Dear Café Scientifiquers,
Our next café will happen next Tuesday April 24th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Rosie Redfield, the biologist from UBC who was recently named one of the “Ten People Who Mattered” in 2011 by Nature magazine. (http://www.nature.com/news/365-days-nature-s-10-1.9678 ).
The title and abstract for her café is:
#arseniclife and Open Science
The #arseniclife story started with a bang in late 2010, when NASA proudly announced the discovery that some bacteria could synthesize their DNA with arsenic in the backbone in place of phosphorus. But within a few days it all fell apart, as scientists used blogs and Twitter to conduct impromptu ‘post-publication peer review’. (‘#arseniclife’ is the Twitter hashtag used to identify relevant tweets.) Working with collaborators at Princeton, my lab has now shown that the key results cannot be replicated. This debacle has implications for many aspects of science, from how personal biases and funding sources affect scientific judgment to the increasing roles of social media in both the practice and public communication of science.
We hope to see you there!
– Your Cafe Sci Vancouver Organizers