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Katherine Esau, born in 1898 in Ukraine, was a pioneering botanist who studied plant anatomy & viruses.
Esau began studying agriculture in 1916 in Moscow. Her family fled to Berlin & ultimately arrived in the US in 1922.
Esau earned a PhD & her research on plant structure spanned 7 decades. She wrote 6 textbooks & was the 6th woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1989, Esau received the National Medal of Science. ccber.ucsb.edu/ucsb-natural-hi… #HistoryRemix #science #history
The Life of Katherine Esau | CCBER
Growing up in Russia: The Esau Family Katherine Esau was born on April 3, 1898, in the city of Ekaterinoslav in the Ukraine. The city was named after Catherine the Great (as was Katherine Esau.ccber.ucsb.edu
Scientists in China have found evidence that our ancestors were almost entirely wiped out ~1 million years ago.
Why? #ClimateChange
While not every expert agrees, the research is intriguing & @Carl_Zimmer has the details: nytimes.com/2023/08/31/science… #science
Globally we produce A LOT of #energy, but did you know the majority of fossil energy gets wasted? In the US alone, two-thirds of that energy is *wasted* as heat.
As Hannah Ritchie has pointed out, we don’t actually need to produce a low carbon equivalent of all of the coal, oil & gas we currently use.
That means we can decarbonize quickly by being less wasteful & more efficient. #ClimateChange #science
But the term “meme” was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to describe a behavior, style or idea as a unit of culture that can spread or disappear. From social movements to religion to Grumpy Cat.
Even though most folks may not be aware of it, we’re sharing a popular concept from #science, every single day, across #socialmedia.
Various turtle shell patterns.
By #AnimalPhotography
#NaturePhotography #Plant #Plants #Flower #Flowers #Photography #Photographer #Video #Science
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek died #OTD in 1723.
A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and one of the first microscopists and microbiologists. Van Leeuwenhoek is best known for his pioneering work in microscopy and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology as a scientific discipline. via @wikipedia
Books by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek at PG:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/83…
Books by Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van (sorted by popularity)
Project Gutenberg offers 71,410 free eBooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.Project Gutenberg
About 250M years ago, 90% of species on Earth died during the Permian extinction.
Tragic? Perhaps. But it also created a lot of vacant niches to fill.
And not long after, the very first mammals, our ancestors, appeared.
#Life on Earth is resilient & will continue to be, whether we're part of it or not. #history #science
Born in 1861, Nettie Stevens received her PhD in 1903. She went on to discover sex chromosomes in mealworms. Until then, it was believed that the mother or environment determined males & females.
But... Edmund Beecher Wilson published first. He may have seen Stevens' results & also didn't quite get everything right.
Stevens' work had the correct conclusion, but Wilson is most often credited with this discovery.
vox.com/2016/7/7/12105830/nett… #HistoryRemix #history #science
Nettie Stevens discovered XY sex chromosomes. She didn't get credit because she had two X’s.
For most of human history, how babies became male or female was an absolute mystery.Brian Resnick (Vox)
“Shedding the hectic energy #Twitter had conditioned me to was an adjustment, but it definitely made life better. And watching the vandalism wreaking havoc on the place formerly known as Twitter makes building so very satisfying. #Science #Mastodon doesn’t even need to grow to be great. But it sure looks like it’s going to.”
absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2023/… via @jby
How Is Science Twitter's "Mastodon Migration" Panning Out? - Absolutely Maybe
“Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty.” And Mastodon was the most common destination if they opened…Hilda Bastian (Absolutely Maybe)
“Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst & uncertainty.”
That survey with only a 5% response rate went viral & got me wondering about other evidence & how the #ScienceTwitter #MastodonMigration was panning out.
So I updated my study tracker & wrote a new post @PLOS : absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2023/…
tl;dr There's been a big recent surge here; the future of #ScienceMastodon looks bright; ScienceX is materially diminished tho the network is still there.
How Is Science Twitter's "Mastodon Migration" Panning Out? - Absolutely Maybe
“Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty.” And Mastodon was the most common destination if they opened…Hilda Bastian (Absolutely Maybe)
I adore this comic by @elisegravel.
“So, yeah, YOU can be a scientist, too!” #science #art #education
As scientists pull back on, or drop entirely, their Twitter presence, a lot of them are coming here.
