What’s happening?

I’m going to post my opinions, reviews and reflections on the science happenings in the Pacific NorthWest and especially the Seattle area here.

There will be two parts to that (at least — we’ll figure it out as we go along).

If I hear about some cool research, I’ll blog about that and why it’s cool. That’s routine and obvious.

But I’m also going to try to attend, as time and finances permit, any local science and engineering related events that are geared to the general public. I will post announcements about these events here, and I will write reviews afterwards.

It’s an interesting experiment in its own right, and I’m a bit concerned going in. Many of the lectures, lab tours or panel discussions that are open to the public, especially if they are free, have a high-variance quality. What I mean is that sometimes, even if the researcher who is doing the event is a great scientist, she could be a less than great public speaker. I wouldn’t want to discourage anybody in any scientific field from talking to the public. And in fact, I’m hoping to promote public interest in science here. But if I recommend something, and people go and die of boredom, public scientific literacy will not thereby be furthered. So we’ll see. My hope is that the experiment will demonstrate the existence of a great variety of fascinating and educational events that anybody with a curious mind would find simply awesome. And then maybe, if I can dream, it will generate more demand for public events, and therefore a more steady and higher-quality supply of them.

Best of luck to all of us!