The 'There Are Such Things As Cooties' book doesn't appear to be available in UK.

I have a serious need to know as osculation, for me, has always carried great risk, #autoimmunesystem highly compromised.
The first few months of a new romantic relationship is fraught with a horrid cascade of immune response symptoms. And yet, I still do it!!! It's a really difficult one to resist.
#science #biology #immunology #immunesystem

@RhiMG Ha! There's actually a whole chapter on that in the book called, "There Are Such Things As Cooties."

The Science of Kissing is primarily a #science #book.

While we are still trying to find ways to clean up problems like oil spills in the ocean, microorganisms in the seas have their own insights to impart.

Oil rich soil from the Guaymas Basin has provided German scientists understanding of a mechanism by which archaea in the Alkanophaga break down alkane molecules and thus degrade petroleum through oxidation.

#Remediation #Bioremediation #Oil #Petroleum #Archaea #Alkanophaga #Science #Biology #Scicomm

nature.com/articles/s41564-023…

Candidatus Alkanophaga archaea from Guaymas Basin hydrothermal vent sediment oxidize petroleum alkanes - Nature Microbiology

Oil-rich deep-sea sediments are used to culture syntrophic communities of archaea and bacteria that pair petroleum alkane oxidation to sulfide generation.

^Nature

About 109 billion people have lived & died. Each grain of sand represents 10 million.

This stunning data visualization of human life by Max Roser was published in 2022.

Today there would be 805 green grains representing 8.05 billion people living on Earth. #science #art

Dr. Gladys West grew up in 1930s VA. She had limited opportunities as a black girl in the south, but went on to become a mathematician.

In the 1950s, West helped program the Naval Ordnance Research Calculator. Later, she worked on modeling the shape of the Earth & helped develop satellite geodesy models, a foundation of GPS.

West was not formally credited for her work until 2018 when the VA General Assembly honored her contributions. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys… #HistoryRemix #history #science

Science Debate is now "Science on the Ballot" with @SciPolNetwork

This nonpartisan initiative, which I cofounded in 2007, asks candidates, elected officials, the public & the media to focus on science policy issues prior to Election Day. scipolnetwork.org/science-on-t… #elections #science #politics

U.S. state coalitions are launching on Tuesday, July 18 at 7pm ET & you can join the kickoff event to get involved, learn about the program & work with campaigns. Register at ow.ly/Bgz950P20Jp

Great article in Nature on overcoming the sense of failure in research. #science

nature.com/articles/d41586-023…

"Ryan also emphasized how the students’ relationships with failure would evolve over time. “He said that the time it takes for you to recover from a failure will shorten over time, and he couldn’t be more right,” says Abebayehu."

How to train early-career scientists to weather failure

Workshops and training programmes tackle failure and how to recover from it.

^{Udesky, Laurie}

Ynes Mexia was born in 1870 & became one of the most successful botanists in the world.

At a time when most people felt women couldn't travel alone, she did - A woman of color in her 50s & 60s. Mexia traveled the Americas for 13 years, collecting >145,000 #plants & discovering >50 new species.

She was a fierce conservationist & early pioneer fighting to preserve the redwood forests of California. She also advocated for Indigenous rights. nps.gov/people/ynes-mexia.htm #HistoryRemix #science #history

I'm currently taking an evolutionary biology course so expect some fun evolution-themed content here through the summer.

The last time I took this class was in 2001 & it's exciting to recognize how much we've learned over the last 20+ years.

And I'm using your terrific book @Carl_Zimmer! (Should anyone want to check it out, it's a fantastic read carlzimmer.com/books/evolution… #science #books)

Our universe is rippling with waves caused by massive events, such as merging black holes. Up until yesterday, we didn’t have any evidence of long-wavelength, ‘background’ #GravitationalWaves. But now @nanograv has announced a detection! A network of pulsars measured very carefully has revealed a faint hum in spacetime itself. Though luckily you don’t need pulsars to detect these cookies, a mouth works just fine 😉

#astronomy #astroart #scicomm #science

So many good points in this piece by
@PhilippBayer

My highlight in this screenshot (#science delivery & success is a TEAM effort!), but if you're vaguely involved in #academia +/- #bioinformatics, do have a read and think how it all may apply to you. #academicchatter @academicchatter
genomic.social/@PhilippBayer/1…

Philipp Bayer

2023-07-02 13:58:01

A new blog-post: the two cultures of bioinformatics, and how academia selects against one philippbayer.github.io/blerg/p…

The two cultures of bioinformatics

i ramble about bioinformatics careers

^{Hello! Welcome!}

Latest cartoon: Titanic Failure

#science #climatechange #climatecrisis #climate #cartoon #comic

🚨BIG SCIENCE NEWS 🚨

And our results (along with our international colleagues) have dropped!

