image: ©22 AusTRAlIAN QuARTeRlY OCT–DEC 2017iMAGE: © Tano D'ere-FlickrThe Big
Science
Awards
the aQ editor Pick for Most
exciting news of 2017:The creation of ‘Liquid Light’ at room
temperature – the 5th state of matter- written up by our very own Andrew
Stapleton for ScienceAlert
http://www.sciencealert.com/
fifth-state-of-matter-liquid-light
Also keep your eyes on the 27th annual ig
nobel Awards for science ‘achievements
that first make people laugh, and then
make them think.’ Sept 14th 2017.
http://www.improbable.comAnd then the big guns with the nobel
Prizes starting on the 2nd Oct
https://www.nobelprize.org/A bunch of people you’ve
never met.
We’ve heard from the experts, so
what do the general public have to say
on all things science?
I used an online comparison tool to
look at all the biggest science stories
from 2017 and ranked them in order of
shares on social media.
There’s some good news and there’s
some bad news...
Ranking at
number one, with
a total of 925 K
shares across
twitter, Facebook
and linkedIn is a
study about bald
men, conducted by
a bald man.
Scientist Albert E.
Mannes conducted
a study with 59
subjects to find
out how people
reacted to men
with shaved heads by showing them a
series of pictures.
The study involved showing eachphoto to the participants twice, once
of a man with a full head of hair and
once of the same man with his hair
shaved off. The subjects reported that
they thought the bald men were more
dominant, bigger and stronger.
There was an interesting caveat
to this conclusion: The men had to
be completely bald. Bald patches or
pattern baldness was seen as less
attractive and weaker.
After a moment of despair upon
realising that
the top science
news item was a
study that a bald
man conducted
to make himself
feel better, there
was a glimmer of
hope – like the
sun reflecting of
a newly polished
scalp – that some
important science
messages are
making it on to
people’s devices.
Hidden in the top five stories for the
year was one about climate changeBETWEEn ThE CrACks
Science and SciComm with
The top science news item was a study that a bald
man conducted to make himself feel better.