Further to previous post from first hand experience this is a cultural issue
of such organisation heaven forbid senior male academic and press release
should actually talk - press office are there to serve and quickly
disseminate information following orders - they are unlikely to have any
scientific background whatsoever and will be indoctrinated into seeing it as
unfathomable in order to further glorify status of said male professors and
will therefore badly crib and summarise from abstract, questioning said
academic professor would be absolutely unheard of and likely to result in
dismissal for 'insubordination' - if it wasn't for serious institutional
facility I would be the bosses of some of the people involved as I was as
far I was aware the only member of the institution with a professional
qualification in Science Communication, and THERE IS NO WAY THIS SITUATION
WOULD HAVE ARISEN.
Happy to return but want at least 45k
Many thanks
Alison Cooper
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mary
Sent: 23 July 2010 21:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a
specially giant star
Quite. It's absolutely essential to have the scientists approve the press
release. It would be interesting to know whether that happened in this
case.
And, as Mike says, anyone who just works from a press release and doesn't
read the paper and talk to the scientists for more info isn't doing a proper
job, however good they may think the press officer involved may be.
Mary
Mary Rice
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Kenward
Sent: vendredi 23 juillet 2010 22:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a
specially giant star
So, the science writers were working from dodgy material. Maybe not as
incompetent then as the first message suggested.
Then again, writers should not rely solely on a press release. They should
also read the journal papers and talk to the people involved.
But please do not jump to conclusions about the press officer behind this. A
good PR person will check the story with the people who did the research.
MK
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francisco Diego
Sent: 23 July 2010 12:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a
specially giant star
Dear Laura,
You are right and your views are extremely useful. The press release uses
different words and that becomes confusing. I just noticed the
(misleading) title:
Stars Just Got Bigger . A 300 Solar Mass Star Uncovered
I think the link between massive and amount of mass in solar masses, etc
is clearly stated. However would it have helped to add that massive in
this case did not mean large in size?
I agree. The officer writing the press release was misleading in using
the term monsters.
Millions of times more luminous, brighter, more powerful. A single star
sending out the light equivalent to millions of suns. I see no problem
there.
Oh dear! you are right, the way it reads, implies that the sun loses mass
through winds, while it was referring to the massive star, which has lost
about a fifth of its mass this way (the sun, as a stsr, also has winds,
but negligible in this context).
The release implies that the mass of a star is defined at its birth. What
was missing was a short explanation on how stars form and why they end up
with different masses. This would have put the discovery into context. Do
you agree?
If there are any more comments, please let me know, as this will help in
the future.
Many thanks again
francisco
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010, Laura Goodall wrote:
> Hi
If I may be blunt, but this press release isn't the best that's
been written. I
am not an astrophysicist and the first paragraph of this press release is
confusing (and the first paragraph is sometimes the only paragraph people
read!). Things I noticed:
1) It doesn't directly tell me what 'massive' means in astrophysical
terms but
only hints at it and expects me to make the connection between "massive" and
"weighing" - it could be interpreted as saying that the star is both big
(massive) and heavy.dense (weighing),
2) the word 'monsters' does indicate a size reference (as things tend to be
monsterously big, not monsterously heavy/dense).
3) I don't really understand the bit that says "millions of times more
luminous
than the Sun, losing weight through very powerful winds" - does that mean
that
the Sun is not as heavy/dense because it is always losing weight? How does
that
fit into the story?
I've copied the original text here for reference:
"Using a combination of instruments on ESO˙˙s Very Large Telescope,
astronomers
have discovered the most massive stars to date, one weighing at birth more
than
300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted
limit
of 150 solar masses. The existence of these monsters ˙˙ millions of times
more
luminous than the Sun, losing weight through very powerful winds ˙˙ may
provide
an answer to the question 'how massive can stars be?' "
I would be interested in hearing if I am wrong on this...
Laura
________________________________
From: Francisco Diego <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 22 July, 2010 19:06:30
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a
specially
giant star
It is good that the story was given prominence and that the public
responded.
However, the sources were clear about the relevance of mass in star
formation,
which determines whether the object would be a star or a planet, if a star,
it
would determine its luminosity and whether it will burn for a few million
years
or for hundreds of thousands of millions of years. The point here was that
star
formation at this previously unknown scale now needs further explanation,
like
the idea of stellar merging for example.
The story appears here:
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=81650&CultureCode=en
Some media found more appealing to refer to size, saying the it was the
largest
star ever detected and this is misleading, confusing, distracting from the
main
point and, well, not true, so in this case, is was wrong to say so.
Does understanding the difference between mass and size require a crash
course
in astrophysics?
In any case, it was great that pure, fundamental science made the headlines
and
excited people's imagination.
regards
francisco
On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Michael Kenward wrote:
> And how does this "misleading" information affect the story? Does it mean
> that all those reports are wrong? Or just using different terminology from
> the specialists?
>
> When this happens, it can be because the original sources were themselves
> hard to interpret or poorly explained.
>
> Remember, reporters do not have time or space to include quick crash
courses
> in astrophysics.
>
> MK
>
> __________________________________
> Michael Kenward OBE
> Science Writer & Stuff
> My other computer is a slide rule
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Oli Usher
> Sent: 22 July 2010 15:01
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a
> specially giant star
>
> "Massive" is clearly a problematic word since it doesn't mean the same
> thing to specialists and non-specialists. But what's the alternative?
> Would "heavy" or something like that be better?
>
> Francisco Diego wrote:
>> This discovery has received a lot of media attention, but once again,
>> the information has been presented in a misleading way.
>>
>> I was on Sky News last night about R136b, the most massive and bright
>> star ever discovered, this time by the team led by Paul Crowther (ex
>> UCL). I said that the relevance of this star it its record mass,
>> around 300 solar masses, which makes it the brigthest star on record,
>> 10 million times more powerful than the sun. This discovery is
>> triggering new ideas about the formation of ultra massive stars, which
>> now will consider the possibility of smaller stars merging together,
>> as Paul Crowther proposes. During the interview, I tried to clarify
>> that R136b is not a specially large star, with a diameter only around
>> 40 times bigger than the sun's, while some red supergiant stars have
>> diameters around 2000 times bigger than the sun's. Here the media have
>> been misleading, confusing mass with diameter, even giving examples of
>> how long would a plane take to fly around the star, etc. Perhaps this
>> is a consequence of the way language is used (i.e. massive as 'big,
>> giant', but not as 'large mass, heavy'). Still a great story with wide
>> coverage and lot of public attention on a fundamental science topic.
>>
>> regards
>>
>> francisco
>>
>
>
--
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
*
*
Dr Francisco Diego, FRAS
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
University College London (Observatory) *
553 Watford Way
London, NW7 2QS, UK
Senior Research Fellow * * *
The Mind of the Universe lectures
www.ucl.ac.uk/themindoftheuniverse *
*
email: [log in to unmask] *
(international) | (UK)
|
Fax: +44-20-8906-4161 | 020-8906-4161 *
Mobile: +44-7974-917878 | 07974-917878
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