Science is 'fun': Squirrels

• Source: Global Times
• [22:43 October 15 2009]
• Comments

Sony robot dog Aibo performs in a lecture on artificial intelligence held by Science Squirrels in Beijing on June 27. More than 200 people attended.

By Peng Yining

For a new graduate with a doctorate in neurobiology, Ji Shisan explains, there are basically two options:

1. find a good laboratory and monkey around with mouse brains; or,

2. find a good school and monkey around with mouse brains.

Ji instead found a third option. After graduating in 2007 from Fudan University with his PhD in neurobiology, he became a freelance science writer. A year later, he hatched perhaps his greatest invention: the Science Squirrels club.

Today he and 96 more "squirrels" run the surprisingly popular songshuhui.net, a blog that is expanding into more than the sum of its parts: a whole community of popular science writing, lectures and parties. They compare their popularization efforts to a squirrel cracking open the nut and tasting the yummy kernel, by which they mean converting obscure technical jargon and theories into funny and conspicuous layman's Chinese.

"We make science popular in China," Ji says.