rogue_mother, I think that fear of science might be right up there with fear of mathematics in people's minds, unfortunately.
I liked animals but was not much good at my minor, zoology (which is why it was not my major), but that was basically the only science I studied after high school. I think most of my knowledge of scientific words is either from reading articles as you do, or from reading a lot of science fiction over the years, along with my interest in birds and plants. I don't necessarily know the proper definition of the word (e.g., "parsec" to me just means a heck of a long way), but at least I vaguely know what field it's related to.