The Public's appetite for Astronomy

Paul Crowther is a professor of astrophysics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at The University of Sheffield. 

 

Has anyone else noticed that the mainstream media have gone slightly science gaga? Last week, Higgs-teria attracted front pages in broadsheets and lead stories in news bulletins, even though no more than “tantalizing hints” of the Higgs were announced. Before that, we had plenty of stories salivating over Kepler 22b, a.k.a. Earth 2.0, even though most exoplanet hunters were rather more cautious in their interpretation. Indeed, the Kepler team themselves only claimed Kepler 22b was a “milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin.” Only yesterday the first genuinely Earth-sized planets were reported, although they wouldn’t resemble our planet in any other respect, given their close proximity to their host star. And not to mention the shenanigans with those pesky Italian faster-than-light neutrinos that spurred nuclear physicist, Jim Al-Khalili, into promising to eat his boxer shorts on live TV should the result be confirmed. - the interview here

Image : Neutrino experiment