Jenny Gristock – a woman of outstanding achievement

Anyone who does not know what Dr Jenny Gristock, ABSW member and "science policy wonk," looks like can see photos of her plastered around the Wellcome Collection on the Euston Road. Jenny is one of this year's "Women of Outstanding Achievement". This means that she features in the Women of Outstanding Achievement Photographic Exhibition "featuring portraits of the six pioneering females chosen".

The details of the event tell us that Jenny is one of two women honoured for "communication of SET with a contribution to society". SET is, of course, science engineering and technology.

The awards come from the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology. The Women of Outstanding Achievement Photographic Exhibition has been going for four year and is "designed to profile pioneering women in SET as role models in a sector in which females are highly under-represented".

Salaam, Trieste - student interns wanted

Now then, pay attention, all you Sci, Comm, student writers out there. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) no less, based in Trieste, Italy, is offering a science communications summer internship for students (or recent graduates) enrolled in science writing programmes.

They tell us that they "are looking for a student who can write timely, interesting articles about the science and training activities at the Centre". With the Trieste campus as his or her beat, the intern will take the initiative to interview scientists and students and contribute articles to ICTP's newsletter, website and other United Nations-related publications. By the end of the internship the intern should have an impressive portfolio of clips.

The internship can last up to 2 months, with a small weekly stipend. ICTP will provide housing, daily subsistence allowance and round-trip transportation to and from Trieste, Italy.

• You can can find more details about the internship, as well as ICTP, at http://pio.ictp.it/summer-internship.

Turkish science editor fired over evolution feature

A tweet from New Scientist takes us to a blog item from Debbie MacKenzie in Brussels which took us on to the Turkish site Hurriyet. Debbie's item, Turkey's battles with Islamic creationists continue, is about the sacking of the editor of Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), "the excellent popular science magazine".

Evolution is the cause of the ruckus. The Turkish national science council, TÜBİTAK, which publishes the magazine, also pulled a cover feature on Darwin's anniversary and put in its place a feature on global warming.

Lest anyone think that all Turks are backward looking fundamentalists of the George Bush variety, Hurriyet reports disquiet at ministerial level. "State Minister Mehmet Aydın expressed discontent at the removal of the Darwin story." The news service also quotes the minister as saying "This is not TÜBİTAK’s mission."

There are then some juicy bits of mud slinging. They quote an unnamed academic as saying that Professor Ömer Cebeci, the axe wielder and vice president of TÜBİTAK, it seems, "is an ignorant manager and is unaware of the scientific research going on abroad and at home. The political decision makers that brought Cebeci to his post are just as ignorant as Cebeci himself."

It isn't actually clear if the editor in question, Çiğdem Atakuman, really has lost her job. According to Hurriyet "Aydın said the chief editor was not removed from her post, basing his comment on a conversation with a TÜBİTAK official". But as New Scientist said in its tweet, "Let's support her".

Recruitment – Nobel Prizes: Online Editors/Event Managers wanted

EMPLOYER: Nobelprize.org

JOB/COURSE TITLE: Online Editors/Event Managers

SHORT AD DESCRIPTION: Highly motivated and organised individuals needed to join a small team working on an educational outreach programme that takes Nobel Laureate in Physics and Chemistry to universities around the world.

LONG AD DESCRIPTION: Nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation, with headquarters based in Stockholm, Sweden, is seeking two enthusiastic people to work in its expanding London office in Camden. The successful applicants will join a team working on the Honeywell-Nobel Initiative, an educational outreach programme that takes Nobel Laureates in Physics and Chemistry to universities around the world (for more information see www.honeywellscience.com).

The chief goals for these new positions will be to help develop the programme and the evolution and expansion of the initiative’s website. Key tasks will include planning and attending Honeywell-Nobel Initiative events, interacting with Nobel Laureates, generating video content for the website, developing new content streams and creating online communities. While these tasks could be divided into two separate roles, one concerned more with the event management side and the other concerned mainly with content creation, these two job descriptions can be tailored to the individual skills of the successful candidates. Both positions may involve fairly frequent travel. Applicants should have a background in science or engineering, be highly organized and good at working in geographically separated teams, and possess a good understanding of event management and online communication and education.

Nobelprize.org offers a competitive benefits package and the opportunity to work in a highly creative and congenial atmosphere, helping to provide truly inspirational content. To apply, please send a covering letter indicating your salary requirements and how your previous experience relates to these positions, together with a full CV, by email to the Editor-in-Chief, who can be contacted for further information at editor@nobelprize.org. Applications will be reviewed upon receipt with a closing date of Monday 23 March 2009. Early application is encouraged.

• JOB POSTCODE: NW1 7DB
• SALARY: On request
• CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent
• HOURS: Full time
• QUALIFICATION LEVEL: Undergraduate degree (or equivalent)
• CLOSING DATE: Monday 23 March 2009
• CONTACT DETAILS: Editor-in-Chief, Nobelprize.org, editor@nobelprize.org.
• HOW TO APPLY: Please send a covering letter indicating your salary requirements and how your previous experience relates to these positions, together with a full CV, by email to the Editor-in-Chief, who can be contacted for further information at editor@nobelprize.org.

Who let the gene genie out of the box?

When a science journalist sits down to write an article, the last thing they have in mind is that an academic somewhere will use the piece as in a research project. But that is just what Rebecca Carver did in her doctoral work on "Genes in the media" at the Institute for Basic Medical Sciences (IMB) at the University of Oslo.

Not content with writing her PhD and a journal paper, Dr Carver has colluded in the creation of a press release on her work Oslo-scientists have found the media gene. In this we read:

“We chose to analyse the national newspapers Aftenposten, VG and Dagbladet from Norway; The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Sun from the UK,” Carver explains. “We randomly selected a total of 300 articles, including commentaries, features, news stories and news briefs that referred to the gene concept in various ways.”

There then follows a detailed description of different uses of the "gene" thingy in these media. You will have to read the paper in "the important international journal EMBO Reports, issued for the European Molecular Biology Organization" for the full details.

Carver's key message seems to be that "journalists and editors, striving for a catchy news story, often convert a relativistic message into a deterministic one". Guess what, it all comes down to the "titles and bylines". As Carver pouts it "we have found that the titles and bylines are often deterministic whilst the relativistic and evolutionary frames tend to be present further into the article".

Carver, who has also has a "Master degree in Science Communication from Imperial College London," wants to hear from science reporters. As Carver and Jarle Breivik, her supervisor, put it, “We hope our work will increase awareness of how we communicate the gene concept, and would like to come into contact with both scientists and journalists.”

No prizes for kids books

It is the time of the year again for science writers to pile in with their entries for the Royal Society's awards for science books. The RS has just put out the Call for entries for this year's awards.

You have until 2 April 2009 to fill in the on-line entry form and to persuade your publisher to send them seven "non-returnable copies of each entry".

There is a prize of £10,000 for the winner while the authors of the short-listed books get £1000. Sadly, they haven't lined up a big sponsor, so there is no Junior Prize this year.

The press release says that, after winning last year, Mark Lynas's Six degrees: Our future on a hotter planet "saw sale figures more than double throughout the months following the award".