The field of science communication — the practice of informing and educating people about science-related topics — arose just after the start of the Enlightenment when Francesco Algarotti published his first edition of Newtonianism for the Ladies in 1737. While that bit of 18th-century mansplaining doesn’t really hold up by today’s standards, in the nearly three centuries since the pace of scientific progress has only accelerated — with science communication evolving alongside it.

Now with the advent of social media, science is connecting with the public in a way never seen before. Just look at Skype a Scientists, an online program that connects researchers from a broad range of fields with students, teachers, and other interested groups via, well, Skype. Each meeting lasts 30 minutes to an hour and operates as an informal Q&A session. For scientists, these meetings can have a high impact without having them need to sacrifice a load of time. In the last two and a half years, Skype a Scientist has served 15,000 classrooms and signed up 6,000 individual researchers to participate.

The podcasting community has also become a hotbed for science communication. Take This Week In Science, for example. Originally a live radio show broadcast from KDVS on the University of California, Davis campus, it now reaches listeners in 60 countries as a weekly podcast. For all of us, the fact that science is benefitting from the connected web tells us that social media isn’t merely a tool for people to collect likes and post memes online. Rather, it can be a tool that helps the scientific community grow bigger and bigger.