This is core code for the Science Pulse web application.
It was developed by Sérgio Spagnuolo and Lucas Gelape, with database consulting from Felippe Mercurio and Renata Hirota, and great feedback from several people. This is a work in progress.
The Science Pulse is distributed under the MIT License.
The Science Pulse is developed by the data-driven agency Volt Data Lab, with support from the International Center for Journalists. Brazilian science journalism agency Bori is our partner in this venture, helping us to make sense of the technology and the information we gather.
We use Shiny as our main framework for development, and host it with Shinyapps.io.
Our database is powered by Postgres and hosted on the Amazon Web Services cloud.
Scientists and journalists have a longstanding record of collaboration. But, as social media creates its own hard-to burst bubbles, sometimes a bridge is necessary to bring awareness about each other's conversations. Journalists can benefit a lot from knowing what scientists and experts are sharing on social media.
The Science Pulse wants to be that bridge. In a time where scientific knowledge is in great demand, there are also great challenges around the way academic papers and preliminary conclusions are communicated. Data, conclusions and decisions can change fast.
It is hard to keep up with all social media has to offer nowadays, and even harder to follow hundreds of new people, even if you are interested in what they have to say. And even if you do follow them, some messages will be buried amongst hundreds of other posts and trending topics.
That is why we decided to make a tool to increase the discovery around the scientific conversation on social media, especially regarding the coronavirus pandemic. It is a way to increase knowledge but also leave some noise out of social media. We will give room for people that are brilliant in their fields, but might not have thousands of followers to engage.