Welcome to the SciVee blog. I am one of the founders of SciVee and hope very much you are enjoying the site. There is a small group of us at SciVee and goal is simple - to excite as many people as we can to what science has to offer. Namely, an explanation for the things that surround us - from the tinniest inner most workings of our own bodies, to the distant reaches of the universe. Traditionally, such excitement (if there was any) came mainly from school text books. I suspect that the tipping point (had to get that phrase in somewhere) that made many of us become scientists was not from those books, but from the enthusiasm of science teachers and those laboratory sessions that allowed us to explore first hand the principles that govern our existence. It was the opportunity to ask the question “why or how….” and then be able to explain it through an experiment. A favorite example of mine came when I asked my daughter’s third grade class how do we know there is atmospheric pressure pushing down on us? Sitting a shelled hard boiled egg on the rim of a bottle, lighting a match and placing it in the bottle and seeing the egg be “pushed” into the bottle was the answer. When I heard those children squeal with delight at what they had just witnessed, I knew we had to do something to make science more accessible. I think that was the moment that the idea for SciVee was hatched.

Such visual demonstrations of science are not new of course. TV has been a wonderful medium for creating excitement towards science. But for the most part this is not on demand, limited in the bandwidth it can deliver, and does not permit a discussion about what has just been witnessed. The internet and Web 2.0 technologies change all that and we and many others think it time for a new age of scientific discourse to begin and to evolve not triggered by us, but by you, the consumers. Will it succeed? Who knows, but we are having a lot of fun helping to try and make it succeed, and at the end of the day the fun is the most important thing.

In the postings that will follow in coming weeks the SciVee team will discuss how SciVee appears to be evolving and how it compares to more established modes of scientific discourse. We hope you will take this opportunity to tell us your thoughts. Of particular interest right now is an answer to the question, what was the defining moment that turned you on (or off) to science? Better still tell us in a blog.