What’s the deal?
The Blobbogram is a review of the news, in a scientific context. Every couple of weeks (give or take) I look at topical issues through a scientific lens by presenting and contextualizing the stories and studies you need to understand them.
This is an experiment so the rules and guidelines are sure to change but so far I’m guided by these principals:
It’s evidence-based. The stories and studies presented make their conclusions based on data and observations. Any analysis made from them will do the same.
It’s cited. Anything stated as fact will include a link to its source.
It’s uncertain. No result is for sure, so stating the certainty is important.
It’s in a larger context. Any study could be an outlier, placing a result within the larger context of what’s known about it is essential.
It’s solutions-oriented. There’s a lot wrong with the world, present solutions alongside problems.
It’s slow. Partly because it’s just me writing it, but also because it often takes time to properly contextualize breaking stories.
Who are you?
My name is Lucas Kavanagh and I’m a science communicator. That means people hire me to make complex issues easy to understand. At The Blobbogram, I do that for you at no charge!
My background is in earth and ocean science, with my bachelor’s degree from UVic and master’s from McGill. Since then, I’ve worked full time in science communication designing curriculum for Actua, organizing outreach for the International Ocean Discovery Program, and writing for SciShow. I am the co-founder of Avo Media, a science-oriented production company. We work with both media and scientists to create innovative content that explains and entertains.
Why the funny name? What’s a blobbogram?
A blobbogram is a type of scientific figure that is used to compare the results of many studies that are all trying to answer the same question. That way you can see, at a glance, what the overall scientific consensus is and how a single result fits in a larger context.
I don’t claim to be doing anything as rigorous here, but I like the analogy. My goal with each edition of The Blobbogram is to take a news story and put it into a larger scientific context using multiple data points.
