An Exploration of #SHOUTYSCICOMM
By Brandon Hoeckel
While perusing the vast cosmos that is Twitter, I came across a peculiar hashtag that opened up a world of scientific facts of which I was previously unaware. I discovered a hashtag called #SHOUTYSCICOMM. This hashtag is used by professionals in the science field — mainly those who specialize in wildlife fields — where they post “caps-locked” scientific facts related to their field of study, as if they are shouting.
Up until this point I have had a difficult time finding scientists engaging with Twitter in interesting ways, except through articles tweeted from New York Times or National Geographic. When I read through those articles, a professional, beautifully worded narrative is portrayed by the authors. This works to communicate scientific information in a professional, easy-to-read, and visual appealing way.
Published articles, although they do convey scientific ideas with more accessible language, still fail to completely close the communication hole between the public and the scientists. I believe this is largely due to people going through journalists to consume this scientific data. I do not intend to say that journalists are a problem that need to be overcome; they are more suited to communicate complex ideas in a fashion that is understandable to the everyday person. This type of middleman communication appears to make scientists seem distant and far away.
The hashtag came to my attention while scrolling through Twitter searching for compelling stories to relay to readers. Instead I found a single tweet by Kathy Zeller with a short clip depicting two bear cups laying their heads on a mossy log. Above the adorable fuzz balls, a caption announced,
“BEARS HAVE DELAYED IMPLANTATION! THAT MEANS THEY MATE IN EARLY SUMMER, BUT THE EGGS DON’T IMPLANT UNTIL FALL, AND ONLY IF THE FEMALE WEIGHTS ENOUGH TO SURVIVE THE WINTER WITH BABY BEARS IN THE OVEN. SO COOL! #shoutyscicomm.”
The bears were cute, and I was intrigued by the caps locked text, so, I investigated Kathy. She is a biologist and landscape ecologist with a PhD from UMASS Amherst. The fact that bears can delay gestation was not the most exciting thing about this tweet. I was ecstatic to find a scientist that is tweeting passionately to the world about their field of study. Hoping to find more of the same, I clicked the hashtag.
The result was hundreds of similar “all caps” tweets from scientists around the world, each tweeting about their field of study and commenting on others’s tweets. I felt like I found the treasure trove of humanized scientists. I say “humanized,” because they were tweeting as themselves, not as a credible source in a New Yorker article. When scientists like Ross Barnett, an evolutionary biologist from the United Kingdom, are posting things like:
“IT SUCKS NOT HAVING MAMMOTHS AND SABRETOOTHS AND GIANT SLOTHS AND ITS BECAUSE WE KILLED ALL THOSE FUCKERS WITH NOTHING BUT STONE AND FIRE #SHOUTYSCICOMM,”
it is a lot less intimidating to engage with the science community.
Susan Cosier, by contrast, published a polished, visually complex article with the Audubon Society. The article discusses a conservation effort to help save southern birds by reintroducing a native snake that eats other snakes. Researchers learned that the indigo snake, which is functionally extinct, could be a turning point in bird conservation — if it can survive. Many colorful and compelling photos are included in the article. While Cosier’s article was informative and pleasing, it didn’t achieve the same effect as the loud, fast-paced explosion of information that #SHOUTYSCICOMM tweets do. For example Jason Ward a scientist studying birds with the very same Audubon Society tweeted
“WOODPECKERS HAVE THICK, SPONGY SKULLS THAT ABSORB IMPACT, A MODIFIED HYOID BONE THAT WRAPS AROUND THE SKULL LIKE A HARNESS, & A THIRD EYELID THAT PROTECTS THEIR EYES. ALL WHICH IS NEEDED WHEN YOU BANG YOUR HEAD INTO TREES AT 15MPH, 10,000 A DAY. #SHOUTYSCICOMM”
There are thousands of scientists on Twitter. Some are out in the open, portraying themselves as the polished image brought to us by scientific publications. But there are also those wonderful scientists that choose to interact directly with the public. All you have to do is look in the right places. Many scientists are excited to answer questions, while a select few will be tweeting about sonar jamming moth genitals like Dave Hemprich-Bennet in this tweet:
“BATS SCREAM AT THEIR FOOD TO BE ABLE TO FIND IT AND SO SOME MOTHS HAVE EVOLVED SONAR-JAMMING GENITALS TO MESS WITH THE #BATS SCREAMS #SHOUTYSCICOMM.”
With the discovery of this Hashtag, I finally feel connected to the science community of Twitter.
