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Dear All,
 
The first London PUS Seminar of 2016 will be taking place at 4.15pm on Wednesday 27th January 2016, in room QUE3 28/29 at LSE.  We will be pleased to welcome Elizabeth Jones (UCL), who is working on celebrity science and ancient DNA.  Her abstract is below.
 
Subsequent seminars will take place on 24th February, 23rd March and 25th May 2016.  In February, Professor Martin Bauer will speak about his new book “Atoms, Bytes and Genes – public resistance and techno-scientific responses”. 
 
Looking forward to seeing you in 2016
 
Jane Gregory
Martin Bauer
Simon Lock
Melanie Smallman
 
 
27 January 2016, 4.15pm, Room QUE 3 28/29 LSE
 
Elizabeth Dobson Jones, UCL: Celebrity Science -How Does Ancient DNA Research Inform Science Communication?
 
In this talk, I argue that the history of ancient DNA research is a history of celebrity science. The search for DNA from fossils has a short but sensational history. It started in the 1980s and evolved over the last thirty years from an exploratory to an established scientific and technological practice. However, I argue that ancient DNA research has developed under the influence of intense public interest and extreme media exposure as it coincided with and was accelerated by the book and movie Jurassic Park. I argue that attention from the popular press has actually affected the development and direction of the science. Much media has focused on our fascination with the resurrection of ancient and extinct creatures from dinosaurs to mammoths. In the case of ancient DNA research, a subject that frequently finds itself and its specialists at the intersection of celebrity and science, I suggest this has important implications for understanding both the process of science and science communication.
 
I argue that ancient DNA research – as a celebrity science – can be understood as a trading zone. As a trading zone, ancient DNA research showcases the process of science and science communication in a world of modern media. I suggest that this trading zone includes interactions among researchers from disparate disciplines. For example, in the early years archeologists, paleontologists, and molecular biologists engaged in the stimulating but challenging founding of an innovative and speculative field. However, I also suggest that this trading zone includes intersections with media. From the start, ancient DNA research was a science in the spotlight, and researchers and reporters created a dynamic dialogue as a consequence. Here, I show evidence for the role of news value in science and media and how they conflict or coincide in the development of a discipline into a celebrity science. Ancient DNA research is an example of a trading zone where science and science communication exist and evolve into one another.
 
Through original and personal interviews with over fifty scientists who work in and around the field, I use oral history to reveal the intricate relationship between science and the popular press. I show how it both helps and hinders the advance of a particular science, , and most importantly, how the rise of celebrity culture has influenced – and will continue to influence – the process of science and science communication. Overall, this talk attempts to engage my work in the history of science with literature in sociology of science and science communication studies. It is an attempt to explain the making of a celebrity science and its implications for science communication.