Welcome them, follow them!
nature.com/articles/d41586-023…
#science @scientists
Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty
A Nature survey reveals scientists’ reasons for leaving the social-media platform now known as X, and what they are doing to build and maintain a sense of community.Vidal Valero, Myriam
nature.com/articles/s41586-023… Lots of hard work over a span of six years, large sample size (= number of fruitflies) and rigorous #stats Debunking science is hard work - this paper is very well done. #science #fruitflies #drosophila
No evidence for magnetic field effects on the behaviour of Drosophila - Nature
Following testing of magnetic field effects on 97,658 flies moving in a two-arm maze and on 10,960 flies performing spontaneous escape behaviour (negative geotaxis), no evidence was found for magnetically sensitive behaviour in Drosophila.Nature
Something weird's going on with the Google Scholar index. I just went looking for Janzen (1980) and got ... a paper in Ecological Economics as the top result? And when I forced it to find the canonical paper, it only gave me citations to it?
Did @sse_evolution's move to OUP somehow break the journal's representation in Google Scholar?
I haven’t been sharing interviews here, but it was an absolute delight to join Kate Lister on #BeTwixtTheSheets to talk about the #history & #science of kissing.
Yes, I’m a scientist focused on policy, sustainability & communication, but 12 years ago, I wrote a book called The Science of Kissing. We contain multitudes.
play.acast.com/s/betwixt-the-s…
History of Kissing: Why do we lock lips? | Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society on Acast
A good old smooch. It’s something that we do on a daily basis in one form or another (if we’re lucky), and yet have you ever stopped and wondered why we do it? Wonder no more.acast
Physicist Lise Meitner’s brilliance led to the discovery of nuclear fission. But her long time collaborator Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry without her in 1944, even though she had given the first theoretical explanation.
Albert Einstein called Meitner “our Marie Curie." She also adamantly refused to work on the atomic bomb during WWII. whyy.org/articles/lise-meitner… #science #history
Lise Meitner – the forgotten woman of nuclear physics who deserved a Nobel Prize
Left off publications due to Nazi prejudice, this Jewish woman lost her rightful place in the scientific pantheon as the discoverer of nuclear fission.Thomas J. Jorgenson, The Conversation (WHYY)
Explore ~14 billion years of time in this fascinating graphical summary of events from the Big Bang to the present day by talented artist Pablo Carlos Budassi.
Beginning at center of the spiral, every billion years is represented by a 90-degree stretch, with the exception of the last 500 million years represented as the last 90-degree stretch for greater detail. visualcapitalist.com/cp/nature… #art #science
Nature Timespiral: The Evolution of Earth from the Big Bang
The evolution of Earth can be dated back 14 billion years ago to the Big Bang. This graphic shows the events that led us to our modern world.Visual Capitalist
NYT’s opinion writer Paul Krugman is declaring #climate is now a culture war issue 🤔
I worked in the U.S. Senate ~20 years ago. Covered climate as a journalist. Cofounded an NGO focused on science policy issues during elections. Am finishing a dissertation on how Congress has made decisions about #science policy for the last 1/2 century - with climate as a central theme.
This isn’t new. #ClimateChange has *always* been a culture war issue.
palmoildetectives.com/2023/08/…
Op-Ed: A plan for preserving a habitable earth by Julian Cribb
Renowned and prolific science communicator and author Julian Cribb writes this op-ed piece for Palm Oil Detectives. He addresses the world’s most pressing needs for survival as we descend int…Palm Oil Detectives
Did you know the most abundant vertebrate on Earth often starts life as a male & transitions to female?
Scientists estimate the number of bristlemouth fish range from hundreds of trillions to quadrillions(!) of individuals. nytimes.com/2015/06/30/science… #science #nature
juliaserano.medium.com/gender-… #trans #transgender #LGBTQ #science
Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies
NOTE: this essay is a 15 minute read. If it’s listed as longer than that, it’s because it contains a list of over 100 references at the end. Trans and gender-diverse people are a pancultural and…Julia Serano (Medium)
Absurd Creature of the Week: This Prehistoric Elephant Had a Huge Spork for a Mouth
Platybelodon was an ancestor of the modern elephant that looked like it got hit in the face with a shovel, then absorbed that shovel into its mouth.Matt Simon (WIRED)
Update: The family of Henrietta Lacks has reached a settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, a #science & technology company that used & profited from cells taken without her consent in the 1950s.
The announcement came yesterday on what would have been Henrietta Lack’s 103th birthday. npr.org/2023/08/01/1191283359/… /2
"Christopher Nolan's #Oppenheimer explores the work of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer & colleagues to create the atomic bomb.
Yet, the film fails to depict a key part of the story, using 2 female scientists as stand-ins for ALL of the women who contributed."
Hundreds of women were essential to the Manhattan Project, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer. But they are largely absent in the #film.
businessinsider.com/women-manh… #HistoryRemix #science #history
The women that Nolan's new film 'Oppenheimer' completely ignored
Women serving in key roles like explosion techs, librarians, and hematologists were essential to the Manhattan Project.Katie Hawkinson (Insider)
Preprint from Salzberg team questioning a 2020 Nature paper from Rob Knight 😮
"the raw read counts were vastly over-estimated for nearly every bacterial species, often by a factor of 1000 or more."
