Why are we conscious? Can you pull things out of a black hole? Find out in our July 10-16 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS

• Is it possible to pull something out of a black hole? by Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang!
• Check out the closest ever view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot by Mary Beth Griggs at Popular Science
• The Quest To Destroy Science's 'Magic Rock' by Brian Koberlein at Forbes
• Google is using AI to create stunning landscape photos using Street View imagery by Nick Statt at The Verge
• Lights, Cameras, CRISPR: Biologists Use Gene Editing to Store Movies in DNA by Heidi Ledford at Scientific American
• Veganism, Microbes and Overconsumption by Jacob Dykes at BioCultured
• Taking steps to learn more about obesity with smartphones by Jennifer Huber at Scope Blog 
• How E-Cigarettes May Lead Youth to Cigarette Smoking in 200 Words by Brian Jenssen at Policy Lab
• Toxic vaccine chemicals – the dose makes the poison at Skeptical Raptor
• Why Are We Conscious? by Steven Novella at NeurologicaBlog
• What’s going on in our minds when language shapes how we think? by Rose Hendricks
• Brain circuitry linked to social connection and desire to cuddle by Amielle Moreno at Lab Land
• Want a Robot That Can Really Feel? Give It Whiskers by Matt Simon at Wired
• Ravens can plan ahead & barter for food, abilities believed to exist only in primates by Cosmos Reporter at Cosmos
• Why Can Lavender Be Used to Repel Moths? – The Chemistry of Lavender by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest

Image copyright Compound Interest, used via Creative Commons license.

• Green method developed for making artificial spider silk by Sarah Collins at The University of Cambridge
• Arctic Nations Agree to Work Toward Curbing Use of Heavy Fuel Oils by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours at Arctic Deeply
• Citizen journalism: A phenomenon that is here to stay by Anthony King at EuroScientist

Check back next week for more great picks!

How does Nature inspire us? How does marijuana work? The answers are among our July 3-9 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

How a Jupiter-type planet might form. Credit: ESO/L. Caláada

• Science uncovers the origin of the first light in the Universe by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang! 
• LHC pops out a new particle that could test the strong force by Jacob Aron at New Scientist
• Earth’s Seven Sisters by Tom Barratt at Absolute Science
• Jupiter-Type Planets Come In Regular And Supersize by Brian Koberlein at Forbes
• An Algorithm Helps Protect Mars Curiosity's Wheels by Andrew Good at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• A huge scanner that can read body language in real situations by John Biggs at TechCrunch
• New map of world’s most toxic countries by Ekbal Hussain at The Pale Blue Dot
• Biological control: birds vs. (insects vs. insects) by Fred Singer at Fred's Ecology and Environmental Tales 
• Cystic Fibrosis Among Asians: Why Ethnicity-Based Genetic Testing is Obsolete by Ricki Lewis at DNA Science Blog
• Ancient-genome studies grapple with Africa’s past by Ewen Callaway at Nature
• The 100 000 Genomes Project by Leanne Edermaniger at ScienceLED
• Scientists Map the Receptor That Makes Weed Work by Nick Stockton at Wired
• Absurd alkaline ideas – history, horror and jail time by Kat Day at The Chronicle Flask
• Untreatable gonorrhoea on the march worldwide, says WHO  by Phil Taylor at PMLive
• Custom cancer vaccines safely fight and kill tumors in early human trials by Beth Mole at Ars Technica
• You don’t have to climb a mountain for a “peak experience” in nature to be life-changing by Emma Young at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• Here’s how a child sees a Van Gogh painting by Laura Sanders at Growth Curve
• Postpartum psychosis: “I’m afraid of how you’ll judge me, as a mother and as a person” by Catherine Carver at Mosaic
• Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? by Stephen Buranyi at The Guardian
• What’s the return? Or…how is it possible that Open Library of Humanities works? by Cameron Neylon at Science in the Open
• Sweeping Sands by Dana Hunter at Rosetta Stones

Check back next week for more great picks!

Find out what you must know about chocolate, coconut oil & shampoo in our June 26-July 2 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

• Cocoa, Chocolate Consumption Enhances Cognitive Abilities and Memory, New Review Finds at Science News
• Saturated Biases: Where the AHA Advice on Coconut Oil Went Wrong by Hilda Bastian at Absolutely Maybe
• Our furry friends are getting fat just like us; 1 in 3 are overweight by Beth Mole at Ars Technica
• Is Shampoo Dangerous? by Gaia Cantelli  
• Feelin’ the Beat (Frequency) by Ethan McBride at Neuwrite San Diego 
• An ‘Atlas for the End of the World’ by Greg Miller at All Over The Map



One of the many maps that Atlas for the End of the World (http://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com) uses to help us understand that global resources are finite. Image used via Creative Commons licence.

