28 Sep Welcome

Hello and welcome to Terranova Scientific. My name is Grant George Buffett. I am a physical scientist and researcher. I am concerned about the direction in which scientific communication is going in this ever accelerating world of electronic mobile technology. On the whole, these technologies offer humanity the tools to spread the beauty of knowledge gleaned by science, and by doing so, to stoke our curiosity and wonder about the natural world. Sounds great, right? But, the pace of technological change is such that we are inevitably technology’s guinea pigs. The increasing availability of information is having an effect on the way we think, and on the way in which we solve problems — we “google” the answer until we find what we expect, often just confirming our beliefs. Humans are habitually lazy thinkers when it comes to complex decision making, so it’s natural and easy to just accept one of the first answers we find, without truly engaging our thinking brains. Thinking is energy-intensive.  Moreover, there is good evidence that this instant access to information combined with the increasing trend of online social activity is changing a whole generation. Will it be a change for the better?

In that light, the long history of research and inquiry is changing virtually overnight. Nearly two decades ago when I was writing my undergraduate dissertation, research meant spending long hours at the library (after all, where else would you go?). But the long hours in the library also meant serendipity. Often you would go looking for something and whether you found what you wanted or not, you would most likely stumble upon something new and interesting, which led you to discover something else, et voila!, learning. The path to knowledge was long and winding, but productive. In contrast, nowadays the path to a solution is rather linear: you want to know something, so you look for it on the internet, then you forget it. Scientific research has both benefited and been hindered by this technological change.

So, with that in mind, my goal for this website is two-fold:

• to help researchers improve their writing, increasing their chances of being published by offering an editing service for scientific manuscripts. As a scientist and native English speaker, I will edit your documents for English grammar and style, giving your writing more impact.
• to provide a space where scientists, students, and educators can share and critique ideas in an open and respectful environment. Here, we will try to break down the barriers of language communication to discuss interesting and novel scientific ideas, and even the history which brought them about. To this end I offer scientific workshops for schools, universities and to the general public (in English, Catalan and/or Spanish). I don’t just want to teach you the facts of science, but rather, the scientific method so that you can learn to think more critically and discover the wonders of nature for yourselves.

Please check back to this blog for more information about my activities or to share your ideas. I will write at least one article per month on something interesting to me and I will publish it in English, Catalan, and Spanish so please do comment. Let’s keep the conversation going!