June 2011

My impression of the first and only Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) conference I’ve attended (Malmö in 2008) was quite mixed. The academic quality wasn’t particularly high, there were pretty few theoretically interesting talks, not much surprising stuff, almost no nerds around, no sudden bursts of creativity — and new media were (with few exceptions 🙂 totally absent. The whole thing was smoothly organised but there was an aura of a public and business management hanging over the conference venue. I think these biannual meetings are a major hang-out for science communication managers.

But things can change for the better. And even better if researchers and curators from science, technology and medical museums were to attend (there was almost none in 2008). The next meeting will be held in Firenze in April 2012, and the programme will include themes such as:

• What does quality mean in science communication?
• Evaluating public communication of science
• Art and/in science communication
• Ethics and aesthetics of science communication
• Reflexive challenges: communicating PCST?
• Emerging trends and issues in science communication
• Changing media, changing formats, changing science communication models?
• Public communication of technology: the ‘Cinderella’ of PCST?

In other words, a lot of themes that are central to curators and researchers in museums of science, technology and medicine. Deadline for proposals is 30 September. More here http://www.pcst2012.org.

There has been some noise around the new medical Twitter Journal Club in the last couple of days.

This specific virtual journal club (via #TwitJC) is a Twitter-based chat forum for doctors, medical students and others who are interested in research and clinical practice.

In spite of the recent noise about it, it’s not the first one. I fell over a blog post claiming that the first medical journal club on Twitter (or any specialty) was launched back in 2008. And there has been journal club chat rooms on other platforms, e.g., one through the The Stack Exchange Network and the Science and Society Journal Club organised by the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP). There may have been several others (historians of contemporary social media: please fill in the details!)

In retrospect it’s astonishing that so few have found out to use Twitter as a virtual journal club medium. You miss the tea and cakes, of course (which is part of the charm of the traditional journal club), but on the other hand Twitter very efficiently forces participants to shut up after 140 keystrokes. Not a bad idea at all.

A very special artefact from Medical Museion’s collections in on display in a new exhibition at the Copenhagen Post and Tele Museum, celebrating the centennial of the Danish Association for the Blind.

The insect compund eye looking thing is actually a Braille version of the writing ball patented by Rasmus Malling-Hansen in 1870.

Selling well in Europe (Remington was the favourite typewriting machine in the US), it received prizes at a number of international exhibitions, including the World Exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878.

The most famous owner of a Malling-Hansen writing ball was in fact Friedrich Nietzsche, who got one in 1882, but apparently didn’t use it much. (More about the writing ball on the Malling-Hansen Society website.)

Malling-Hansen’s Braille writing ball is part of a collection of more than 4,500 material artefacts (and a number of braille-typed books) associated with the history of blind therapy and training that was acquired by Medical Museion last year when the Danish Museum of Blind History, one of the largest of its kind, was closed down.

One of our conservators, Charlotte Vikkelsø Hansen, has cleaned the writing ball thoroughly before sending it over to our colleagues in the Post and Tele Museum:

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The physical writing ball can be seen here from 8 June until 30 November.

(See also the earlier post about Jan Eric Olséns research project ‘Vision and Touch: A Material History of the World of Blindness’).

The Nordic Research Network for Medical History (in which we play a minor role) is organising a workshop on ‘Categories and Concepts in Health, Medicine and Society’ to take place in Umeå in northern Sweden, 15–17 March 2012 (very chilly place at that time of year, but also a charming academic town with birchs tree all over and lots of sun and snow).

The workshop takes its point of departure in the fact that health and disease concepts and categories are ubiquitious, both in everyday life and in science. The organisers (Per Axelsson, Umeå, and Signild Vallgårda, Copenhagen) want to discuss different types of concepts and categories, the role of categories, and different theoretical approaches to the study of concepts and categories in medicine and health policy. For example, change and continuity in social categories in epidemiological research; comparisons of the uses of race and ethnicity classifications in different countries; inclusion/exclusion of populations; the evolution of new concepts and categories; effects on health policy of categories used; and how categories are shaped and how they shape those categorised. They have invited Eviatar Zerubavel, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University to give a keynote speech.

The network grant will cover accommodation and conference fees (but not travel expenses). So send a <500 words abstract and a short CV to Per Axelsson (per.axelsson@cesam.umu.se) before 15 September. More info from Per Axelsson in Umeå (per.axelsson@cesam.umu.se) or Signild Vallgårda here in Copenhagen (siva@sund.ku.dk).

Many museums struggle with how to integrate Facebook (and other social media) in their collections, exhibitions and physical venues.

