Premiering in December’s GQ magazine, the “2010 Rock Stars of Science” campaign pairs musicians such as Blondie‘s Debbie Harry, Poison’s Bret Michaels and Timbaland, with scientists, including Nobel Prize winners.
“All these people are doing great things,” says Harry, who took part in the campaign amid preparations for overseas shows. “We have to get the word out.”
Rock stars are household names, but ResearchAmerica! polls suggest half the public can’t name a living scientist. A 2005 National Academies of Science report complained parents aren’t turning their kids on to science anymore.
“I think being a scientist is like being a fighter pilot, it’s just as cool,” says Columbia University professor of surgery Mehmet Oz, best known as the host of the syndicated Dr. Oz Show. Oz appears with Timbaland and astronaut Bernard Harris in the campaign. “The juxtaposition of scientists with rock stars might jolt people a little, and open some minds,” Oz says.
Scientists paired with rock ‘n’ rollers in the ads include Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, and cancer researcher Craig Thompson, chief of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “Scientists are really invisible to people now,” Thompson says. “We actually need to get rid of Marcus Welby and show scientists are real people, and just as much a part of our lives as rock stars.”
Past years’ Rock Stars of Science messages, sponsored by the Geoffrey Beene Foundation, have paired scientists such as National Institutes of Health chief Francis Collins, an amateur guitarist, with Aerosmith‘s Joe Perry, who actually played together.
“I’m willing to pick up a guitar and get on stage with Joe Perry, if that’s what it takes,” Collins told fellow scientists recently.
‘Rock Stars of Science’ pairs rockers, Nobel winners to entice kids
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