• Offshore Oil vs. Offshore Wind: Guess Where the Action Really Is by John Rogers at Union of Concerned Scientists
• Gifted while female by Izabella Laba at The Accidental Mathematician
• From Wartime Devastation To Academic Discrimination, Cécile DeWitt-Morette Overcame It All by Paul Halpern at Starts With a Bang! 
• Dear Dr B: Is science democratic? by Sabine Hossenfelder at Backreaction
• The vagueness problem in academic writing by Shaun Lehmann at The Thesis Whisperer 

Check back next week for more great picks!

Which cute turtles need help? Why are babies born at 8am? It's all in our June 19-25 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

• A sonnet inspired by research on how cute animal pics help improve marital relationships by Sam Illingworth at The Poetry of Science
• Trust Is Influenced By Genetics But Distrust Is Not by Milla Bengtsson at ReliaWire
• NASA found a bunch more potentially habitable planets by Rachel Feltman at Popular Science
• He’s on fire! How the hot hand helped Golden State become NBA champions by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang!
• Light years from home – a geologist’s tale by Conor Purcell at Geolog
• Why Are so Many Babies Born around 8:00 A.M.? by Zan Armstrong at Scientific American
• In Science, Probability Is More Certain Than You Think by Chad Orzel at Forbes
• Origami anything by Larry Hardesty at MIT News
• Turning Bread Into Beer by Nat Newman at Headstuff
• Talking Trash – The Chemistry Behind the Smell of Garbage by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest 
• Corals Keep a Record of Ocean Pollution by Pippa Wysong at Hakai Magazine
• How Are We Running Out of Room for One of the World’s Tiniest Turtles? by Jason Bittel at NRDC onEarth

Bog turtles are falling foul of the pet trade. Credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

• How to grow rice while saving endangered salmon by Emma Bryce at Anthropocene
• Landmark 100 Percent Renewable Energy Study Flawed, Say 21 Leading Experts by Robert Fares at Scientific American

Check back next week for more great picks!

Which creatures are unlikely tool-users? What has the newest robo-chef been making? Find out in our June 12-18 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

• Unlikely Creatures That Use Tools at BrainCrumble
• Robot Chef Learns to Twirl Pizza Like a Pro by Jeanette Beebe at Scientific American
• Eating a low carb breakfast may make you a more tolerant person by Claire Wilson at New Scientist
• Even moderate drinking may speed brain decline by Ike Swetlitz at STAT
• The idea that humans have a poor sense of smell is an outdated myth, argues new review by Alex Fradera at The British Psychological Society Research Digest
• “Reverse ego-depletion”: People in India find mental effort energising at The British Psychological Society Research Digest
• My déjà vu is so extreme I can’t tell what’s real any more by Pat Long at Mosaic
• Your Brain, the Liar by Jarrett Lovelett at NeuWrite San Diego
• Attention and Language by Blair Bolles at Babel's Dawn
• ¿Puede la piel delatar al mentiroso? by Juan Moisés De La Serna at Catedra Abierta de Psicologia y Neurociencias
• "The Himalaya Connection": Telling a story of geoscientific exploration on film by Doug Prose at Earth
• New form of carbon that’s hard as a rock, yet elastic, like rubber at Carnegie Institution for Science 

A visualization from the story above, of the different types of diamond-like linkages (red spheres) formed at curved surfaces or between the layers of graphene (black spheres) in this new type of compressed glassy carbon. Image provided courtesy of Timothy Strobel.

• The scientific story of how each element was made by Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang!
• Baking cookies - What happens in the oven at Food Crumbles
• A tiny model human liver at Cosmos Magazine
• Top 10 discoveries about waves by Tom Siegfried at Science News
• The Global Last Glacial Maximum by Bethan Davies at AntarcticGlaciers.org
• Money blowing in the wind by Paula Rowińska at certain about uncertainty
• Great paper? Swipe right on the new ‘Tinder for preprints’ app by Dalmeet Singh Chawla at Science

Check back next week for more great picks!