Our team (and others) have started to see the strongest evidence as yet of the stochastic gravitational wave background - ripples in space-time cause by ALL the supermassive black holes in the history of the Universe colliding!

We use pulsars to study these riplles and we needed almost 20 years of data to even get the first hints! It's the long game!

I'm a co-author on the Aussie papers (as part of my work) but I also wrote about it here in my latest feature article on #SpaceAustralia

This is why I have been going on about pulsars for a few weeks now - this was coming!

Check it out here: spaceaustralia.com/feature/aus…

📸 Shanika Galaudage

#Astrodon #Astrophysics #RadioAstronomy #GravitationalWaves #Science #Pulsars

Born in 1804, Janet Taylor was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer, author & inventor. She wrote books, founded an academy & ran a manufacturing business for nautical instruments - many she designed herself.

Between 1617-1852, 79 patents were awarded for nautical instruments & Taylor was the only woman among them.

Sadly, Taylor died bankrupt in obscurity. Her death certificate only records her occupation as a “Teacher of Navigation.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_… #HistoryRemix #history #science

I am literally finishing a dissertation on how scientific information has been valued & prioritized by Congressional staffers from the 20th century through the Biden administration.

So for now I’ll just say, if you’re interested in the relationships between #science policy, #ClimateChange, lobbyists, researchers, media & #scicomm, stay tuned… /2

As a scientist who studies #science policy & risk communication, as a science journalist who has been writing in popular outlets about #ClimateChange & #scicomm for 20 years, & as a former congressional staffer focused on #climate & #energy policy in the early 2000s… This article is frustrating.

“Scientific communication failures linked to faster-rising seas”

thehill.com/policy/energy-envi…

Born in the late 1800s, Dr. Inez Beverly Prosser became the first Black woman to earn a PhD in psychology.

Her dissertation on school integration concluded that Black children in integrated schools had a harder time — a controversial finding before Brown v. Board of Ed.

Dr. Prosser also helped several Black students receive funding for college. Tragically, she passed away just one year after earning her PhD at ~38 in a car accident. apa.org/monitor/2008/11/prosse… #HistoryRemix #women #science

A 15,000 word article about the physics of a bicycle. It explores the forces that act on a bike in lovely approachable detail.

And it includes 118 wonderful interactive diagrams.

This is such a great piece of work.

#Bicycle #Bikes #BikeTooter #Cycling #Physics #Science

ciechanow.ski/bicycle/

Bicycle – Bartosz Ciechanowski

Interactive article explaining the physics of a bicycle.

^{ciechanow.ski}

Our sun is big. It’s 864,000 miles or 1,392,000 km in diameter. Or 109x wider than Earth. But it’s also an average sized star.

Some stars are much bigger.

Betelgeuse, in the constellation Orion, is a red supergiant star ~700x the size of the sun.

If we replaced our sun with Betelgeuse, it would stretch past Jupiter's orbit. universe.nasa.gov/news/237/wha… #space #science

HPC.social is a server for the High Performance Computing community and those in related fields:

mast.hpc.social

For more info see their About page at mast.hpc.social/about or contact their admin @admin

#FeaturedServer #HPC #HighPerformanceComputing #Supercomputing #Supercomputers #Computing #Computers #Research #Data #Science #ComputerScience #CompSci #Fediverse

HPC.social Mastodon

A Mastodon instance to support and encourage communication among the High Performance Computing community and those in related fields. Personal usage permitted. More community features at hpc.social

^{Mastodon hosted on mast.hpc.social}

Born in India in 1962, Dr. Kalpana Chawla became the first Indian woman in #space in 1997.

