Imagine you’re an atmospheric chemist. There’s a pandemic. And public health officials release information about how the virus spreads from one person to another—information that directly contradicts your knowledge of how tiny particles move in the air. What do you do? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, Jose-Luis Jimenez and Kimberly Prather talk to C&EN editor Jyllian Kemsley about how they’ve handled that situation over the past 2 years. They share their frustrations with public health officials along with the heartbreak and rewards of communicating science with the general public, and what they plan to take from their experiences as they think about their research going forward.

A transcript of this episode is available at bit.ly/3rzzCzI.

Sign up for C&EN’s Selling Your Science: The Art of Science Communication at cenm.ag/sciencecommunication.

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Image credit: Will Ludwig/C&EN/Mariana Pereira (Jimenez)/Erik Jepsen/University of California San Diego (Prather)