From web to paper – The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs. Here is how it all started

Published by the Institute of Ideas: What is science education for?

The advocates of the new thinking in science education put great store by their emphasis on science education for the citizen, otherwise known as ‘scientific literacy’. But will turning off the Bunsen Burners and forcing students to focus on scientific issues and controversies encourage budding scientists, or put them off even more? In this provocative essay David Perks, head of physics at a London state secondary school, argues that attempts to make school science more popular by making it more ‘relevant’ are giving today’s students a watered-down science education that will not produce the scientists we need.

After the conference, now the book containing a series of 40 articles written by the speakers.

Discovery magazine presents the “25 Greatest Science Books of All-Time” on its December issue, “the essential reading list for anyone interested in science”. But you are envited to cast cast your vote until December 15 on the “Poll: What’s the Greatest Science Book of All-Time?”.

The Science Museum, London, and the Sun newspaper have published a book “presenting the greatest developments in the history of science”: Giant Leaps.

The right hand pages are written in the style of a sensational Sun front-page scoop, whilst the left hand pages give a more serious but nonetheless accessible account of the key event.

The book, by Lars Lindberg Christensen, The Hands-On Guide for Science Communicators: A Step-by-Step Approach to Public Outreach will soon be available.

Worth reading – “Every 52 seconds”: wrong by 23,736 percent?

A must read, from Vincent Kiernan, in Inside HigherEd: The Embargo Should Go. By the way, Kiernan has just published his new book Embargoed Science.

The Stevens Institute of Technology is compilling the 100 greatest science books published since 1900. The first 30 have already been chosen.

From New Scientist: Bernard Haisch, an astrophysicist, has writen the book “The God Theory”, which is “his attempt to reconcile his scientific knowledge with the idea of a purposeful universe”.

The Royal Society’s Aventis Prizes for Science Books “are an annual book prize, which celebrate the very best in popular science writing for adults and children”.

A Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, report: Science and the public interest

Published by VU University Press and Da Vinci Institute: Science and the power of TV.

Published by Columbia University Press, The Beginner’s Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize by Peter Doherty.

“American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (Alfred A. Knopf), a biography of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, won a Pulitzer Prize.

The Wellcome Library collates a monthly round-up of books, reports and articles . Topics covered include:
* Science in society
* Public attitudes and participation
* Science and art
* Science and religion
* Science and the media
* Science communication
* Science education
* Science museums and science centres

Previous months can be browsed or searched in the bibliographic database.

The latest bibliography is now available.

A ‘what not to do‘ guide to science communication events

Science Communication Events in Europe [p1-31 pdf]
The BA

SCIENCE AND PUBLIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jan 2005
[Wellcome Trust]

Here’s a recent French book on science communication: La publicisation de la science : Exposer, communiquer, débattre, publier, vulgariser.