In 2003, she was on the Columbia, when insulation broke off, depressurizing the shuttle. All 7 crew members died.

7 asteroids + 7 hills on Mars were named after them.
space.com/17056-kalpana-chawla… #HistoryRemix #science

“When you look at the stars & the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system." - Chawla, 1997

I was on WUNC earlier today to chat about The #Science of Kissing on NPR’s Embodied.

It was a treat to meet the other guest, Kadar Small, a photographer, director & filmmaker behind the acclaimed photo series “PDA.” Kadar photographs moments of kissing & intimacy between Black & brown queer folks in public & at home, exploring what this kind of connection looks like through his work.

Listen at wunc.org/show/embodied-radio-s… #lgbtq #art #books

Our Lips are Unsealed: Exploring the Science & Culture of Kissing

Kissing-like behaviors exist across the animal kingdom. But why? A scientist explains why humans are so drawn to each other's lips, and a photographer documents the power of a kiss.

^{Kaia Findlay (WUNC)}

Democratic Underground shared this quote from my 2009 book, Unscientific America, as a quote for the day.

It’s interesting to return to in 2023, especially given my research on scientific decision making in Congress. I’m not quite sure how I would change it at first glance, but my perspective is more nuanced 14 years later. #science #democracy #politics

We’re still discovering ancient species...

Millions of years before dinosaurs evolved, the saber-toothed Inostrancevia africana was “kind of the T.rex of their time.”

Incidentally, this apex predator was wiped out due to global warming during the Permian-Triassic Extinction. nytimes.com/2023/05/22/science… #science #nature #evolution

Have you ever watched a starling murmuration?

That’s when thousands of #birds seem to dance in spectacular formation, whirling & swirling gracefully across the sky. youtu.be/V4f_1_r80RY #nature #science

Scientists, engineers, mathematicians, & citizen scientists have been exploring what’s happening inside murmurations: theconversation.com/why-do-flo… @TheConversationUS

Flight of the Starlings: Watch This Eerie but Beautiful Phenomenon | Short Film Showcase

We know a lot of factual information about the starling—its size and voice, where it lives, how it breeds and migrates—but what remains a mystery is how it f...

^YouTube

Born in 1919, Isabella Aiona Abbott became the first native Hawaiian woman to earn a PhD in #science.

A preeminent marine botanist, Abbott became the 1st woman & 1st person of color to become a full professor in Stanford’s Biology dept. She wrote 8 books, >150 articles & was awarded the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal by the National Academy of Sciences.

In 2005, Abbott was named a “Living Treasure of Hawaii” by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii. https://woc.aises.org/content/isabella-aiona-abbott-becoming-“first-lady-limu” #HistoryRemix #history

A wee bit of personal news…

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has announced this year’s regional Emmy nominations & Serving up Science, the quirky PBS series I write & host, has received two - including one for host ☺️

wkar.org/2023-05-16/wkar-story… #tv

You really never know where a career in #science will lead. It’s an honor to be nominated & I’m incredibly grateful to work with such a wonderful team at WKAR!

WKAR Storytellers Receive 2023 Regional Emmy® Nominations

EAST LANSING, MI; May 16, 2023 – The talented storytellers at WKAR Public Media at Michigan State University have earned 13 Regional Emmy® nominations for their productions.

^WKAR

“Science has had enormous trouble building a workforce that reflects the public it serves. And now, numerous state governments are trying to make it more difficult, if not impossible, at the public universities in their states & even within the scientific community, there are efforts to derail the idea that it matters who does science.”

science.org/content/blog-post/… #science

Born in 1906, computer scientist Grace Hopper invented the first compiler for computer programming language & was among the first programmers of the Harvard Mk1 computer.

Hopper popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages & paved the way to develop COBOL (an early high-level programming language). She originated the term "bug" to describe computer glitches & became a celebrated Rear Admiral in the US Navy.
news.yale.edu/2017/02/10/grace… #HistoryRemix #science #history

A cartoon from 2018 that I republished over the holidays: Understanding the world through careful observation of reality isn't "partisan."

#comic #climate #climatechange #climatecrisis #cartoon #science

What's the world's deadliest animal?

The answer may surprise you. gatesnotes.com/Most-Lethal-Ani… #science #nature