infodemic

55 Lessons Learned About Science Communication Around the World During COVID-19

Compilation COVID-19
55 Lessons Learned About Science Communication Around the World During COVID-19

Light-gray countries indicate a place whose local experts contributed to our compilation on science communication insights.

(Cover illustration image by Tatiana Cárdenas-Mejía)

The following insights, contributed by members of the Aspen Global Congress on Scientific Thinking & Action, offer local experts' best practices for communicating about a global health crisis with the public in nuanced and regionally specific ways.

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Aaron F. Mertz
Aaron F. Mertz, Ph.D., is a biophysicist, science advocate, and the founding Director of the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program, launched in 2019 to help foster a diverse scientific workforce whose contributions extend beyond the laboratory and to generate greater public appreciation for science as a vital tool to address global challenges. He completed postdoctoral training in cell biology at Rockefeller University, a doctorate in physics at Yale University, a master’s degree in the history of science at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree in physics at Washington University in St. Louis.
biotech

Nobel Prize goes to technology for mRNA vaccines

Movers & Shakers Health
Nobel Prize goes to technology for mRNA vaccines

Katalin Karikó, pictured, and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize for advances in mRNA research that led to the first Covid vaccines.

Adobe Stock

When Drew Weissman received a call from Katalin Karikó in the early morning hours this past Monday, he assumed his longtime research partner was calling to share a nascent, nagging idea. Weissman, a professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Karikó, a professor at Szeged University and an adjunct professor at UPenn, both struggle with sleep disturbances. Thus, middle-of-the-night discourses between the two, often over email, has been a staple of their friendship. But this time, Karikó had something more pressing and exciting to share: They had won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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Ross Pomeroy
Steven Ross Pomeroy is the editor of RealClearScience. As a writer, Ross believes that his greatest assets are his insatiable curiosity and his ceaseless love for learning. Follow him on Twitter
biotech

Scientists turn pee into power in Uganda

Feature Story Environment & Space
Scientists turn pee into power in Uganda

With conventional fuel cells as their model, researchers learned to use similar chemical reactions to make a fuel from microbes in pee.

Adobe Stock

At the edge of a dirt road flanked by trees and green mountains outside the town of Kisoro, Uganda, sits the concrete building that houses Sesame Girls School, where girls aged 11 to 19 can live, learn and, at least for a while, safely use a toilet. In many developing regions, toileting at night is especially dangerous for children. Without electrical power for lighting, kids may fall into the deep pits of the latrines through broken or unsteady floorboards. Girls are sometimes assaulted by men who hide in the dark.

For the Sesame School girls, though, bright LED lights, connected to tiny gadgets, chased the fears away. They got to use new, clean toilets lit by the power of their own pee. Some girls even used the light provided by the latrines to study.

Urine, whether animal or human, is more than waste. It’s a cheap and abundant resource. Each day across the globe, 8.1 billion humans make 4 billion gallons of pee. Cows, pigs, deer, elephants and other animals add more. By spending money to get rid of it, we waste a renewable resource that can serve more than one purpose. Microorganisms that feed on nutrients in urine can be used in a microbial fuel cell that generates electricity – or "pee power," as the Sesame girls called it.

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Jenny Morber
Jenny Morber was trained as a scientist and engineer at Georgia Tech, then lost all chance at a Nobel Prize by pivoting to journalism. She writes from the mossy Pacific Northwest about science, people and the world. She misses seeing atoms but is grateful that her days are filled with fresh air, new ideas and interesting people.