Marks & Spencer. Oasis. Football (proper football) for the first hundred years. The list of great British ideas to fall flat on their faces in the United States is a lengthy one. It is a roll-call of infamy that sprang to mind last month, when plans emerged to establish a Science Media Centre in the United States. The original Science Media Centre (SMC) began in London in 2002. It offers the media a clearing house for scientific briefings and packaged quotes from scientists. On its own terms, it has been an outstanding success. A combination of factors lies behind this impact: the energy of the centre's staff; the backing of sponsors, including scientific societies, major corporations and most governmental and nongovernmental research funders; and a close-knit London media circle. Science media centres similar, but not identical, to that in London already exist in locales as far apart as Australia, Canada and Japan.
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