Science: Scary or Cool?

Initial answer: Both, but learning science lets you focus on the cool while being appropriately cautious.

For example, Japan and the nuclear plant and all the questions about radiation are easy to classify as "scary." Part of the fear is the "not knowing"--first, not knowing whether you can trust information that comes from the people responsible for accident in the first place.

But the phrase "radiation exposure" itself sounds scary, scarier than it really is. Yes, in some situations, radiation exposure can be dangerous. Safe nuclear energy requires good reactor design, trained specialists, and safe work practices. But not all radiation exposure is lethal. All of us are exposed to radiation every day from the sun.

The fear is unwarranted, but it's also not news. Science literacy has never been strong among the American public, and I daresay "the average Canadian" is not necessarily better informed.

Learning science is definitely NOT scary. Learning anything new is a challenge, but that's not the same as scary. It's entirely possible for average, everyday people to learn about radiation. Yes, even you!! The International Atomic Energy Agency, for example, has very readable udpates and explanations about the situation in Japan.

When you start to pay attention to stories about science, you get to learn about really cool things, like this: A NASA spacecraft is now orbiting Mercury. Mercury has its Sputnik! MSNBC's article about it is here.

And then you can learn about connections between stories. For example, astronauts outside the earth's atmosphere have less protection from the sun's radiation. That's one reason why "unmanned," meaning "without personnel of any gender," spacecraft do so much of the exploration work in the solar system. Here's a page of articles with keywords "radiation" and "safety" from the nasa.gov site. You can see from these stories how NASA has always tried to take appropriate precautions to shield its astronauts.

Which is what we can all do: learn and then take appropriate precautions.

So, the original question needs to be reframed, because here's the answer. Life can be scary. Science can help us rachet down the fear and teach us really cool things.

And that's what we can hang onto during these times when all the stories seem to be about crises.