AAAS | International Press
First Science/AAAS Press Conference in Japan: Tokyo, Ministry of Education
In October 2012, Natasha Pinol co-authored the press materials, traveled to Tokyo, and hosted and moderated Science/AAAS’s first-ever press conference in Japan, held at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. About 40 journalists from Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and NHK TV attended to hear research linking ancient sediment science to the timing of human evolution.
The WorK
The press conference announced new radiocarbon dating research from Japan's Lake Suigetsu—a new calibration curve with the potential to refine ancient age estimates by hundreds of years, with direct implications for understanding the extinction of Neandertals and the spread of modern humans into Europe. Climate scientists could also use it to better understand the advance and retreat of ice sheets during the last glacial period.
Natasha co-authored the official AAAS press release (credited: Kathy Wren and Natasha D. Pinol), translating complex paleoclimatology and radiocarbon dating research for a general press audience. She conducted advance media outreach to Japanese science journalists and press offices to build attendance at an inaugural institutional event with no prior Japan press conference history.
Why It Mattered
Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun are two of the highest-circulation newspapers in the world, with combined daily readerships exceeding 10 million. NHK is Japan's national public broadcaster. Filling a press conference room with 40 journalists from these outlets at a first-ever Science/AAAS Japan event required significant advance communications and relationship-building work—and the kind of cross-cultural, multilingual fluency that NRP Communications brings to every engagement.
Source
AAAS.org: Science: New Radiocarbon Record May Help Refine Ancient Age Estimates by Hundreds of Years (co-authored by Natasha D. Pinol). The Lake Suigetsu radiocarbon study was published in the October 19, 2012 issue of Science.
Image credit: NASA/JSC, ISS Expedition 40, Astronaut Reid Wiseman, 2014