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Every year, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) releases his “Wastebook”—a collection of what he views as the year's most wasteful government spending. This year's edition singles out Caltech bioengineer John Dabiri's work on plankton and ocean circulation, calling it “synchronized swimming for sea monkeys.”
 
That sort of distortion is one repercussion for popularizing science in press releases and the news media, Dabiri says. “There's a double-edged sword to trying to make science more accessible,” he says. “I think it's important that people understand what we're doing in our laboratories, that it's not this ivory tower endeavor. At the same time, I think in some cases you find these caricatures that arise.”
 
Conservation biologist Terrie Williams, another alum of the 2014 Wastebook, and marine biologist Will White, whose work on sex-changing fish was targeted by a conservative news site, look beyond the caricatures painted by politicians and pundits to discuss the real-world implications of their work. And congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) joins to talk about advocating for science in Washington.

[Note: Senator Coburn and Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), head of the House Science Committee, were unable to participate]

Scientists Speak Out About Attacks on Science

Ryan Rykaczewski describes one of the most massive migrations on the planet, driven by the sun. Image by Tintinnidguy (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

#ExplainTheSun  - The Largest Migration on The Planet

Once, there was the ordinary incandescent light bulb. It shone brightly, but wasted much of the energy put into it as heat. Then came the compact fluorescent. And as costs have dropped, consumers have increasingly been switching to light-emitting diode (LED) technology for many lighting applications, in an ongoing search for a more efficient bulb. Now, in work published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, researchers report that nanophotonic devices may be able to breathe new life into old incandescent technology. Marin Soljačić and Ognjen Ilic, two authors of the study, explain how they’ve been able to “recycle” some of the incandescent bulb’s wasted heat and re-emit it as visible light, boosting efficiency.

For the Lowly Incandescent Bulb, a Ray of Hope

Science, technology, and other cool stuff from public radio's Science Friday. It's brain fun, for curious people. From WNYC Studios.

Scientists Speak Out About Attacks on Science

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