Last night, I dreamt of Chandrayaan-3. I was the Vikram lander, my portly figure of four sturdy feet on the moon, my eyes watchful on baby Pragyan as it lolled about in lunar dust.
That wild dream gave me an idea: Why not devote this column to science and the science of writing? It’s something ThePrint does rather well—and has been doing for the last five years with its standalone ‘Science’ section.
So, readers, here goes.
Two events that made history
In the real world, two events created a worldwide sensation within weeks of each other. Who knows, newborns may be soon named after them, courtesy the unlikeliest odd couple — ISRO and Christopher Nolan.
ISRO’s (Indian Space and Research Organisation) Chandrayaan-3 made history when it landed on the southern polar region of the moon on 23 August 2023.
Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, which was released on 21 July, grittily captured the events before and after the first nuclear weapon was tested in Los Alamos, United States, on 16 July 1945.
Their success has made science chic — or ‘slay’. Suddenly, fusion isn’t just something you do with food and ‘pitchview’ is not about cricket. Now, everyone wants to learn about atoms and RAMBHA….And let’s not forget that India has an aeons-old scientific tradition: We invented shunya.
ISRO’s YouTube live telecast of Chandrayaan-3 had over 8 million viewers. It was broadcast live by hundreds of TV news channels, too.
ThePrint had live streamings and updates, seven text stories, and six videos on 23 August. Newspapers devoted reams of newsprint to it. Why, even international media sat up and took notice, ThePrint report said.
As for Oppenheimer? It crossed Rs 150 crore at the Indian box office as of 18 August – the highest-grossing IMAX film for Hollywood in the country this year. And it’s still in the theatres.
Also read: Chandrayaan-3 rover rolls onto moon’s surface, braces for new challenges
Superconductors to octopus’ mind
So in 2023, science is the stuff of pop culture. How many of you have watched the SonyLiv series Rocket Boys?
At ThePrint, we’ve been following protons for much longer.
Sandhya Ramesh, editor, Science, joined ThePrint in 2018 and Mohana Basu, assistant editor, in 2019. Their mission (im)possible is to report on “pure science’’ in a way that it makes sense to every reader and connects the dots between science and daily life. That was the brief from ThePrint’s editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta, a science junkie himself.
Since then, Ramesh and Basu have been zooming in and out of the unknown, writing about everything from space missions and nanohertz gravitational waves to the first Covid nasal vaccine.
They’ve reported on lemongrass increasing the life of wilting flowers in a vase, room temperature superconductors in Korea, the mind of an octopus, and why the Yamuna overflows. They found vegan leather produced from mangoes, professors publishing in fake science journals, stargazing tourism in the Andamans, and why nutrition experts are calling out the Big B…
There are news reports, research, studies, interviews, profiles, and ground reports. Regular videos too— Ramesh does a weekly ‘Pure Science’ show.
This list looks random, the musings of an absent-minded professor. “Not at all,’’ says Ramesh, a New York University (NYU) graduate. “We mainly follow stories in the news – sometimes the major contentious issues or developments.’’
Basu says the interests of the general Indian public also dictate story choices—and that many reports reflect “incremental changes over years’’ that are important to track. “We do stories that not everyone else reports,’’ she adds.
Ramesh’s report on ‘mystery meat’ is one example.
Journalists like Ramesh and Basu mine stories from an enormous amount of research around the world. Basu says they are “constantly working’’ to keep up with new studies, tests, and discoveries, and share them with readers.
The two have recently been joined by Akanksha Mishra, a young reporter. Yes, ThePrint boasts of an all-women science team. The three are united in wanting to “avert ignorance’’ in science, as Mishra puts it. For her, environment and climate change are the most “pressing’’ issues of our time, especially for her generation. “We wonder if we ought to bring children into a world that appears to be barreling toward self-destruction,’’ she says.
Rama Lakshmi, editor, Opinion & Ground Reports, who has been overseeing the science section since January 2023, says that ThePrint aims to “humanise science…make it relatable and accessible’’.
Also read: Have Koreans found ‘room-temp superconductor’? Why one of physics’ greatest quests is back in news
The turning point
Ramesh and Basu agree that the Covid pandemic gave science coverage the booster shot it needed to attract a wide audience. “There was so much confusion over everything about it. We were all paranoid,’’ says Ramesh. “There were crossed signals coming from WHO (World Health Organisation) and highly reputed scientific institutions—we had to try to keep up with the latest information as well as break it down.’’
Just think of the confusing information about Covid vaccines and you understand why accurate science reporting is essential today.
Ramesh says it was the most productive time of her professional career — publishing daily stories and videos — “very fulfilling’’. She became something of a Covid guru with professors and doctors contacting her for details of the latest research.
For Basu, Covid was the “turning point… there was an increased interest in the life sciences. Covid brought a lot of awareness and curiosity which has remained”.
Rescuing science from ivory tower
The world of science and science writing has always been opaque. Science subjects are considered nerdy and science writing too specialised and complex, filled with jargon and abstruse theories that belong in the “ivory tower’’ that Lakshmi wants science to abandon.
“Most media reports are rewrites of press releases from ISRO or an IIT,’’ says Basu.
Anjali Thomas, deputy editor, Ground Reports, goes further. “These are exciting times for science; there’s a lot of public interest now, but science communication has been lost in a black hole. Scientific institutions and journalists are to blame for this,’’ she says. “Institutions don’t give access and science journalists write about successes – not the processes. There’s no storytelling.”
Ramesh says the situation is changing — but not enough. “The quality of science reporting has picked up,’’ she says. “But access is tough – it’s a gated community”.
To open the gates of science and welcome the public in, the science team began to explore stories on the ground in early 2023. “There’s plenty of interesting work that the public is unaware of,’’ says Ramesh.
“The idea was to dig deeper and convey the wonder of science,’’ adds Thomas. For Basu, the realisation that readers wanted “in-depth analysis’’ spurred her on. The push yielded fascinating stories — there’s this one on the increasing use of CBD oil, another one on enthusiastic weather watchers whose forecasts are keenly followed. And Ramesh did a series on space too.
Basu set off a nano blast in academic circles when she wrote on PhD research and publishing “misconduct’’ – the story went viral. According to Lakshmi, these long-form stories have caught the readers’ fancy.
Also read: Yellapragada Subbarow pioneered cancer research, but his US professor sabotaged his career
Making readers understand
To tell a story about science that is coherent and clear to everyone is about as easy as Pragyaan’s moonwalk — go on, try explaining what a quasar is.
No wonder reporters approach their writing with some trepidation. There’s a lot of back and forth with scientists (to check the facts), the editors, and most importantly, the editing desk — if they don’t understand the copy, then no reader will.
“Whenever I write, I think I am addressing a ninth-standard student,’’ says Ramesh.
Basu has a different standard. “A fifth-class student is my target audience,’’ she says. “I always tell myself I am not an expert, so I try to ask the stupidest questions to get to the essence of the story.”
As for Mishra, she has a simple rule: “[I] write it as though I am explaining it to myself, write it in a way I would like to read.’’
Will these efforts help rescue science from its laboratories and bring it into our homes?
Well, you can’t say ThePrint isn’t trying.
Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint’s Readers’ Editor. Please write in with your views, complaints to readers.editor@theprint.in
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)