New review: An optimistic and hopeful romp through microbiology, Invisible Friends encourages readers to rethink their relationship with nature, though gets starry-eyed in places.
My April 'climate viz of the month' blog is now posted at https://zacklabe.com/climate-viz-of-the-month/. It broadly discusses why climate scientists consider model experiments called large ensembles, especially for thinking about climate change in the #Arctic. #SciComm#DataViz
Vielen dank to the 300 or so folk who came to my talk on #JWST last night in the Stadttheater Mainz, as part of the universityโs โPhysik im Theaterโ series ๐ญ
Pretty tiring groping around inside my brain for the right German words & phrases for two hours of presentation & questions, but itโs always kind to have my dubious grammar praised as โcharmingโ ๐ฉ๐ช
At least I think thatโs the way itโs intended ๐คจ
Venue for today โ the Stadttheater in Mainz. A public lecture this evening about #JWST in German as part of the universityโs โPhysik im Theaterโ series ๐ญ
Had better check my slides โ have been a few more results & pictures published since I last gave this talk in February ๐ฌ
#BirdGlamour's Goose Glam returns with the Greater White-fronted Goose, a.k.a. Speckle Bellies! The name is a little misleading (their fronts aren't really white) but they have a gorgeous grey-beige front with black speckles! Mated pairs stay together and migrate together for several years. We see these geese west of the Mississippi River during their migration. Females need to gain 30% more weight before migration as they need energy for migrating as well as egg-laying! #SciComm#SciArt
Something nobody tells you about being a science communicator: There's an awful lot of news that you personally don't care about because it's either a) a minor incremental improvement on stuff we've known for decades, but can be shoe-horned into the one interesting headline that non-science editors can come up with for your field, b) Not very interesting, despite the breathless coverage put out by the relevant institute's PR department, c) Almost certainly overhyped nonsense that will be proven false and quietly forgotten about in a few months.
And you'll find that you have to read every single one of these stories because the people in your life are absolutely going to be asking you about them!
You can already turn mycelium into a form of leather, though the normal process of doing so outright kills the fungal cells in the material. Not so much living clothing that could heal itself.
Now, Newcastle University scientists have developed a new leathering process that keeps the chlamydospores alive.
we got a grant for #neuroscience#outreach in #India a few months ago and have been slowly working towards our goal of creating some interactive #tutorials for a workshop. I really want to use this opportunity to also pick up some new skills - like #animation
#SciComm community, would you please share your favorite tools for creating fun #science animations and videos? ๐ฅบโ๐โ Our target audience will be undergrads and I am comfortable with audio-video editing if that helps (picked up that skill as a volunteer a few years ago, shout out to @neuromatch!).
We are considering creating an interactive JupyterBook ร la #neuromatch (https://compneuro.neuromatch.io). If you know of other cool ways of making an interactive tutorial, would love to hear about that!
I wonder if the people saying there is not enough #SciComm on fedi realise not all of us want to be on science-focused instances with gatekeepy overtones?
Follow me and over time Iโll waffle lyrical about doing science and being a scientist.
CART cells beyond cancer - my latest Clinical Pipeline column for Nature Medicine is out. CAR T cell technology in humans was first tried for HIV in the 90s. Now veteran HIV researchers are giving them another shot.
I wrote about a new study that found that, although online #art overall has a positive effect on people's moods (just like #museum visits), not everyone responds to it equally well. #science#scicomm#writing#WroteThis
All heart tissue is not made the same. The left ventricle is commonly considered the most important during development and for blood flow and is at most risk of disease and disorder.
Using stem cells, Imperial College London scientists have made a method to specifically develop left ventricle heart muscle cells for general medicine testing and disease treatment studies.
Sir David Attenborough turns 97 today. He's hosted so many great nature programs, but I think we can all agree that his finest moment was in the BBC's "Life of Insects," when he seduced a male cicada on-camera by imitating the wing-snapping sounds of a lovelorn female.
Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose ๐ฅ๐ง๐ค๐๐๐ฉ ๐ข๐๐ง๐๐๐ฃ๐จ ๐ค๐ช๐ฉ๐จ๐ฉ๐ง๐๐ฅ ๐๐ซ๐๐ฃ Google and Amazon