Five ways adults can get involved with local science

Being a test subject is one way to see how research is done
Image credit: NIAID

by Gaia Cantelli, PhD

You love science. You think it’s cool. But science is not your job – so what can you do if you would like to find out more? Going back to college and getting another degree in molecular biology is probably not on the cards. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get involved with science while balancing everything else you have going on in your life. Here are some hot tips on how to get started!

 

How pseudoscientific are products from Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP? What's the surprising way the US-China trade war might turn deadly? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of October 8-14 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science news includes insights from space, including on how real Star Wars is and exciting new health prospects from gene editing and magic mushrooms. But there are many other topics touched on in ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

This artist's concept shows a hypothetical planet
covered in water around the binary star system of
Kepler-35A and B. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Is it possible to have a planet orbit two stars, like Tatooine? by Jillian Scudder at Astroquizzical  
• ALMA Discovers New Type of Stellar Collision at Sci-News.com
• Ask Ethan: Why Is The Black Hole Information Loss Paradox A Problem? by Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang
• Pluto's surprising dunes by Aditya Rup at Earth Magazine
• How NASA is Predicting Crop Yields with Satellites by Dusty Langdon at Innovation & Tech Today
• I reviewed all 161 of GOOP’s wellness products for pseudoscience. Here’s what I found. by Jen Gunter at Dr Jen Gunter
• Homo Sapiens May Have Inherited Defenses Against RNA Viruses From Neanderthals by Daniel Nelson at Science Trends
• Gene Editing: Freely You Have Received, Freely Give by Derek Lowe at In the Pipeline
• How orgasm faces differ between people from Eastern and Western cultures by Beth Mole at Ars Technica
• The average person can recognize 5000 faces by Frankie Schembri at Science
• Shame may feel awful but new cross-cultural evidence shows it is fundamental to our survival.
  by Emma Young at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• Psychedelic mushrooms are closer to medicinal use by Doug Powell at Barfblog
• Kadcyla: The Next Standard in Breast Cancer Therapy by Taylor A. Johnson at Oncobites
• A lethal game of chicken: the next trade war with China could be a matter of life and death by Robert I. Field at The Inquirer
• Baaaaad News For Fish by Marissa Land for Hakai Magazine
• Science and the Supreme Court: Cases to Watch in 2018 by Sara Reardon for Nature 
• Joining forces against the urbanisation of hunger by Albane Gaspard at Urban Food Futures
• Leveraging the Lore of 'Dungeons and Dragons' to Motivate Students to Read and Write by Paul Darvasi at KQED Mindshift
• The pursuit of science for art's sake by Hussain Ather at Heuristic
• The bioethics of wildlife intervention by Elvina Yau at Mongabay

Check back next week for more great picks!

What are we discovering beyond our solar system? Does turkey really make you sleepy? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of October 1-7 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

It's Nobel prize season - and we have two female winners! We've also got some important news about viruses, including Ebola, and advice on how to help young kids' brain development, and older kids' exam performance. But there are many other topics touched on in ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

• The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Harnessing evolution to produce new enzymes and antibodies by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest
• Donna Strickland is the third woman ever to win a physics Nobel Prize by Douglas Heaven at New Scientist
• Interstellar Object "Oumuamua" Traced To Potential Place Of Origin by Alex Bolano at Science Trends
• Do we have evidence for an exomoon? Ask again in a year by John Timmer at Ars Technica
• Turkey Coma: Fact or Scapegoat? by Natasha at Schrodinger's Cat
• Eating Healthier, Plant-Rich Diet May Help Prevent Depression at Sci-News.com
• Indonesian Tsunami Was Powered by a Deadly Combo of Tectonics and Geography by Andrea Bresnan at Scientific American
• Selfies with the Dead: ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’ and the Dehumanisation of Human Remains by Alex Fitzpatrick at Animal Archaeology
• Officials fear Ebola epidemic may be spinning beyond their control at STAT 
• Inherited Neanderthal genes protect us against viruses by Jennifer Huber at Scientists Talk Funny
• Patient satisfaction ≠ quality, round ∞ by Orac at Respectful Insolence
• Students’ mistaken beliefs about how much their peers study could be harming their exam performance by Christian Jarrett at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• 5 Simple Ways To Encourage Brain Development In Your Little One by Elissa Nadworny at MindShift
• Podcast of the week: Kelly, the Sassy Dolphin by Rose Eveleth at Hakai Magazine
• This website helps ordinary people collect data to save snakes by Abigail Lewis at Envirobites

Check back next week for more great picks!

What's the best way to study and learn? Why do people love Instagram? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of September 24-30 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science posts include some important health lessons on eating, drinking and sleep, findings that challenge our views on how planets form and black holes behave, and a 2018 Nobel prize. But there are many other topics touched on in ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

What do beer bubbles, ice and nanoparticles have in common?
Credit: Sustainably Nano/Giphy

