How does cannabis work? Should we worry about space rocks? Find out in our Oct 23-29 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week we have welcomed a visitor from beyond our solar system - but contrary to what many reports would have you think it's nothing to fear! This week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick include these and many others in their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is the full round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

Asteroid A/2017 U1's path Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Spooktacular Citizen Science by Sarah Newman at CitizenSci
• 'It's able to create knowledge itself': Google unveils AI that learns on its own by Ian Sample at The Guardian
• Duties and Moral Responsibilities Toward Humans when Constructing AI by Yusuf Lenfest at Bill of Health
• Astronomers Spot First-Ever Space Rock from Another Star by Lee Billings at Scientific American
• Floods Of Fake Astronomy Fill Google News - Children As Young As 14 and Younger Get Scared, Sick and Suicidal by Robert Walker at Robert Inventor
• Quantum experiment in space confirms that reality is what you make it by Adrian Cho at Science
• Researchers have gained new insight into how cannabis works by Elizabeth Finkel at Cosmos Magazine
• Waging war on microbes by Ananya Sen at Tales of scientific journeys
• Papers Based on Misidentified Cell Lines Top 32,000 by Kerry Grens at The Scientist
• Genetic testing to predict medication side effects by Robert H. Shmerling at Harvard Health Blog 
• The Most Important Thing We Can Do for Our Brain? Exercise! by Anders Hansen at Brain Blogger 
• Be careful not to overfeed wild birds by Marianne Nordel at ScienceNordic
• Just Like Humans, Dinosaurs Liked To Snuggle, Study Finds by Mohendra Shiwnarain at Science Trends
• Life and death and the jaguars of the mind by Mike Shanahan at Under the Banyan Tree
• Was the Extreme 2017 Hurricane Season Driven by Climate Change? by Annie Sneed at Scientific American
• Temperature variability and wheat quality at Botany One
• Past and Future? Living and Growing Food Underground by Francois Mancebo at The Nature of Cities
• The Geology Of India In 220 Tweets by Suvrat Kher at Rapid Uplift 

Check back next week for more great picks!

Could Blade Runner be real soon? What links Star Wars & sperm? Find out in our Oct 16-22 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This has been a week of cataclysmic and fascinating space-themed findings - including a surprising link between sperm and Star Wars! This week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick include these and many others in their favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise. Here is the full round-up of the Science Seeker Editors’ Selections for the past week:

Star Wars influences reproductive research in a surprising way 

• What Star Wars taught scientists about sperm by Kendra Pierre-Louis at Popular Science
• We're a long way from Blade Runner-like organic androids by Fumiya Iida at Genetic Literacy Project
• A Neutron Star Collision: Gamma Rays and Gravitational Waves by Stephen Skolnick at Physics Buzz
• Neutron Stars Collide, and Astrophysics Feels the Ripple by Sophia Chen at Wired
• We saw it! A Diary of Discovery by Paul Kuin at Mullard Space Science Laboratory Astronomy Blog
• Podcast of the week: Five Proven Methods of Levitation by Jim Rantschler and Randy Morrison at Physics Frontiers 
• What Is a Supervolcano, and Should You Really Be Worried About the One at Yellowstone? by Sarah Fecht at State of the Planet
• Improving Auto Emissions With Carbon-Neutral Synthetic Fuels by Megan Ray Nichols at Schooled by Science
• Could fungi provide an alternative to palm oil? by Kimberley Brown at Mongabay
• Out of the frying pan and into our food! by Maddalena Bonanomi at Analyte Guru!
• Pollution.org: an incredible new resource that reveals levels of air and water pollution across the world 

Pollution.org shows the level of pollution near you

• Meteorology is out of this world! – Extra-terrestrial meteorology by Andrew Seidl at Climatesnack
• Lost in translation: Bridging the gap between science and climate policy by William Gutowski at ResearchFeatures
• Putting data before the carrot by Justin W. Flatt, Alessandro Blasimme and Effy Vayena at Elephant in the Lab
• Link between Adolescent Pot Smoking and Psychosis Strengthens by Douglas Fields at Scientific American
• Enhancing the Sleeping Brain by Sadie (Sarah) Witkowski at Cognitive Neuroscience Society 
• On Power and “Bro Culture” in Academic Science by Sarah Boon at Watershed Moments: Thoughts From the Hydrosphere

Check back next week for more great picks!

