If media like buzzwords, they love clicks. In a world where the most “clicked” wins, buzzwords and misunderstood concepts bombard everyday reader, day in day out. At the least, the consequent misconceptions and misplaced expectations of the hype in science news can downplay the importance of a scientific breakthrough. In the worst-case scenario, it may erode trust in scientific progress.
For my very first blog post here at Gookookoo, I find it fitting that we should have a little chat about the way science news are handled. Afterall, I will be mostly blogging about all things science.
I often find myself “triggered” when I read about the newest breakthroughs. As someone who has spent over a decade in laboratories, I always know that there is a catch that never gets the mention in the article. A prime example of this has been Graphene, the wonder material.
I have done my doctorate research and first 1.5 years of my postdoctoral research on graphene. That is about 8 years spent trying to figure out how to produce, utilize, and characterize this material. During that time, graphene probably saved the world, ended the world hunger, and solved the energy crisis several times. Like many other over-hyped buzzwords, graphene has become a promise that never comes to realization.
I believe there are a couple of ways to dissect and analyze what is happening here. At one hand, it can be argued that the way scientific publication and reporting happens paint a world that anyone who is not in academia can easily misinterpret.
Let’s Pretend…
Let us tell a story. We have a Logan. Logan is a doctoral student. We expect Logan to finish 4 to 5 (most times longer) years long training in becoming a proficient researcher. During this time, he must publish at least a few journal papers. Like many other, once you are a few years in, there is no easy way out for Logan. His very future and career hangs in balance.
So this is what Logan does:
This is scientific method in a nutshell. A commitment that requires failing hundreds of times to find that one method that works, which find itself published after some peer-review. Feedback loop of madness is rarely known outside of academia. But it involves greying hair, caffeine addiction, and sleep deprivation.
The methodology that Logan comes up with has a strict definition and often has shortcomings. It may be hard to scale or too expansive to apply in high volumes. Although these are important points in terms of practicality, science care more about if it can be done or not. If it can be done, even expensively so, it may mean someday someone can find a way to make it happen for cheaper.
Let’s Pretend Some More…
We have a Jeremy. Jeremy is a scientific reporter. As a person who always fascinated by science, Jeremy reads Logan’s paper. Boy oh boy, Logan found a way to make a solar cell that can increase the panel efficiency by 50%, using graphene films. This is a breakthrough. The conclusions section of the paper even claims that presented methods can be used for wide-scale application of graphene for powering entire building and electrical vehicles.
Unfortunately for Jeremy, scientific publications have a hidden language. It is exceedingly rare in academia that negative results get published. Due to very nature of scientific research, positive results are rewarded. When Logan, myself, or any other researcher writes a paper, the focus is entirely on how to make a certain method work, so that it can be repeated and build on by somebody else. But while doing that, it is not customary to mention that a method cannot be easily scaled, or it is expensive to utilize. Such shortcomings are between the lines, and it requires a certain level of scientific background and experience to read.
This is rather unfortunate, and it represents a barrier. You basically must be a scientist to fully understand and explain a scientific breakthrough (or any journal paper). But most scientists are too busy to sit down and blog (may have burned myself with this comment…).
Or Is It Ethics?
Of course, we can always claim that media people lack the ethics and throw around buzzwords for clicks. I do believe that happens. Although it happens at a lesser scale in science news. Truthfully speaking, science news is still a bit of a niche. Everyday guy or gal is more interested in news that affect their lives there and then. Hence, there is little profit in wasting buzzwords for science news. On the other hand, it has become rather easy to start a blog on your own. At this smaller scale, I have observed overhyped claims for the sake of clicks. Internet is like a crowded room. You may have a loud voice, but you won’t compete against thousands of whispers. These buzzword articles can spread like wildfire. Just as in the case of “fake news” and how it eroded trust in news channels. These unethical articles can erode trust in scientific progress.
So, What About Graphene?
If you have read this far and realized that I am yet to explain why graphene is buzzed to hell without ever showing up in our lives, this is the paragraph for you. Graphene is indeed a wonder material. Tested samples exhibit electrical and thermal conductivity beyond anything we know. It also has unusual optical properties that can be of use in transparent electronics, nonlinear optics, and optical quantum computing.
There are a few issues that hold graphene back. First, graphene’s electrical and thermal conductivity is high compared to metals when its thickness is factored in. Single layer graphene is approximately 0.4 nm thick. Yet, it has enough mechanical strength that it could be used as a conductive film at such dimensional scale. Compared to a hypothetical metal film with 0.4 nm thickness, graphene has much higher conductance. But we never use metals that thin. If we stack graphene layers to a film 100 nm thick, it performs worse than a 100 nm metal film. At this scale, graphene is rather called graphite. Graphite has different properties than graphene.
So, in order to tap into the wonderous properties of graphene, we must have it only a few layers thick. This has proved to be an extremely challenging task. The best method we know for fabricating single layer graphene films is chemical vapor deposition (CVD) where vaporized material sublimates on a metal substrate. With this sublimation, a single layer graphene film is fabricated atom-by-atom. We found out that the film we produce performs well but not as good as natural graphene layers cleaved of graphite flakes. This is due to the defects forming in the graphene film during fabrication. Other problems with CVD include the cost of machinery, cost of operation, and scalability.
If we could come up with a method that can produce large scale, defect free graphene on the cheap, we will likely see it being used in many different equipment. Until then, graphene will be spending some more time behind laboratory doors, waiting for its time in the limelight.
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