• From Beer Bubbles to Nanoparticles: What is Nucleation? by Stephanie Mitchell at Sustainable Nano
• Is diet soda bad for you? by Mikael Angelo Francisco at Flip Science
• More Evidence That Nutrition Studies Don’t Always Add Up by Anahad O'Connor in the New York Times 
• What Drives Our Quest for the Perfect Instagram Picture? by Krystal D'Costa at Anthropology in Practice
• Should You Pet Your Dog Before an Absence? by Zazie Todd at Psychology Today
• Podcast of the week: How To Study And Learn More Effectively by Christian Jarrett, with Nate Kornell, Paul Howard-Jones and Abby Knoll PsychCrunch at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• The Brain of Charles Hinkley by Romeo Vitelli at Providentia
• Nobel for helping the immune system fight cancer by Steve Mirsky at Scientific American
• Study: Irregular Sleep Increases Cardiovascular and Cardiometabolic Risks at Sci-News.com
• Spinal Implant and Physical Therapy Help Paralyzed Man Stand and Walk at Sci-News.com
• Cosmic conundrum: The disks of gas and dust that supposedly form planets don’t seem to have the goods by Adam Mann at Science
• Hawking temperature of black holes measured in fluid analogue by Sabine Hossenfelder at Backreaction
• Why Aren’t Rays Of Sunshine Parallel? by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang! 
• Planet Earth Wobbles As It Spins, and Now Scientists Know Why by Stephanie Pappas at Live Science
• Atiyah Riemann Hypothesis proof: final thoughts by Katie Steckles and Christian Lawson-Perfect at The Aperiodical 
• Scientists urge world leaders to scale up ambitions to protect global biodiversity by Mike Gaworecki at Mongabay
• Meet the Innu Forester Working to Save Canada’s Boreal Forest by Nicole Greenfield at NRDC
• Biologists irate at NSF's new one-proposal cap by Frankie Schembri at Science

Check back next week for more great picks!

Why must dark energy exist? Why are good bugs dying? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of September 17-23 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science stories include why many men feel sad after sex, exciting new pictures from a satellite that's hunting planets around stars far, far away, and a lot of old ideas being overturned. But there are many other topics touched on in ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

TESS took this snapshot of the
Large Magellanic Cloud (right) and
the bright star R Doradus (left)
with just a single detector of one
of its cameras on August 7.
Image credit: NASA / MIT / TESS

• NASA’s Planet-Hunter TESS Captures Its First Science 
• Images at Sci-News.com
• Spock’s home world has been discovered (sort of) by Dan Clery at Science
• This Is Why Dark Energy Must Exist, Despite Recent Reports To The Contrary by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang!
• The Shadows of Our Spacecraft by Caleb Scharf at Life, Unbounded!
• International survey finds over 40 per cent of men have experienced “post-coital dysphoria” by Emma Young at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• Scientists identify four personality types by Ben Guarino at Speaking of Science
• Magic Mushrooms For Your Mental Health by Lauren Parikhal at Science by Lauren
• Glioblastoma: John McCain’s final battle by Megan Kirchgessner at NeuWrite San Diego
• Google AI Tool Identifies a Tumor's Mutations From an Image by Megan Molteni at Wired 
• Podcast of the week: Infective Heredity by Soren Wheeler, with David Quammen at Radiolab
• World Alzheimer’s Day 2018 by Roisin Coneely at Seeking Science
• A Run of Contrary Results by Derek Lowe at In The Pipeline
• The importance of data in biomedical research. at Qul Mind
• California plans to show the world how to meet the Paris climate target by Dana Nuccitelli at Skeptical Science
• Levee and Super Levee at Science, Engineering and Sustainability
• Why Are Beneficial Bugs Disappearing? by Seth Borenstein at KQED Science
• As turtles go, so go their ecosystems by Shreya Dasgupta at Mongabay
• Is this the oldest animal on Earth? by Andrew Masterson at Cosmos 
• Stabilizing Selection: Examples And Definition by Daniel Nelson at Science Trends
• Titans of Mathematics Clash Over Epic Proof of ABC Conjecture by Erica Klarreich at Quanta Magazine
• NIH Policies to Address Sexual and Gender Harassment in NIH-supported Extramural Research by Mike Lauer at Open Mike
• Teachers' Strategies for Pronouncing and Remembering Students' Names Correctly by Gail Cornwall at KQED News

Check back next week for more great picks!

Five ways to reach out to your non-science friends

by Gaia Cantelli, PhD

These tips will help avoid that glazed-over, unimpressed look.
Image credit: Quasimime, used via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0 licence.

It’s every science enthusiast’s nightmare: the glazed-over look of the terminally uninterested. As you talk with your family and friends about current events, the news, things that interest you or even your day-to-day job you will sometimes face anti-science backlash. Whether the people in your life are skeptical or plain uninterested, it can be hard to communicate if they just switch off. Here are a few tips to help you draw them in:

Why is play good for kids? Where is the new planet humans could live on? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of September 10-16 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science posts include cute robots, a bizarre beauty treatment that Kim Kardashian regrets and a new way of looking at time. But there are many other topics touched on in ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

• Food and Cancer: Where Does Our Collective Fascination Come From? by Gaia Cantelli 
• Scientists engineer a powerful new weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria by Jon Cohen at Science

How scientists developed the new antibiotic 

• Five Proven Benefits Of Play by Anya Kamenetz at KQED Mindshift
• Liberals and conservatives are narcissistic in different ways, study finds by Eric W. Dolan at PsyPost
• A new map reveals the causes of forest loss worldwide by Laurel Hamers at ScienceNews
• Searching for Life on Mars through the Lens of Greenland by Marco Tedesco at Scientific Amerian Observations
• The Closest Exoplanet to Earth Could Be "Highly Habitable" by Adam Mann at Live Science
• How long would it take to deflate the Earth's atmosphere out into space? by Jillian Scudder at Astroquizzical
• Forget Everything You Think You Know About Time by Brian Gallagher at Nautilus Magazine
• Saving Jack Skinner by Romeo Vitelli at Providentia
• Vampire facial update: Kardashian has regrets, others maybe infections by Peter Knoepfler at The Niche
• On the hunt for a silent salamander-killer by Benji Jones at Mongabay
• Venom resistance in kingsnakes by Andrew Durso at Life is Short, but Snakes are Long
• Turmoil erupts over expulsion of member from leading evidence-based medicine group by Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky at STAT News
• Podcast of the week: Undiscovered Presents: I, Robovie. Sept 11, 2018 by Annie Minoff, Elah Feder and Christopher Intagliata at Science Friday

Check back next week for more great picks!