Berkeley and UCSF co-hosted the influential conference, which brought top science writers from across the world to the two campuses. The group spent three days in downtown San Francisco hearing lectures from researchers like Berkeley Professor Jennifer Doudna, who co-invented the gene editing program CRISPR-Cas9.
On Sunday they visited Berkeley, where the school’s leaders hoped to make the major public research university accessible and interesting to journalists.
“We think of Berkeley as a place of intellectual excitement and discovery,” G. Steven Martin, the interim vice chancellor for research, told the crowd. “What you’re going to hear about today is that Berkeley is a place where fundamental discoveries are made, and how those discoveries are translated into applications that benefit society.”
The journalists listened to a panel of climate change experts, who said they remained optimistic that humanity could adapt and avoid global catastrophe by pushing research into renewable energy and expanding wetlands. And they visited the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, where researchers are building tiny robots that can search through the rubble of collapsed buildings.
“These demonstrations are a source of ideas for sometime in the near future,” said Jacpo Pasotti, a freelance science writer from Switzerland, after he watched a demonstration of the jumping Salto robot. “I think it is essential for journalists to touch; that’s the best way to make a stable and lasting memory of what you saw.”
The conference also gave journalists a chance to understand how colleagues across the world are covering scientific developments.
After listening to a presentation on climate change, Tarek Abd Elgalil Ibrahim, a senior writer for Al-Fanar Media in Egypt said he was more inspired to start writing articles on rising seas and warming temperatures.
“Very few people are talking about (climate change); we don’t have the culture,” he said. “I think I will go home and search for research happening in the Middle East or Egypt, to see who is thinking about this where I come from.”
Contact Will Kane at willkane@berkeley.edu