796-8595, or email office@sciencewriters.ca

All entries become the property of the CSWA

Winners of the 2014 & 2015 Book Awards:

2015 Science in Society General Book Award:

Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? by Timothy Caulfield, Penguin Random House Canada.

2014 Science in Society General Book Award:

Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive by Mark L. Winston, Harvard University Press.

2015 Science in Society Children/ Middle Grades Book Award:

The Queen’s Shadow: A Story About How Animals See by Cybèle Young, Kids Can Press.

2014 Science in Society Children’s Book Award:

The Fly by Elise Gravel, Penguin Random House.

Posted by: CSWA Board of Directors

The CSWA board wishes to thank everyone who submitted their suggestions and engaged in discussions about the most suitable name for our association. Your efforts have generated an impressive slate of possible names to consider (including the option of keeping the association's current name).

Now it's up to the members to decide. 

Please take a moment to look at the options and express you preference here. 

The name that is most preferred by the membership will be the one that is included in  proposed changes to the organization's defining documents to be put before members in the coming weeks.

Voting on the name is open through to midnight ET October 24, 2016. Check for results on October 25.

We hope all members participate in this collective exercise to ensure our organization's name is meaningful and relevant to us all. 

This fall, the board of the Canadian Science Writers' Association will be asking members to vote on a proposed set of changes to its constitution. In the lead up to that vote we, the board, want to hear from all members about one of the most fundamental components of our organizational document: what we call ourselves.

 

The challenge before us is to capture our identities both as individual professionals and as an organization. We are proud of our 45-year history of promoting balanced and accurate science reporting in Canadian media, and encouraging a greater awareness of the importance of science coverage. We also want to respond, in an inclusive way, to an evolving media landscape that has seen our membership grow to encompass a diverse spectrum of roles within science communications.

 

Over the next few weeks we are asking you to first submit your suggestions and then select a name that you think best represents our organization and identifies our brand to the public.

 

Submitting is easy to do. If you are a member, you can add your suggestion right here as a comment to this post. Or you can include it in an email to name@sciencewriters.ca

 

This post will be updated regularly with suggestions added to the list until September 30. (Serious suggestions only, please!) Members will then be asked during the first week of October  to select their preferred option from the list of suggestions. The name that emerges from this process will be included with the proposed constitutional changes that members will be asked to consider in November.

 

Here are the suggestions so far.  Got a better idea?  Let us know!

 

1) Retain current name (Canadian Science Writers’ Association)

2) Canadian Science Communicators

3) Canadian Science Writers and Communicators Association

4) Science Writers and Communicators of Canada

5) Science in Society Canada

6) Science Journalists and Communicators of Canada

7) Canadian Association of Science Communicators

Voting will be the first week of October. 

We hope all members participate in this collective exercise to ensure our organization's name is meaningful and relevant to us all.  

Science Literacy Week is an initiative meant to showcase the excellence of all of Canada's wide range of science and science outreach organizations.  Through encouraging them to join together in a blitz of activity and collaborate, particularly in partnership with community groups like libraries, the aim is to reach more people than ever before with outstanding science programming.  The week started in 2014 in the GTA, and came to include 4 institutions, and 5 events. For this year, with 160 groups involved, major support from NSERC and Indigo and an estimated 315 events in 50 cities nationally it looks to be its biggest year ever.

At heart, the week aims through libraries to showcase their science collections and encourage people to read something a little different.  Rather than Hunger Games and Twilight, we want to see people reading Sacks and Sagan. Events too help reach out to everyone Canada-wide - nature walks, star parties, science demos, public talks - you name it, if it engages the public and celebrates science it's a welcome addition to the week.   The week also provides an excellent opportunity to highlight the work of scientists across the country.  The website (scienceliteracy.ca) serves as both an events portal to draw people to local activities as well as a centre for finding resources to learn about science - be they books, podcasts, websites or places to conduct citizen science projects of their own.  The twitter (@scilitweek) aims to highlight exciting science news, draw people to great resources as well as mention every event happening across Canada.  Every participant is encouraged to use the hashtag #scilit16 to share stories, pictures and more about their work, their love of science or to garner attention for events.  

With help from NSERC, this can grow to be one of the major pillars of science outreach in Canada.  A time when science groups utilize the week to get people talking about science, where major organizations join together in big eye catching events and where Canadians coast to coast take the chance to learn a little more about the world.

contact: jessehhildebrand@gmail.com

photos by Juanita Bawagan

 CSWA Member Guest Post By Jano Klimas

                                                  Figure 1 photo credit: heathbrother.com

Have you ever wondered about what makes science articles memorable? How come that some writers are remembered while others forgotten? One might say that the aim of academic papers is generally not to make the best argument and have the most interesting ideas, but rather to demonstrate that something is both statistically significant and those findings were derived from a sound methodology which others can duplicate and arrive at the same result. If the statistics and the methodology are no good, it doesn't matter how evocative the descriptions are, does it? So seems that the most basic science communications question is how to integrate the two very different ways of conveying "the truth," in a way that both are understood and remembered. Remembered facts turn into knowledge that can be used to change the world – the ultimate goal of science.

