A lot of science communication in the media can be, to say it gently, not the best. Important things get left out, conclusions are often misrepresented or extrapolated to things that they really don’t say, and methods are often left out completely.

I want to find some more sources for good science communication that people have generally found to be both accurate and well written for folks outside the field (since if all we wanted was accuracy, we’d just read the primary literature).

I’ve always personally been a fan of Quanta. They occasionally write about topics I’m well versed in (materials / crystallography) and I find that on those topics they’re very accurate, so I assume that’s also true about the articles they write in other fields. I also think that the folks writing for them do a good job at the communication aspect, e.g. being willing to cover the basics a bit before jumping into the new science.

What about you all? Do you have a favorite or a go-to for high quality science writing?

  •  wjs018   ( @wjs018@beehaw.org ) 
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    31 year ago

    This might not quite be what you are looking for, but my favorite piece of writing that is science-adjacent is Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!.

    As for current stuff, I work in pharma development, so there aren’t great sources out there. A lot of the studies that are published in places like phys.org or medicalxpress.com (or other wire-like services) pertain to very early stage drug discovery things, not formulation and device development. I tend to keep a tab open to fiercepharma and fiercebiotech for industry news. Other than that, there are a handful of academics that tend to share papers on linkedin or twitter that usually get passed around in the office if people find it interesting.

    •  realChem   ( @realChem@beehaw.org ) OP
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      1 year ago

      Fierce biotech looks pretty interesting! I’m not in the field (although I did a 6mo co-op once for a biotech company), but I’ll definitely be taking a look around the articles there, especially the clinical data section! Thanks for sharing!