#TOP TRENDING NEWS STORIES 2014 FULL#
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A case in point is Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and host of the science TV show Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

For them, Twitter popularity can amplify their efforts in public outreach. Rather than identifying 'Science Kardashians'-those who are, as Hall put it, 'famous for being famous'-the top 50 list reveals that a majority of the science Twitter stars spend much, if not all, of their time on science communication. Total number of tweets: 19,000 University of Oxford, United Kingdom Total number of tweets: 10,300 University of Manchester, United Kingdom Total number of tweets: 3,962 Hayden Planetarium, United Statesġ,440,000 followers 33,301 K-index: 1188 The top three science stars of Twitter: (Based on followers)

We have compiled a list of the 50 most followed scientists on the social media platform and their academic citation counts-and calculated their K-index by drawing on citation data from Google Scholar ( A fuller explanation of how we compiled the list is below, at the end of the full story). So just who are the Kardashians of science, and is Hall's criticism justified? Hall tactfully declined to provide a K-index for anyone specific, but Science was curious about the names and the numbers.

Though Hall says he meant his K-index lightheartedly, his article in Genome Biology sparked a Twitter storm of criticism. Scientists with a high score on the index, named after the reality TV star Kim Kardashian, one of the most popular celebrities on the social media platform, should 'get off Twitter' and write more papers, suggested Hall, who works at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. Genomicist Neil Hall sparked an online tempest this summer by proposing a 'Kardashian Index,' or K-index-a comparison of a scientist's number of Twitter followers with their citations. *Update: The original story below generated so much attention on social media that we followed up with another article that noted reactions, a fuller explanation of the story and why certain people were not included, and an expanded list of most followed practicing research scientists on Twitter.

#TOP TRENDING NEWS STORIES 2014 FULL#

Top trending news stories 2014