By Jeff Miller
What began as an untested idea in which scientists at Berkeley Lab defined scientific terms in lay language – with the help of a pocket-sized video camera – has become a runaway success on Berkeley Lab’s main webpage.
Since debuting in late April, the current list of 38 videos — shot by Public Affairs’ science writers — has been downloaded nearly 110,000 times.
Given the Lab’s primacy in energy sciences, energy efficiency and cosmology, early guesses were that topics such as dark energy and green computing would race from the pack. While it is true that the term supernova, defined by Greg Aldering has done particularly well with nearly 11,000 downloads, the early leader and reigning champion is Dylan Chivian, whose definition of extremophiles has been selected more than 11,300 times.
“I am pleasantly surprised at the success of the entry,” says Chivian. “ I guess many people don’t know what extremophiles are, or if they do, think the description might be interesting.” Chivian also believes that adding the link to his Facebook page and emailing the entry to friends and colleagues helped him get off to a fast start.
In second place at the moment is Susan Celniker’s definition of genomics, which as one of the original 25 entries, has been consistently popular since the video glossary debuted.
The goal, of course, is not a race to be first, but a race to improve science literacy and introduce Berkeley Lab scientists to a larger web audience. To that end, new entries are added regularly, many of which have been suggested by readers (send topics here). And as the numbers grow, Public Affairs is laying plans for a promotional campaign to raise the glossary’s visibility nationwide.
Chivian encourages others scientists to take the plunge despite the little glitches in his own session caused by “inadvertent truck noise or my bungling the delivery.” Acknowledging that it’s “tricky to get at the essence of a subject in only 60 seconds,” he believes that “glossaries like this are really cool for getting the next generation of scientists interested in and aware of new fields.”
Indeed, Chivian is ready and willing to take on his next term. Next up: environmental genomics.
Today at Berkeley Lab is produced by Public Affairs' Communications Department
