When looking through Yahoo news stories, one really caught
my attention: “Tiny Human Stomachs Grown in Lab.” This title just had to be a complete over
exaggeration of the findings. However,
after reading through the article written by Laura Geggel, it became clear that
this title is basically what scientists have reported in Nature. The article is long enough to provide details
regarding how scientists completed the research and why it matters. Additionally, the author uses quotes from
scientists both working on the project and those who are experts in the field
but unrelated to the work reported. This
provided clear explanations that anyone with a basic understanding of the human
digestive system could understand. While
it is clear that this research is very complex, it was well explained for a
public audience.
When comparing the Yahoo article to the published manuscript
“Modelling human development and disease in pluripotent stem-cell-derivedgastric organoids” in Nature (McCracken et al., 2014), it became clear that the
Yahoo article really did a great job at taking extremely complex and detailed
science, and converted it to a form that the public could understand. While the manuscript goes into great detail
on the genes being expressed in certain cell types at certain times of
development, the news article didn’t mention a single gene but rather
referenced the overall outcome of the project and the future direction of the
work. This allowed proper communication
of the science to the public in a way that was easily understood. Overall, this is a great example of science
being reported accurately and clearly.
-Laura
I really liked that you were able to find a good example of the media doing a good job of accurately reporting science. It is nice to be able to have some good examples of how to translate complex topics into understandable topics for the public. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a non-science based website like Yahoo did such a good job. The title seemed a little bit like click bait, but the story itself went into a good amount of accurate detail on the research.
ReplyDelete-Jocelyn Cuthbert (sorry! forgot to sign out of the blog)
DeleteI was struggling to translate the research work into a common language which the public can fully understand. Sometimes I don't know how to interpret techniques or terms without mention of other more terms. I feel if I don't mention those terms or names of genes, my explanations lack of veracity. However, if do mention the terms, it just confuses the audiences. It is hard to find the balance to do this. -Harry
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