In their book “Made to stick,” the Heath brothers offer an approach to making your ideas sticky and memorable (See Figure 1). The Californians, Chip and Dan, draw upon their experience from teaching at the Stanford University, consulting and publishing teaching literature, respectively. Both were obsessed by studying the process of learning and making it more effective. Having read the book, I’d like to focus on a key principle for impactful writing – the hooks – illustrated by three real-life examples in my own experience. I will also offer specific examples of science articles that don't tie what they are doing to an ordinary person's life experience, and show how added experiential references (hooks), could make articles stickier.

The Heath book is organised in accordance with to the acronym "SUCCES" (with the last s omitted). The letters refer to principles for making your ideas stick, as follows:

Simple — find the core of any idea

Unexpected — grab people's attention by surprising them

Concrete — make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later

Credible — give an idea believability

Emotional — help people see the importance of an idea

Stories — empower people to use an idea through narrative

In the third chapter – Concrete - the Heath brothers introduce the “Velcro theory of memory” that says that the more hooks we can put into an idea, the stickier it will be (p. 109–111).” A hook can be anything that your readership has experience with, such as, stories about idiosyncrasies of your characters, weather forecasts or a cake recipe. It doesn’t have to be the opening line of your article. Hook works best if it builds on the experience or knowledge that the readers already have. They can relate to it easily and use it to remember scientific ideas readily. Here are three practical examples of article quotes where experiential references could have been used as effective hooks:

Example 1: Vague sentences confuse readers. They have to work harder to understand them. Show, don’t tell, is a rule that certainly applies to strong writing, including science writing. We show by using specific details, features, colours from ordinary person's life, or simply showing a picture of what we want, like I did in my hook after the following vague sentence:

“One prerequisite for the maintenance of dimorphism is that organisms experience a fitness trade off across environments. (p72)” 

What is a fitness tradeoff? It’s certainly not a haircut. Sitting in the barber shop when I was 16, I held a book about Beatles in my lap. I adored them. I wanted to look like them. The problem was that staff in this cheap shop was simple and brash. I didn’t have much money to go to an expensive hair salon. When I showed them a photo of John Lennon, my barber shouted at her colleague: “Hey Sue, this is the last one today and look what I got. Why does this always happen to me?”

I felt embarrassed as she flicked through the photos in my book. After a short moment of silence she exclaimed: “That’s like a bowl cut.” Bingo! She got it and got to work on my haircut immediately. The hook to the most common haircut in that shop helped her to solve the problem. It fitted into her mental framework. In the vague sentence above, the “fitness tradeoff across environments” could have been made stickier by saying what organismns need to keep the two distinct forms and by giving a list of examples of dimorphic species who succeeded with “fitness tradeoffs.”

Example 2: An article about the influence of socio-structural determinants of health on people who use drugs concluded: 

“… health problems that rendered them unstable and the complexity of their conditions precipitated numerous challenges related to their care.” 

Instead, the article could conclude that: “… health problems that rendered them unstable and caused struggles with their care” and give readers a concrete problem or a challenge. For example, drawing upon their past experience with food industry, a clothing company designed a new bag to carry clean syringes for our needle-exchange project. This company didn’t have experience with small-scale made-to-order requests, but was willing to sit down with me and talk about my ideas. We drew pictures of different bags on the back of an envelope when the chief worker said: “That’s like a pizza bag.” She got it. Then, she brought blueprints of their recent design of a bag for a local pizza store. Our new bags worked well. What do people with serious health problems need? They need specialist care because their problems make their care difficult. It’s like driving a space-shuttle versus a tricycle; you wouldn’t go get them fixed in the same mechanic shop.

Example 3: In my last example, we read about genes, evolution and bio-diversity – terms known to most environmentalists. Following after this clumsy sentence is an example of a hook that deals with ecology (e-bikes) too:

“Some of the confusion about the role of hybridization in evolutionary diversification stems from the contradiction between a perceived necessity for cessation of gene flow to enable adaptive population differentiation on the one hand, and the potential of hybridization for generating adaptive variation, functional novelty, and new species on the other (p66).¹”

Have you ever returned a Christmas gift? The first time I returned it was when I gave my wife a gift voucher to purchase an expensive electric bike. She was surprised and puzzled to find it under the Christmas tree. A year went by before I found myself returning the gift voucher in the bike shop. The staff was really friendly but needed time to process the unexpected return. After a moment of awkward silence, they said: “It's like a returned purchase.” I knew that they just found a hook in their past knowledge and experience that helped them navigate the new situation. If a customer returned a recent purchase, they would give them their money back, minus 15%; the reason being inability to re-sell the product as new. I got deducted only 10% because I haven't really bought anything. 

The above biology excerpt could have used the contradiction to help the readers link the new information with their past experience. “I love you and I hate you,” is a great contradiction that most people understand well. We love someone’s personality, but hate their manners. Genes have to stop flowing, but also need to keep growing for the sake of survival and evolution.

Remember, if you help your readers catalogue your idea in their existing experiential repository, if they file it within their own memory structure, they’ll remember it. You’re sticking to them.

 Jano Klimas is a scientist, artist, thinker and writer. As a research fellow in medical schools at University College Dublin and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, he studies ways to better addiction medicine education for physicians. You can find his tweets at @janklimas and he blogs atjanklimas.blogspot.ca