How would you reply to the question: "What's new in science?"?

One sure-fire trick when you are caught off-guard is to describe how the question made you feel.

Viz: ” What a great question. It caught me off-guard. Let me think about it and get back to you.”

“You are 4 percent Neanderthaler”

Does your father mean the frontier of science ?
– If so then how about buckytubes and the implications for extremely small circuitry if fabrication techniques can be made practical.
– How about the work planned for the Large Hadron Collider now that it’s powered back up?
Or does the scope include engineering and design breakthroughs ? If a subatomic particle splits and no one is around to hear it does it still quark ?
– how about 3-D printing ? Take him to shapeways.com and discuss what if 3-d foundries were as common as retail drug stores and most of what’s in what we buy is manufactured in the city where we live. Getting a new appliance could be as easy as ordering a pizza, and as customizable.
– how about the incredible designs coming out of open-source design-for-cost work to put the kinds of gadgets needed by the world’s poorest (water purification, medical assays) into their hands at costs that they or an NGO can well afford. Eventually some of these efforts will put the production of that sort of simple-but-life-changing tools also into their hands.

Newish in Medical science anyway

“I would say not enough. Our POTUS is too weak in the knees to provide stronger support for higher education programs and science research. Of course that would require asking US citizens to pony up for this support for more science research and higher taxes is a sure fire way to scuttle his re-election plans. Dad, pass the chips and dip please!”

I think you are being a bit hard on yourself. The next time that you two get together, say that you have thought about his question and would like to answer it if he is still interested. I can’t think of much off the top of my head, but if I were in your position, I would make note of anything of interest that I heard about.. The only thing I can think of is this Good luck explaining that to someone who is light on science.

I read this
http://www.sciencedaily.com/

As a scientist, I love this question, and I love your dad for asking it! If someone asked me, I would probably cheat and tell them about the last great talk I went to (whether it was new or not), but I like @Rarebear‘s response. Sciencedaily is good, or if you read the Nature and Science feeds they’ll keep you well-apprised of the details of what’s going on.

Great question! I’ll be thinking about how to answer this for weeks.

@nikipedia I like the Nature and Science feeds also, as well as Scientific American. The problem with them is that in order to drill deeper you need to subscribe (even though I do subscribe to SciAm). There are others also. I just find Science Daily to be sort of a starting clearinghouse.

Scientists have figured out why beer becomes more bitter over time?

But, seriously, the Discovery Channel site I provided is an easy one that can link you to shows about science that you might be interested in, and your dad too. You can watch them together and have something to talk about.

GQ by the way.

Not sure if this counts, but it surprised me when I learned about it. There are huge “islands” of floating plastic trash in the Pacific ocean the size of Texas literally. The plastic breaks down from the sun and sealife eats the toxic materials. Here is a link.

Thanks guys, it really seems like some of you would have done as poorly as I did when put on the spot. I’m happy to hear that. :) Not everyone had something in mind I see. I hope this question helps everyone to be more prepared haha.

Well, what I did eventually tell him about was that I recently enjoyed a documentary Home which I thought presented the clearest message about ecosystem balance and man’s affect on it. (After watching it, I posted this question, btw) I basically advocated a documentary he may or may not ever watch. That’s why I thought I didn’t really offer anything much of value that round. But thanks for letting me off the hook, @LostInParadise and others. :)

Orgasmatron? If only eh? Give us guys a break….not that i’d advocate such a practice, although one night’s sleep would be nice.