A lesson from the ice bucket challenge: using social networks to publicize science

Scientists are financially dependent on the general public. Salaries and research expenses come (directly or indirectly) from taxpayers. The pub-lic’s understanding and appreciation of research is a motivational force for sci-entists. This is possibly one reason that scientists like their work to be cov-ered by the media. However, scientists have shown very little success in more directly communicating with the pub-lic about their findings. Despite the fact that scientists have been very successful in solving many seemingly unsolvable problems, (Fermat Last Theorem, step-ping onto the moon, sequencing genomes for many species, unraveling the com-plexity of different types of cancers, discovering the importance and appli-cations of the stem cells, to name a few), they have shown little success in telling the public about the value and signif-icance of these achievements nor have they made the public aware about existing challenges, leaving a big gap between sci-entific communities and the public. Given the ever-increasing popularity of social-network-based communications, scientists should ask themselves if they could use the