Useful Websites

Abstract

A place where humor, fun and science meet is what David Ng had in mind when creating the website The Science Creative Quarterly (SCQ). As Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory (AMBL), David Ng oversees the educational programs within part of the University of British Columbia known as the Michael Smith Laboratories. Programs vary widely in both scope and target audience, from hands-on molecular biology methodology workshops to ‘genetics field trips’ for grade school students. Besides these faculty duties, Ng combined his interests in science education and writing to create one of the premiere sources of science humor on the web through the SCQ.Ng says that establishing the SCQ website ‘came out of a desire to do something Web 2.0-ish’ for science resources. Originally, the main focus of the website included textbook-style articles aimed at undergraduates and high school students. The site evolved over time as a place to present less traditional and more creative forms of science writing. The change makes sense considering that Ng previously published his own writing in literary outlets such as McSweeney’s, a small publishing house that creates a venue for new ideas and under-represented writers. Now, SCQ is probably best known for its reader-submitted humor pieces, which present droll and witty views of science research. Ng says that he wanted purposely to stay away from ‘typical’ corny and geeky humor: ‘I wanted to publish something more along the lines of “Shouts and Murmurs” in the New Yorker.’ Articles are primarily submitted by amateur writers, but Ng says that some professional writers – even a few former authors from noted publications such as the New Yorker, The New York Times and The Believer – have contributed to the website.The website is designed in the same minimalist, text-heavy style as the popular online literary journal McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, indicative of Ng’s informal social ties with, and admiration of, the McSweeney’s publishing house. ‘Some love [the design], some hate it and find it hard to navigate. We’ve thought about changing it, but not for now,’ Ng says. Either way, the SCQ site traffic indicates how much attention it has been receiving; the SCQ alone is responsible for 3% of all of the web traffic visiting the University of British Columbia’s online servers, with an average of 40,000 page views per day.‘It has become a bit of a “cultish” type of publication,’ Ng admits. Page content is often updated frequently, encouraging readers to come back and revisit the site. Additionally, Ng and the other SCQ contributors have been branching out with new projects such as Filter, a web blog aggregating links and multimedia that have been found by SCQ followers. Another sub-website, ‘The order of the science scouts’, is where SCQ devotees can network and bond in Facebook groups and through Twitter accounts, and, as the name implies, receive ‘scout badges’ for their scientific accomplishments (e.g. the ‘works with very small and potentially dangerous organisms’ badge).Sounding a little bit more than cultish? Perhaps. Silly? Sure. Funny? See for yourself: The Science Creative Quarterly: http://www.scq.ubc.ca/Related links:Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory (AMBL):http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/UBC’s Michael Smith Laboratories:http://www.michaelsmith.ubc.ca/