Who's been having sex on the beach? How did Einstein do on his latest test? June 5-11 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

• These Fish Are All About Sex on the Beach by Joshua Cassidy at Deep Look
• The Sad Sex Secret of Octopuses at The Blue Reporters
• Blight or Blessing? How the Wolverine Embodies Arctic Diversity by Glen Jeffries at Arctic Deeply
• Giving robots a sense of touch by Larry Hardesty at MIT News
• Einstein still annoyingly right as researchers weigh white dwarf by John Timmer at Ars Technica
• Encuentran la estrella “imposible” de Einstein cien años después by Antonio Martínez Ron at Vozpopuli Next
• Blistering Planet Hotter Than Many Stars by Kendra Redmond at Physics Buzz
• Watching a Volatile Stellar Relationship by Megan Watzke at Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• Potential building block of life found in very young star system by Dan Clery at Science
• Cancer and the human microbiome: an emerging interplay by Andrew Lynch at The Biochemist Blog
• Minnesota Measles by Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine
• What naturopaths really want by Jann Bellamy at Science-Based Medicine
• How Sleep “Cleans” Your Brain and Fends Off Alzheimer’s Disease by Maya Gosztyla at AlzScience
• Brain scans may forecast autism in high-risk infants by Nicholette Zeliadt at Spectrum
• On psychological tests comparing 66 terrorists with controls one difference stood out by Christian Jarrett at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• Lorenz Adlung: slam poetry makes science more accessible by Sabine Louët at EuroScientist
• The Wheat from the Chaff by Sam Illingworth at The Poetry of Science
• Why Does Humanity Have a Doomsday Seed Vault? by Megan Ray Nichols at Schooled by Science
• Do plant seeds have brains? by Andrew Masterson at Cosmos Magazine

Check back next week for more great picks!

ScienceSeeker Editor's Selections May 29-June 4 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Each week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is a round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

• Killer antibiotic now 25,000× more potent—and resistant to drug resistance by Beth Mole at Ars Technica
• Is there such a thing as an “evolution-proof” drug? (part the third) by Tara C. Smith at Aetiology
• What You Need To Know About Opioids, The Painkillers Behind A Crisis by Carmen Drahl at Forbes
• Growing old together; are your bacterial partners making you old? by Eva García-González at Mapping Ignorance
• Keytruda - FDA approved first Cancer Drug based on Tumor Biomarker by Rohith Kalegowda at ShoutasScience
• Game of chance: Are most cancers linked to nothing more than bad luck? by Meredith Knight at Genetic Literacy Project
• Spinach Genome Reveals a Living Fossil by Ricki Lewis at DNA Science Blog
• Creature Feature: An Immigrants Tale ​by Ben Padilla at Ben Padilla Edu-Cology
• Scientists are accidentally helping poachers drive rare species to extinction by Benjamin Scheele and David Lindenmayer at The Conversation
• Your personality may affect your vulnerability to mental health problems by Christian Jarrett at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• Sleep Shrinks the Brain's Synapses to Make Room for New Learning by Bahar Gholipour at Scientific American Mind
• Babies categorize colors the same way adults do by Laura Sanders at Science News
• History of neuroscience: Charles Scott Sherrington at Neuroscientifically Challenged
• Isaac Newton Vs. Las Vegas: How Physicists Used Science To Beat The Odds At Roulette by Paul Halpern at Starts With a Bang!  
• LIGO for a 3-peat! by Kendra Redmond at Physics Buzz
• NASA's Van Allen Probes Find Human-Made Bubble Shrouding Earth by Amy Middleton at Cosmos Magazine
• Ask the Experts: Alaska’s Bogoslof Volcano Erupted Again—Why Was It So Hard to Predict? by Mark Harris at Natural Disasters
• Arctic sea ice animation by Ed Hawkins at Climate LabBook
• Arctic Clouds May Help Lock in Warmer Weather by Gloria Dickie at Arctic Deeply
• Donald Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president by Dana Nuccitelli at Skeptical Science
• Inferior by Angela Saini – a powerful exploration of women's 'inferiority' by Steven Curry at Occam's Typewriter
• Yale postgraduates on hunger strike over labour terms by Raymond Hogler at University World News
• Why thinking beyond money is vital for solving the poverty puzzle by Jamila Haider and Steven J Lade at ScienceNordic 
• The Three Phases of the Mathematical Life by Ben Orlin at Math With Bad Drawings
• Goldilocks Principle And P vs. NP by Dick Lipton and Ken Regan at Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP
• La NASA lanzará una misión para «tocar el Sol» by José Manuel Nieves at El Blog Ciencia Y Tecnologica

Check back next week for more great picks!