Scientists confess via Twitter

What do scientists really get up to? And can Twitter be used as a reliable source of information to elucidate our idiosyncratic habits? Not so long ago we had #overlyhonestmethods as a Twitter hashtag, bringing together all those little bits of information not put into scientific papers but which just might (or might not) genuinely have affected how an experiment was done. In case you missed it you can find a summary here in which Mark Lorch spells out how "scientists from all four corners of the twitterverse have not just dismantled that pure-of-thought image but demolished it with repeated 140-character salvos all bearing the hashtag #overlyhonestmethods". The genre is well summed up by the neat explanation in the tweet "The experiment was left for the precise time that it took for us to get a cup of tea". So much of British life seems to be dominated by cups of tea, but perhaps you might have expected otherwise when it came to the precise timing of experiments.

Last week the trending scientific hashtag was #sciconfessions, a slightly different set of admissions also often concerned with experimental protocols but in this case typically those that had gone wrong. Examples ranged from mouth pipetting bacterial cultures (not something to try at home - or indeed in the lab), to travelling home by bus after spilling some vile-smelling compound on one's trousers. But what strikes me most about the images conjured up by these 140 character vignettes is the fact that, despite the too frequent portrayals of scientists as somehow inhuman in film and TV, we are on the contrary a very human bunch. We mess up, in big and small ways, we laugh at ourselves, we talk to ourselves, our bacteria and even our apparatus (see Philip Moriarty's confession, in slightly more than 140 characters, on the PhysicsFocus blog, where you can also find my own personal admission), we may dance in the lab when no one's looking - and we worry about our image: broadcaster Jim Al Khalili claims "I find presenting on radio more relaxing than television as I don't have to worry about holding my tummy in."

It is refreshing to see the scientific community collectively willing to share their follies with a virtual smile and thereby demonstrating that we are not all a cross between a Gradgrind and a Frankenstein (although the latter, in the original book, was also all too human, exhibiting great distress at the disastrous 'success' of his enterprise). We are far from perfect; the majority of tweets I saw with this hashtag described experimental failures, accidents or misdemeanours.  Such tweets should also serve as an important reminder to the non-scientists in our midst that, like Shylock,

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

Somehow the 'mad scientist' stereotype endures, the one who has no life beyond the lab as opposed to the one who says "Talking to a co-worker about weekend plans while holding glassware is still considered 'working,' right?" or the one who likes a bit of fun when the boss is away "Cabbages shatter into a million tiny bits if you put them in liquid nitrogen and then throw them at each other".  We are human in liking a bit of sleep, as exemplified by "I have fallen asleep operating a $250 million dollar telescope..." We like our food too, although not many of us would admit to "I have eaten an organism I couldn't ID just to get rid of it".

Please can the world move on from tired old stereotypes and recognize that scientists are no different in their humanity from those other people who just happen to be more interested through their day-job in money or sales or aesthetics or the written word. Google for a 'scientist' image, and the first one that comes up is still wild-haired, white-coated and manic-looking clutching a test tube with an evil fluid inside. Stereotyping of this kind is just laziness; thank goodness we are progressing to seeing more 'normal' looking scientists regularly gracing our TV screens in person (think Brian Cox, Alice Roberts and Helen Czerski) or in dramas. But such negative shorthand images persist.  They will not be helpful in exciting the Nobel Prize winners of tomorrow now at school. Nor will they stimulate the next Steve Jobs who might, just might, transform our digital economy, nor inspire smart teenagers to set out to find new ways of successfully storing energy from wind or sun for the moment when it's still and dark. Read the #sciconfessions hashtag, recalibrate your take on scientists … and don't forget these wise words you'll find lurking there: "Be very careful with surgical super glue. It's easier than you think to attach a mouse to yourself."

Athene Donald is Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge and a member of the ERC Scientific Council. She tweets at @athenedonald.