People all over the world show growing interest in research and technological and other innovations. Actually, people need or can benefit science based information in their every day life – in questions of health, food, well-being, studies, hobbies etc. People can utilise science also for recreation, enjoyment and "nice-to-know" purposes.

Citizens, political decision makers, people in the business world and many others want to learn about scientific interpretations of climate change, decisions and solutions concerning the world economic crisis, development of societies and cultural changes and questions concerning health and well-being.

Scientific interpretations are best disseminated by the media. To do this, we need open science communication and independent, critical, professional and enthusiastic science journalism. What does this mean?

In open science communication researchers can freely communicate their findings to and in the society. There are researchers who are active in disseminating their knowledge to lay audience even though it might not be considered as a merit in their scientific communities. Some of them manage to receive respectability both by their scientific colleagues and the general public. For instance the late Leena Peltonen-Palotie, a Finnish academician and geneticist, was an internationally highly recognised and awarded scholar. To the general public she was one of the most well-known scientists in Finland.

Independent science journalists should be free from economical, political or other liabilities. When I told this to a Vietnamese delegation of science and technology administrators, they said, diplomatically, that there are countries where journalists are not so free. I answered that even there journalists should be aware of there liabilities. 

Critical science journalists are not driven by their sources and they are not loudspeakers or PR officers of scientific institutions. There have been cases in Finland that e.g. a medical journalist has been shown to drive the interests of a big medical company.

Professional science journalists know how to find out interesting news and how to create stories for their readers, listeners or watchers. Science journalists must have a good understanding of scientific work in general and of certain fields of science specifically. Quite often we can read even in the biggest newspapers articles by news reporters who obviously have not understood what researchers have been telling to them. 

Enthusiastic science journalists love their work and they get their energy from searching for the truth or for something which explains better than earlier who and what we are, mysteries of the universe or at least why it was necessary to save Greece from a collapse.

It has been argued now and then that there should be more storytelling in science journalism. According a definition crucial elements of stories and storytelling include a plot, characters and a narrative point of view (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling). And of course one should have a something interesting to tell to others.

In February 2010 I was attending press infos at the AAAS in San Diego. One of them was especially interesting because it's topic - sleeping - touched all of us in the room. Sara Mednick, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, said that it's very important to have midday naps and that they should last up to ninety minutes. Journalists in the room laughed: who can spend that amount of time sleeping just in the middle of busy working hours.

Mednick continued that the length of a nap was associated with certain benefits. The motor-memory is supported by a quick 20-minute power-nap and it's good for a pianist, for instance. The verbal memory is supported by a deeper nap lasting thirty to sixty minutes and we should sleep so long in order to refresh our writing skills.  A nap of sixty to ninety minutes aids visual and perceptual learning, unconscious learning, and creativity.

Sara Mednick gives also napping tips (http://wellness.ucsd.edu/napin.shtml). If I take too long a nap I wake up groggy and it takes hours to become "normal" again. In that case Mednick advices to take shorter naps (twenty minutes or less). Even they increase alertness and productivity. 

When I came out from the press room I met Nicolas Luco, a senior science journalist from Santiago de Chile. I had got acquainted with him just the day before that. I was quite eager to report him about the importance of having midday naps. Nicolas smiled broadly, he already new it.

One day in the 1960s' a young student Nicolas Luco and a professor Alfonso Calderón got a special task to do at the Catholic University. They should go and meet Pablo Neruda, the world famous poet, and ask him a favour to accept an honorary doctorate.

They went to Neruda's house and got a warm and kind reception. They had a tour in the house and Neruda showed them pieces of his famous collections. Then they sat down, had a chat and a cup of coffee. Then suddenly Neruda's secretary Homero Arce clapped his hands and said: "Now it's time for the Maestro to have a nap." Luco and Calderón were left alone. They didn't have had a chance to fulfil their mission. 

After ninety minutes or so Neruda came back to them. Meanwhile Luco and Calderón had found the courage to ask Neruda about accepting an honorary doctorate. Neruda look at them curiously and asked: "How much shall I be paid for that?" The visitors could only turn up their open hands. "Nothing! I knew it, I knew it!" Neruda laughed.