Therefore it was interesting to read Benjamin Thompson’s report from a Eureka Live event, ‘Facebook: bad for friendship?’, held at the Wellcome Collection in London, some time ago.

One of the discussion topics was whether you can have too many friends on FB. Spreading yourself ‘too thin’ means you can’t invest as much time into each ‘friend’.

Agree! And, by the way, what does the word ‘friend’ really mean? Frankly I just hate the word ‘friend’ in this context. Facebook is actually more an ‘acquaintancebook’ than a ‘friendbook’. And when people have more than 150-200 ‘friends’ (Dunbar’s number), these aren’t even ‘acquaintances’ anymore, they’re reduced to fans. In fact, institutions, including museums, mainly use FB as a broadcasting platform.

Accordingly, there seems to be a trend that people are purging their Facebook accounts, leaving only close real friends and family, using Twitter instead for the broadcasting of their thoughts. Maybe that’s why our museum recently has put more emphasis on being present on Twitter?

So whereas Facebook is about branding and broadcasting under the disguise of ‘friend-making’, Twitter is a least honest — it’s openly broadcasting, period.

Our colleagues over at the fabulous rete list are just now busy recommending the Museum of Technology
in Hemel Hempstead in northern London. It doesn’t have regular opening hours; one has to make an appointment. Writes Tony Constable:

If you can manage a short trip north of London to Hemel Hempstead there is the excellent Museum of Technology on the old village High Street there. The instruments are very well looked after and well displayed – and there are some good demonstrations. It is run by Trevor Cass and Rosemary Hourihane. Telephone to make an appointment.

And Brian Styles seconds:

Their collection is astonishing and remarkable for the condition of the exhibits and the standard of display. In a modest space, there’s a vast range of items, many of them really scarce. And it’s wonderful to see some things working. I didn’t think I’d ever see a WWI spark transmitter in action, for instance! Exhibits are labelled with just the right amount of detail and, of course, the curators are well-versed in all that’s there. Many a professional operation would do well to pay them a visit …

According to the website, they have an awesome collection of medical instruments too — not all of which seems to be on display though.

We’ve just produced this simple piece of genomic jewellery — a necklace made by a gene chip in a thin silver chain (see larger image below).

This particular gene chip (BeadChip) is produced by the San Diego-based company Illumina, which develops and manufactures platforms for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function for the rapidly growing sequencing, genotyping and gene expression markets.

First, here’s some technical description of the Illumina BeadChip (based on what our senior curator Daniel Noesgaard has found out):

A BeadChip is a ~30 x100 mm silica slide containing twenty-four arrays, each allowing for genotyping of a single biological sample. Each array contains a very large number of microscopic microwells etched into the surface of the slide. The microwells (<3 micrometer in diameter, 3 micrometer deep) are uniformly spaced across the silica surface, i.e., each array contains more than 0.5 million about microwells. The microwells are filled with tiny silica beads (one type per well) held to the wells by non-covalent forces. Each bead is covered with hundreds of thousands of copies of a known short nucleotide sequence (50 nucleotides long). In addition, each bead also contains an address sequence that allows for decoding, once beads have been randomly distributed across the chip wells. The design allows for 3,000 to 90,000 bead types, each of which represents one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) to be analysed.

The assay is based on genomic DNA that is extracted from blood samples. The DNA is amplified, fragmented, precipitated and resuspended before being loaded onto the BeadChip for hybridization with the short nucleotide sequences on the beads. After hybridization, the chip is washed to remove unhybridized or non-specifically bound DNA. Then fluorescently labeled nucleotides are added to extend the hybridized DNA that thus act as primers. Finally, the chip is coated for protection against photo bleaching. Following coating, the chip must be scanned immediately. If necessary, the chip can be stored for up to 72 hours in a dark vacuum with minimal signal loss.

The necklace has so far been produced in one copy only — made as a gift for Bodil Busk Laursen at the occasion of her retirement as Director of the Design Museum Denmark last week.

It was our senior curator Bente Vinge Pedersen who suggested we could use one of the chips left over from the ‘Genomic Enlightenment’ art installation earlier in the spring:

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(see also the video from the installation work here; more about the ‘Genomic Enlightenment’ installation in a later post).

Senior curator Niels Christian Vilstrup-Møller and conservator Nanna Gerdes did the craft work and the necklace was handed over to Bodil Busk Laursen at a reception last Monday.

And here’s a larger image of the piece:

Just a reminder of the Artefacts meeting on ‘Conceptualizing, Collecting and Presenting Recent Science and Technology’, 25-27 September, 2011, in the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden. The central question is what intellectual and practical approaches should be developed to document, preserve and present the history of recent science and technology? Deadline for proposals is 1 July — read more here.