5th World Conference of Science Journalists

 Purifying a Poisoned Planet [79:00m]: Download

PRODUCER: Julian Cribb

CHAIR: Brad Collis

SPEAKERS: Jack Ng, Ravi Naidu, Stevan Green

SESSION REPORT: This way to “zero waste”

By Christine Dell ‘Amore

The cocktail of chemicals that are the byproducts of a modernizing world pose an increasing public health burden to people.

Exposure to environmental contaminants such as arsenic, mercury and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), cause a range of health problems, from diabetes to cancer, while degrading Earth’s sensitive ecosystems. There are about 10 million contaminated sites around the world and 100,000 in Australia.

Tackling the problem means first determining a “dose-response”– or how much exposure to a chemical causes an effect, said Jack Ng of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Contamination, Assessment and Remediation of the Environment in Queensland. He was speaking at World Conference of Science Journalists briefing in Melbourne.

The CRC is developing a rapid response biological or chemical test to assess risk to potentially harmful exposure, which can be used real-time in the field.

“This represents a huge opportunity (for an organization such as ours) to develop methodologies to not only better quantify the risk but to remediate — to turn a waste site into a useful site,” Ng said.

For instance, many waste sites can be cleaned up and restored to residential neighborhoods or parkland. In Australia, the responsibility of clean-up is not mandated by government legislation, as in the United States, said Ng, and companies mostly fund clean-up efforts.

Remediation can also be approached through a sustainable prism, for example by reducing industry’s reliance on carbon dioxide, said Stevan Green, CEO of the CRC for Sustainable Resource Processing.

The polluted “red mud” from bauxite mining, for instance, can be neutralized by carbon dioxide from fertilizer. The carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, is then trapped in the less-toxic mud — a win-win situation, said Green.

Still, to really discern the interactions and health impacts of just 25 chemicals, 33 million experiments at $100,000 each would cost 3 trillion dollars — a staggering challenge for toxicologists, Ng said.

 Wise up - The truth about TV science [85:35m]: Download

PRODUCER: Sonya Pemberton

CHAIR: Graham Phillips

SPEAKERS: Peter Rees, Catherine Marciniak, Nalaka Gunawardene, Sonya Pemberton

SESSION REPORT: Lights, Camera, Explosion!

By Daniela Abusqueda

“Are TV science shows really science journalism?” asked Graham Phillips, chair of this session.

Peter Rees, the creator of the famous TV show “Mythbusters”, said the show’s success lies in the fact that it never mentions the word “science”, although it contains a lot of it. He said the BBC considers the show a science program and added that every experiment in the show is based on peer-reviewed articles.

Catherine Marciniak, producer of “Life at 1”, explains how her show chose 11 children and their families who agreed to let the cameras enter in their houses for seven years “to put their life under the microscope.” She defined the program as an observational documentary that mixes interviews and experiments, and includes stories where science comes before talent.

Sonya Pemberton, executive producer of a new show called “Crude” that will be on air on May 24th, presented parts of the new program. The documentary includes digital reconstruction of ancient environments, extinct species and images of the modern world while a voice tells the story of oil and the carbon circle.

She said that the show’s main character is the carbon molecule and it targets people who want to understand global warming and the green house effect.

Finally, Nalaka Gunawardene, producer of TVE Asia Pacific from Sri Lanka, explained how the broadcasting model is different in developing countries. Now the challenge is to pack science, not in a lineal format — like the traditional documentary style — but in a way that can attract people under 30 — the digital natives — he called them.

 A peer review of peer review [85:35m]: Download

PRODUCER: Julie Egan

CHAIR: Jim Handman

SPEAKERS: Phil Campbell, Warwick Anderson, John Rennie

PANELLIST: Carol Nader

SESSION REPORT: Ask, then ask again

By Robert Frederick

“Who here, by show of hands, does not trust peer review?” John Rennie, editor in chief of Scientific American, asked that question of a hundred delegates in this session. No one raised a hand, but more than a few hands fluttered in uncertainty.

Peer review is the process though which editors screen papers and granting agencies select projects. Typically, this process involves getting several experts to evaluate the author’s work or proposal. But the process relies on trust and the author’s honesty, and many publications have been hoodwinked.

“Peer review definitely enhances the reliability of what appears, at least in the journals that I’m familiar with,” said Philip Campbell, Nature’s editor in chief. But “anything you see [in any journal]… is provisional.”

Warwick Anderson, former research scientists and current CEO of Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, echoed that sentiment. “I think [peer review] just shows all the normal failings of something that involves human beings.”

While extolled as the gold standard, speakers at the A peer review of peer review session also lambasted peer review as a gauntlet for researchers, a burden for scientists, and a crutch for journalists. But whether an article had been peer reviewed before publication, each speaker said true peer review begins with publication. That’s when other scientists repeat the experiment or attempt to build on the result.

Speaking after the session, delegate and AAAS’s Senior Communications Officer Earl Lane said journalists should view journal articles and his organization’s EurekAlert! service as “A starting point for a story. I don’t think we would portray it as anything more than that.”

In summarizing advice to journalists, panelist Jim Handman, CBC’s senior producer of Quirks and Quarks, said even after a work has been peer reviewed, journalists should keep asking that all-important question, ‘How do they know that?’

 Investigating scientific fraud [93:33m]: Download

PRODUCER: Elizabeth Finkel

CHAIR: Norman Swan

PANEL: Kim Hee Won, Jia Hepeng, Warwick Anderson, Phil Campbell, Phil Vardy

SESSION REPORT: Exposing the ugly

By Karen Dente

Ever since last year’s scandal surrounding Korea’s cloning researcher Hwang Woo Suk gained worldwide media attention, the issue of scientific fraud exposure seems to have taken on some momentum of its own.

Australia is not proud to have a history riddled with scientists tampering with their data to further their careers.

One such example was the famous McBride case that was uncovered in the eighties by investigative journalist Normal Swan, who vows never to pursue another case of scientific fraud. Dr. William McBride achieved notoriety in the 1960s by pointing out the link between pregnant women taking the drug thalidomide and limb deformities in their children.

Biologist Phil Vardy, who unearthed the manipulated data after “receiving the bullet” by Swan and who was working at the Foundation 41 Birth Defects Research Institute in Sydney headed by McBride, gave three points of warning to whistleblowers when pursuing a case of fraud.

He emphasized the importance of securing primary evidence, of confronting the fraudster before he should have time to mount a defense, and to focus on a few points only. He believes not confronting a fraudster when sure of having a case to be worst fraud of all.

When dealing with scientific fraud “we need much tougher laws” said Professor Warwick Anderson, who heads the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia. He is currently actively involved in trying to bring scientific fraud under the criminal code, a task that is being complicated by regulations under the Australian Constitution. Fortunately, many institutes in Australia and elsewhere around the globe now have whistleblower laws to deal directly with fraud when it emerges, he explained.

“In China, research institutions are less likely to confront fraud by their scientists,” explained Jia Hepeng, panelist and Chinese freelance journalist who writes for Science. This leaves all the more responsibility for the uncovering of fraud to the journalists, a role he seems content to fill.