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Is talcum powder carcinogenic? Why do we cry when cutting onions? Can we hear the temperature? Why do tattoos last so long? Do animals go through mourning? These are some of the questions that Efraín Rincón and Ignacio Galán, the visible faces of the team, asked (and answered) Science shotsa group of curious Colombians who set out to democratize scientific content through social networks and talk about research made in the global south. Together with Esteban Pardo, who works from Germany, they have more than 220,000 followers on Instagram and 190,000 on Tiktok. “People associate science with the most boring subject in school,” says Galán. “But it can be something fun.” “It’s rich to consume, hence the name. Not only because the content is corticobut because it can be enjoyable,” Rincón adds. “I promise that the shots thing is not to glorify alcohol.”
For their followers, fun is one of the keys to the project’s success. Videos of less than two minutes long condense hours of study, readings of academic papers, notes from the Biology classes they both took, a lot of dynamism and the humor of two thirty-somethings who have one foot in the library and the other in the street. Their work is half study and half doubts in an afternoon with friends drinking beer. “We would like to show that we should not separate entertainment from education so radically,” says Galán. “There are many gaps that prevent us from approaching science. The first is the language, because research is usually done in English,” says Rincón. “Beyond translating this content, we wanted to put the science produced in the West into a social, geopolitical and economic context.”
It all started at university. Rincón was preparing his master’s thesis when he came up with the idea of creating a four-episode pilot project for a science outreach podcast. Pardo was in charge of creating the jingle The program was launched and on the day of the presentation they did a live program and inaugurated what they thought would only remain a pastime. “Five years later, many people ask us, but do you make a living from this?” explains Rincón. “And yes, it has cost us a lot, but now it is. The only ways out of scientific careers are not research or teaching. In this field there is still a lot to do, especially in Latin America.” For this biologist, the pending issue in the region is to stop looking so much towards the north. “Here there is a scientific impostor syndrome of not believing it. It seems that everything happens in the United States and, if it is not published there, it is not happening. And no, in Latin America science is done with nails.”
For both of them, the story of Shots de Ciencia shows “how difficult it is to start a business”: “The first question we asked ourselves was: can we have economic stability? There are many people with great ideas who don’t dare to try them out for fear that they won’t work,” he says. Although they started to support themselves thanks to the grants they were getting, today the business model is based on sponsored content. However, the main requirement for contractors is editorial independence. “If a technology company wants us to talk about artificial intelligence, we let them. But we are never going to recommend a product. And we choose the sources ourselves,” says Rincón, who remembers how they received a proposal from L’Oréal in which they were asked to talk about the “intense shine” of hair. “It seemed crazy to us. We asked them: ‘What do you mean, intense shine? Do you have any scientific evidence about it?’” he says, laughing. “We are a media outlet and we need to support ourselves, yes, but we cannot sell independence for money.”
For this 31-year-old, the work they do has a social and political vocation to tackle misinformation. To do this, they say, it is not necessary to believe blindly everything that the media says. science. “We challenged it, as journalism does with power,” he says. “We did not come to believe in the science “We question it all the time, as an absolute truth.” Although they have become a benchmark for scientific dissemination in Colombia, they are still exploring formats, narratives and ways to reach the audience. “We think it’s a great idea.” [genial] “both being able to talk about people from Latin America who are doing some serious research, and going to Catatumbo to see how farmers deal with coca crops, and coming to Medellín to film a chapter about love,” he says.
At the end of August, they were invited by the Compensation Fund of Antioquia (Comfama) to answer another question: What happens to our brain and body when we fall in love? In this live recording, they included pre-recorded content and interactions with the public and delved into neurology, psychology and animal physiology. “It is very interesting to see how love plays a very important role in animals. The most obvious is reproduction, but also for them to collaborate and establish social structures in which some help others,” says Galán.
In this episode recorded in Envigado, near the capital of Antioquia, they tried to decipher how love is related to virtue, philosophically speaking. “Very few people would dare to say that the addict is in love with his substance, but neurobiologically, the processes are very similar,” he adds. “We tried to open the debate to the questions that we all ask ourselves in any group with friends.”
“We need more diversity”
The profile of those they speak to is very varied. Young people between 18 and 35 years old, mainly in Latin America. Many are simply curious minds who do not necessarily come from the field of science, many others are scientists and others have very radical denialist positions. “Among the followers there is a lot of conspiracy theory that thinks that pharmaceutical companies control the world without nuances or that climate change does not exist,” says Rincón. “But we also get teachers who say that they use our content in class or kids who tell us that they will study a science degree after knowing our work. It is beautiful to see that the content opens debates and conversation.”
The next step, she admits, is to increase the diversity of voices in the project, founded and directed by men. “We need much more diversity. On the one hand, because we recognize that we live in a sexist society. And, second, because we need diversity in our outlook to have greater creativity.” This is, she says, a demand from the audience itself. “There are many followers who suggest that we talk about issues about women, such as endometriosis, which a friend of ours did. We know that science has ignored women and there is a very large field to talk about in this regard. Hopefully next year we can. The idea is to continue growing.”
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