"Salad with gamma rays": a popular science article

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When I started my job as Coordinator of Communication of Science at the Nuclear Sciences Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), I was asked to write about the irradiator, which is located inside the Institute. Outside the institute, very few people knew that it housed this machine, which works with radioactive material, and which is used for pacific purposes.

The person who runs the area where the machine is located, Dr. Epifanio Cruz, is an expert on radiological security and management of radioactive material. However, he had never been interested in communicating his work.

The scientific articles about the irradiator are extremely technical, and impossible to understand for somebody who is not a physicist or a chemist. Hence, in order to write about the subject I carried out long interviews with Dr. Cruz, whom I asked to tell me about the uses of the machine and all the stories related to his work he could think of. That's how I learned that the irradiator was not only used to sterilize food for human consumption, and to sanitize material for medical use, but also to rid musical instruments of plagues.

Cobalt-60 in the irradiator of the Nuclear Sciences Institute

The story that Epifanio told me was that of a famous Russian violinist in Mexico, whose instrument had a termite plague. The musician's violin was as expensive as a house. Any chemical applied directly to the instrument could damage the sound forever. Dr. Cruz calculated the necessary dose of gamma rays, emitted by the radioactive Cobalt-60 which makes the machine work, so that the violin would be rid of the termites. 

After the irradiation session, the violin was indeed rid of the plague, without any damage to its sound. As a present to thank Dr. Cruz for his help, the violinist gave him two tickets to hear him play the irradiated violin in a concert hall.

 Based on this story, I decided to write the popular science article entitled "Salad with gamma rays", which talks about all the uses of the irradiator, such as disinfecting make-up or preserving the food astronauts eat in space. I wrote the article together with my student David Venegas, since it is very important to me to teach young, interested people to communicate science. The article was published in the popular science magazine ¿Cómo ves?, published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and distributed throughout the country.

This article won the first prize of the First National Scientific Journalism and Communication of Science Contest, run by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), a government agency in charge of financing most science projects in Mexico; this contest is the most important of its kind in the country. The article (in Spanish) can be consulted in this link: Salad with gamma rays.

To complement the work of this article, my team and I created a small pamphlet, which is handed out to all the visitors to the irradiator.

I also published an article with the same subject in Publimetro, a free newspaper which is distributed in Mexico City and has the widest circulation of any newspaper in the city.

As a result of this effort, the story of the irradiator has appeared widely in a number of newspapers, TV shows and radio shows. For instance, the mexican journalist Guillermo Cárdenas reproduced the story in the El Universal newspaper, and I was invited to appear on a radio show with a well-known radio presenter.

I usually take this case as an example of how a good anecdote can be used to relate a very technical subject to the context of the general audience. In this way, the use of literary tools in communication of science can be powerful and effective.

Communication of Science Day: Extreme Explorers of the Universe

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On the 7th of March 2013, in the Nuclear Sciences Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, we organized a communication of science event called "Communication of Science Day: Extreme Explorers of the Universe". The idea of this event was to discuss with the general public, in particular high school students, the latest research in subjects related to the nuclear sciences, such as particle physics, quantum computing, nanotechnology, astrophysics, astrobiology, etc.

The name of the event is related to the idea that many of the scientists who work on experimental projects travel to distant and often very extreme locations to do research on subjects such as cosmic rays and particle physics. Moreover, modern physicists research on the most extreme conditions of the Universe, such as the smallest elementary particles or the biggest cosmic events, such as the collision of two black holes. Hence, we decided to create a poster which portrays scientists as extreme explorers, such as the following.

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The main part of the event consisted in a series of popular talks, about subjects such as cosmic rays, the study of astrophysics and cryptography. The talks were given by scientists who were previously trained to give talks that are attractive and understandable for young people. In the next image, we see Dr. Alfred U'Ren talking about Quantum Cryptography.

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Apart from the conventional talks, we also organized a series of "platonic discussions" in an informal environment outdoors, in which scientists and the public could discuss a subject related to science. In the following pictures we see Dr. Guy Paic, one of the pioneers of the LHC project, discussing all the things that could go wrong in an experiment of such magnitude. 

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The main talk of the event was given by Professor Miguel Alcubierre, the Director of the Institute. The talk was based on the commentary of the episode "Falling" of the series "Wonders of the Universe" , which is hosted by Professor Brian Cox. Professor Alcubierre is well known for proposing the Alcubierre warp drive. He is one of the most famous scientists in Mexico, and often appears on television talking about his work. He is often portrayed as an extreme explorer, as can be seen in the picture below. For example, he appeared on a TV show called "The electric sheep", where he talked about his warp drive theory, and about how he got inspired by the Star Trek series for his science.

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Young people were excited to talk to Professor Alcubierre, and we encouraged a two-hour discussion on gravitation and relativity.

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During the day, we also had several workshops for the children who attended the event. One of them consisted of creating paper models of Mexican scientists. The only scientist that most people in Mexico have heard of is Albert Einstein; hence, we wanted children to know that there are Mexican scientists such as Miguel Alcubierre who are doing important research.

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Since the Mexican researcher Dr. Rafael Navarro is one of the participants in the Curiosity Mission, which is looking for organic matter on Mars, we decided to create a workshop in which children constructed their own paper model of a Mars rover, to be used in a race to see who could find the first traces of organic matter in a Martian landscape.

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The explanation of the science of Curiosity was given by Dr. Rafael Navarro's undergraduate students, who were showing the attendants a paper model of Curiosity, and a paper model of Dr. Navarro. The idea to have the students talk to the public is to make young people feel more at ease than when they are talking to an older scientist.

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During lunch time, a barbecue was organized in which scientists sat down with young people to chat in an informal environment about their experiences in science. 

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This event lasted a whole day, and attracted about a thousand visitors. Many of the students who attended returned to the institute to become volunteers to start doing scientific research.