When there are 8,085 presentations at a massive scientific meeting, as is the case here in Atlanta for the 231st ACS National Meeting, you have to feel for those public information and public relations officers who are vying for the attention of a few dozen journalists. In their different ways, these peddlers of stories are trying to make their constituents stand out amid what amounts to a cacophonous din at a vast cocktail party.
[Photo by Ivan Amato]
One release teases me with this opener: “Microscopic specks of lead are offering clues about the enormous cultural changes that swept across Northern Africa thousands of years ago.” Not a bad lead. It draws me in enough that I continue to read and learn that the particular University of Arizona researcher featured in the release used an isotope analysis technique to trace the origin of copper and other metals in goods that were traded long ago in Northern Africa. I genuinely am intrigued by how such a technique, which by itself would not be of much interest to most people on the street, enables a scientist to connect seemingly insignificant specks of metal to trade patterns and from that to something as consequential as the spread of Islam in Africa. Even so, there are 8,084 other presentations at the meeting, so I might not want to lock onto this one.
Another release, this one from a government laboratory, is a harder sell. It’s about nanotubes and, who knows, it actually might be pointing me toward an important nanotube story. But nanotube stories have become a dime-a-dozen, a penny-a-dozen. I would be far more interested in a story about research that somehow bursts the nanotube bubble than by yet another story that puts a bit more glow on nanotubes’ celebrityhood. One saving grace about this particular release is that it centers on cerium oxide nanotubes, not carbon nanotubes. Still, we’re talking nanotubes here, and my threshold for even considering a nanotube story has reached what might be an unfairly stringent level.
“U.S., Polish researchers develop technology for creation of antiwear polymer films,” reads another release. Hmm. Not exactly a grabber for me at first, but then I discern a potentially interesting angle on the story because the two protagonists met at a conference in Poland in 1981 and now, 25 years later, they remain scientifically connected. It is the potential story about lifelong human connection and collaboration that initially catches me more than the researchers’ development of “tribopolymerization,” but even that topic could wear on me if I give it a chance.
Too late. There are many other releases in the press room, each one amounting to a humble “psst,” trying to grab my interest, maybe enough to convince me to write a story. And then there are all those thousands of other talks not lucky enough to have their own associated press releases set down on a table in a press room. Maybe it’s among those that I’ll find the best tales to tell.—Ivan Amato, filed at 1:42 PM EST.
