Be ungovernable, like birds who make nests OUT OF ANTI-BIRD SPIKES. A new study describes resourceful Dutch & Belgian corvids besting evil architecture by stealing metal anti-bird strips and using them like thorny twigs, to construct their homes.
Like thorns, the spikes may protect their nests from predators.
#PPOD: Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts. T Also captured were unusual cloud ripples above the pileus cloud. The formation of a rare pileus cloud capping a common cumulus cloud is an indication that the lower cloud is expanding upward and might well develop into a storm. Credit: Jiaqi Sun
Like many other scientists I often get "debate me" emails from random people with weird ideas about #astronomy. If I answer, they feel validated. Same if I don't. So I always pick the option that doesn't waste my time. Don't fall for the "debate me" trap, folks, you can't win. #scicomm
An excellent example of great science communication. I've got it printed out and hanging on my office door because I can't resist anything that is beaver and this great. #scicomm
The publishing sector has a problem. Scientists are overwhelmed, editors are overworked, special issue invitations are constant, research paper mills, article retractions, journal delistings… JUST WHAT IS GOING ON!?
Several of us overly online biologists spent years quietly doing an experiment on Twitter, trying to find out if tweeting about new studies from a set of mid-range journals caused an increase in later citations, compared to set of untweeted control articles.
Turns out we had no noticeable effect; the tweeted papers were cited at the same rate as the control set.
Our paper, headed by Trevor Branch, was published today in PLOS One:
University-hosted instance social.uibk.ac.at: We are continuing to increase our presence here on Mastodon for science communication. By establishing our own instance, we aim to contribute to a positive development of the #Fediverse.
We are thus (further) limiting our involvement on X.
Organizational units of the University of Innsbruck are welcome to use the instance social.uibk.ac.at!
“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.
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.
“Imagine we land a space probe on one of Jupiters’ moons, take up a sample of material, and find it is full of organic molecules. How can we tell whether those molecules are just randomly assembled goo or the outcome of some evolutionary process taking place on the planet?”
Physics World has talked to me about my science and about all the things I do as a scientist that are not my science - climate activism and Astronomers for Planet Earth (@a4e), my art and outreach in general :)
If podcasts are your thing, you may like this one (also download able on all usual #podcast sources):
If you prefer to read things instead of listening (as do I myself; not an audio person ... 😅 ), Physics World has now turned the podcast with me into a written interview:
It's about my science, but also about all the things I do as a scientist that are not my science - climate crisis outreach and Astronomers for Planet Earth, my art and outreach in general.
We've all been there: it's puzzle time, but once you dump out the pieces and start laying them flat, you realize you don't have enough space on your table. Join me as we use physics to find out ✨HOW BIG A TABLE YOU NEED FOR YOUR JIGSAW PUZZLE ✨
Doctors harvested Henrietta Lacks’ cells in 1951, long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for her family argued that a Waltham-based biotechnology company has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the cell line became known.
Want to know what my research is about? Follow this thread 🧵 based on a 10min talk I've drawn for a meeting.
The talk was aimed at non-specialist space science colleagues (not the general public!). The slides were built up step by step, but I'm omitting this here & showing only the final graphs, less this becomes a 34-part thread. 11 is plenty enough!
So: "Understanding Winds of Massive Stars Using High Mass X-ray Binaries"
Taken at Lake Wanaka, New Zealand, this beautiful image of the Milky Way's core included a surprise guest star - red sprites! These large-scale electrical discharges occur at about 50-90 km in altitude, in the Earth's mesosphere.
New!! Observations of our Event Horizon Telescope (#EHT) collaboration have uncovered strong & organized magnetic fields spiraling around the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Images in polarized light of the #blackhole in the Milky Way center reveal structures similar to those in M87*, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*! #astronomy#astrodon#scicomm#physics
Across 16 countries, this research finds consistent cognitive and social predictors of COVID-19 misinformation susceptibility, and shows how accuracy prompts and literacy tips reduce misinformation sharing and how wisdom of crowds can identify false claims cross-culturally.
1/16 This July, I gave an invited talk in the "Communicating Science Through Art" session at the European Astronomical Society annual meeting, organized by the amazing @theastrophoenix . And I thought it may be something that would also interest you #fediverse folks.
The aim of the talk was partly to give people insight into my why & how of my art. But mainly to encourage others to just try. In a very subjective manner.
Decided to be more active here, so let me reintroduce myself! I'm a zooarchaeologist researching #Farming and #Food of the past. I study animal and plant remains 🐐🌾, apply biochemical analyses 🧪, and want to use this knowledge of the past to contribute to #Sustainability today 🚜 #Archaeology#SciComm#WomenInScience#Animals
#PPOD: Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the Solar System, as captured by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. The volcano is about 620 km across and 21 km tall. The textured landscape at the bottom is made up of giant landslide deposits.
Credit: ESA/Mars Express; Processing: Jacint Roger Perez
1/ The pulsar J1023 (a dense and rapidly spinning stellar corpse) started feeding off a companion star a few years ago. But since then it has been behaving oddly!
Sometimes the pulsar gives off bright X-ray, UV and visible light, and other times it emits more radio waves, switching between these two states every few seconds/minutes.
A new result involving several telescopes worldwide has provided new clues:
#PPOD: This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53635851891/)
Waltham biotech company settles with family of Henrietta Lacks over "immortal" cells harvested without consent (www.wbur.org)
Doctors harvested Henrietta Lacks’ cells in 1951, long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for her family argued that a Waltham-based biotechnology company has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the cell line became known.
Understanding and combatting misinformation across 16 countries on six continents - Nature Human Behaviour (www.nature.com)
Across 16 countries, this research finds consistent cognitive and social predictors of COVID-19 misinformation susceptibility, and shows how accuracy prompts and literacy tips reduce misinformation sharing and how wisdom of crowds can identify false claims cross-culturally.