"Our conclusion after re-analysis is that the near-perfect association between microbes and cancer types reported in the study is, simply put, a fiction."
Major data analysis errors invalidate cancer microbiome findings
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20…
#microbiome #genomics #research #science
Major data analysis errors invalidate cancer microbiome findings
We re-analyzed the data from a recent large-scale study that reported strong correlations between microbial organisms and 33 different cancer types, and that created machine learning predictors with near-perfect accuracy at distinguishing among cance…bioRxiv
Born in 1928, Vera Rubin set her sights on Princeton, but they wouldn’t accept female grad students in astronomy. So she earned her master’s from Cornell & PhD from Georgetown.
In 1965, Rubin became the 1st woman allowed to observe at the Palomar Observatory. She went on to find evidence for the existence of dark matter.
In 1993, Rubin was awarded the National Medal of Science. But curiously, she was not awarded a Nobel Prize. themarginalian.org/2016/04/18/… #HistoryRemix #science #space #history
Pioneering Astronomer Vera Rubin on Women in Science, Dark Matter, and Our Never-Ending Quest to Know the Universe
“We’re still groping for the truth… Science consists of continually making better and better what has been usable in the past.”The Marginalian
Hi again #Mastodon!
I joined the fediverse when a lot of my community had not migrated from the bird site, so could only partially reconstruct it here using automated tools. If I followed you there and don’t here, say hi and let’s reconnect!
For those who don’t know me, I am a #virologist by training with almost 20 years of experience as a #science #editor, a passion for #microbiology and all science really, #OpenScience #openaccess & people
Have a lovely day everyone
Today is my dissertation proposal defense. That means I'll give a public lecture about my research in front of my committee.
As some folks may know, I'm doing another round of grad school, mid-career, focused on scientific decision making in the U.S. Congress sheril.substack.com/p/a-disser… #science #politics
In terms of PhD-ing, this is kind of like the pregame. I passed my comprehensive exams last year & will officially defend my dissertation & finish this Fall. So here goes...
A Dissertation on Democracy
Consider this the Cliffs NotesSheril Kirshenbaum (Unelected Representative)
Latest cartoon: Quackery Quotas
The right's cries for "ideological diversity" sound fair to well-meaning people who believe in good-faith debate as a way to arrive at the truth. But truth is not the goal here; the goal is power.
#education #science #college #university #climatechange
Science is for everyone, but not everyone can see themselves there.
That’s one reason I love this beautifully illustrated, FREE to download comic book developed by Flint teachers, artists & plant biologists. Through classroom modules w real plants, high school students learn how traits evolve over time through natural selection w characters who look like more of them. And that matters toward building a more inclusive STEM future. hioh.education/monkeyflowers-g… #science #art
A significant new study, using massive biodiversity datasets, shows that invasions by non-native plants set the stage for later invasions by non-native insects.
"nonnative plant introductions are a major driver of insect invasions, and that insect invasions lag behind plant invasions. In the near future, new insect invasions are estimated to increase by 35% worldwide based on recent nonnative plant introductions."
Happy birthday Rosalind Franklin!
Rosalind Franklin’s research was crucial to discovering DNA’s double helix structure. But she never received proper acknowledgement for her contribution.
James Watson & Francis Crick were awarded the credit & Nobel Prize, but their work was only possible bc they saw her unpublished data & X-ray diffraction images. nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science… #science #history #HistoryRemix
Untangling Rosalind Franklin’s Role in DNA Discovery, 70 Years On
Historians have long debated the role that Dr. Franklin played in identifying the double helix. A new opinion essay argues that she was an “equal contributor.”Emily Anthes (The New York Times)
Isn’t it incredible to live on the same planet where this magnificent, ancient shark once grew up to 65 ft (20m)? 🦈
The massive megalodon swam Earth’s ocean for millions of years.
Funny how many folks mistakenly believe humans are some kind of pinnacle of #evolution. We literally just arrived a few hundred thousand years ago. #science #history
IL-6 is such a fascinating cytokine.
Here it is modulating different dendritic cell subsets
@JExpMed
#immunology #DC #cytokine #science
rupress.org/jem/article/220/10…
IL-6 selectively suppresses cDC1 specification via C/EBPβ
We show that tumor-derived IL-6 blocks the development of type 1 classical dendritic cells through the induction of C/EBPβ in the common dendritic cell progenitKim, Sunkyung (Rockefeller University Press)