This project is awesome, not least because it’s my voice on the video! But there is a lot more to like about this project. The project is based in Collserola Park, which is on the edge of Barcelona, Spain. Collserola is the biggest urban park in the world and, at 85 square kilometers, it is 22 times larger than New York City’s famed Central Park. Collserola is an oasis of nature in a highly urban landscape, containing well over a thousand plants species and hundreds of vertebrate species.
The world’s human population just topped 7 billion people. How are we going to produce enough food and fuel for the earth’s growing population without exploding the planet? The answer might just lie in pond scum. As anyone who has a pool or birdbath knows, pond scum (which is a form of algae) can grow extremely rapidly without any encouragement at all. What if we could genetically engineer this fast-growing algae to produce biofuels? What about protein for us to eat? Suddenly, all of the pressure that we are placing on the earth’s ecosystems might just lift.
We are now three weeks into #SciFund Challenge projects going live on RocketHub. Where do we stand?
Contributions to #SciFund projects, as of morning of Nov. 16 (click image for larger version).
Astonishingly well! As of this morning, #SciFund projects have together raised $49,294. Incredible. And if you look at the figure above, you can see that contributions are rising steadily.
Note by Jai: Aditya is a #SciFund Challenge participant and he is pursuing his doctorate in cellular and developmental biology at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Check out his great #SciFund project: C-Cilia in Motion! You can find Aditya on Twitter at @nishantaditya.
For a lot of people their early exposure to “science” was through science fiction. This was a great thing for those of us who eventually became scientists because science fiction inspired us to think creatively, imagine fantastic things, “to boldly go where no man has gone before”… And to have bad grammar.
The vast majority of people, however, only ever got the distorted, dramatized, exaggerated view of science. This view, that ‘science = laboratories filled with glowing lights and colourful, bubbling solutions in complicated looking glassware‘, is very misleading to the general public. It doesn’t give a true account of what a scientist does or how science progresses. This is where initiatives like The #SciFund Challenge would be VERY useful. These initiatives will bring in real scientists with real experiments and will force them to explain their work to a broad audience. This sort of exercise in public communication will help fuel public interest in science and, more importantly, give them an insider’s perspective on the vocation of science.
Let's get down - Ancient Roman style - to celebrate a #SciFund success!
One #SciFund Challenge participant has had a very good couple of days! Kristina Killgrove, who is behind the Ancient Roman DNA project, has gotten all sorts of media coverage (like at CNN and Forbes). Even better, she has blown right past her financial target of $6,000 in less than two weeks. She is now at $9,000 and rising fast! How did she do it? I talked with her yesterday to learn her crowdfunding strategies. This is what I learned.
There are two parts to Kristina’s success: success at crafting a compelling science message and success in promoting her project. Let’s deal with message-crafting first.
Go to Facebook and fill out the “Create a New Account” section. You can change everything later, so feel free to be honest about your name and everything else and if you want to change the account to represent an organization later, you can. Once you’ve submitted that information, you’ll have to verify your identity by entering a code sent from Facebook to your email address or phone. Following the code verification, Facebook will walk you through how to set up your profile. You will definitely want a profile picture (which you can change later), but finding people you know is optional at this point, as is touring privacy settings. Either of these activities can be done later, once your account is set up. I’d recommend taking the privacy tour, though, because it’s only 4 short screens to look through and the first screen is especially useful- it shows you how to set viewing privileges for every post you will make.
And that’s it- you’re ready to go!
Facebook’s frontpage, viewed from a computer’s internet browser.
2. SEND US YOUR USERNAME
A. Computer view: click on your profile picture and your first name at the very top of the screen (the red box in the image below). Then read the address bar in your browser, which should say something like “facebook.com/username”. Please send us the “username” part of that address.
The top of the Facebook profile page for Virginia Schutte, viewed from a computer’s internet browser. There is a red box around the profile icon, which can be used to return to the profile at any time.
B. Mobile view: Your username is currently unavailable to view from a mobile device, so head on over to a computer.
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The two kinds of email that we send.
Announcements about upcoming events: mostly about our upcoming classes (sent out every 1-2 months).
SciFund Solutions: 1-minute communication tips for scientists (sent out every 1-2 weeks).
