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Storytelling: the importance of truth and a good ending
Last night I watched a film called The Factory, which was released on DVD in 2013, fully five years after the completion of filming and following a very limited theatrical release in late 2012. The film fits squarely into the crime-thriller genre and supposedly is “based on actual events.” Without giving too much away, it involves a cop (played by the highly watchable John Cusack) who, together with his sidekick, is trying to track down a serial kidnapper and killer of prostitutes. Dallas Roberts provides a suitably unsettling portrayal of the killer who, it turns out, is intent on making babies with his victims. Despite the grim nature of its…
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The Public Communication of Science and Technology
The premiere conference for science communicators is the biennial PCST Conference, which this year was held in Dunedin, New Zealand, from 3 – 6 April. The initials PCST stand for “Public Communication of Science and Technology.” Ironically, however, the public is typically excluded from the PCST Conference events, which are aimed at researchers and practitioners in the field of science communication. This time, we decided to do something different and have the address by one of our keynote speakers – Dr Jennifer Wiseman, chief scientist for NASA’s Hubble Telescope – open to the public. We held the event in Dunedin’s glorious Regent Theatre and there were nearly 1,000 people in…