What do dogs dream of? How much sleep do we need? Find out in our October 9-15 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:

• Brain scans show dogs learn when sleeping—just like people by Virginia Morrell at Science
• Are you awake to sleep deprivation? by James Brown at The Biochemist
• Podcast of the week part one: Stimulating Research on the Mechanisms of Memory and Applications of Memory Modulation - Dr. Steve Ramirez by Marie McNeely at People Behind the Science Podcast
• Are Space, Time, And Gravity All Just Illusions? by Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang!
• Half the universe’s missing matter has just been finally found by Leah Crane at New Scientist
• Two Black Holes Made a Mega Black Hole! by Crystal Riley at Sciworthy
• Earth’s Tectonic Plates Are Weaker Than Once Thought, According to Research by Penn Geologists by Katherine Unger Baillie at Penn News
• Will Italy's Ominous Supervolcano Erupt Soon? by Barbie Latza Nadeau at Scientific American
• Scientists See Climate Change in California's Wildfires by Debra Kahn and Anne C. Mulkern at Scientific American
• Where’s the lettuce? Food, Brexit, & Climate Change by Emily May Armstrong at The Radical Botanical
• Here's why your sustainable tuna is also unsustainable by Megan Bailey at The Conversation
• The Value of Birds in Colombia’s Post-Conflict World by R. Scott Winton and Natalia Ocampo Peñuela at National Geographic Voices for Biodiversity
• Podcast of the week part two: Sooty birds by Bob Hirshon and Suzanne Bard at Science Update
• Google's New Earbuds Auto-Translate 40 Languages Thanks to Machine Learning by Daniel Nelson at Science Trends
• Band Gaps, Made to Order by James Badham at The University of California Santa Barbara Current

Check back next week for more great picks!

What has inter-species sex done to us? How will Earth end? Find out in our October 2-8 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 distant relation was likely responsible for humans’ susceptibility to genital herpes by Andrew Masterson at Cosmos Magazine
• Dream Loss - Sleep Deprivation Is Causing A Hidden Epidemic by Bruce B. Vanderburg at Reliawire
• Will a vegetarian diet during pregnancy drive your child to drugs and drink? by Sharon Begley at STAT News
• The Four Ways The Earth Will Actually End by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang!
• Gravitational Waves Catch 2017 Nobel by Steven Skolnick at Physics Central
• Circadian Rhythms, Illustrated by Jen Christiansen at Scientific American
• Once Again, No Female Nobel Winners in Science by Christophe André at Scientific American
• The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – Studying molecules with cryo-electron microscopy by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest







The Unassuming Crayfish—and Its Path of Devastation by Jason Bittel at NRDC On Earth
An overlooked ecosystem: garbage dumps by Brandon Keim at Anthropocene
1.5ºC: Geophysically impossible or not? by Ben Sanderson at RealClimate

Check back next week for more great picks!

What's behind Alzheimer's? What controls appetite? Find out in our September 25-October 1 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:

By Compound Interest, used under Creative Commons licence.

• New Alzheimer’s Study Sheds Light on the Mysterious Tau Protein by Maya Gosztyla at AlzScience
• The Frenemy Inside You: tales of bacterial cooperation and collusion by Maya Emmons-Bell at Equilibria
• In The Future, The Best Solution To Cavities Might Be A Vaccine by Mohendra Shiwnarain at Science Trends
• Researchers Identify Brain Cells that Control Our Appetite at Sci-News.com
• The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm
• A Journey With Jellyfish: Understanding Sleep In Brainless Animals by Michael Abrams at Science Trends
• The chemistry of poisonous frogs, and how they avoid poisoning themselves by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest
• Logging Industry Needs to Face the Facts on Boreal Caribou by Anthony Swift and Jen Skene at NRDC Expert Blog
• Birds of a Feather Hunt Better Together by Christie Wilcox at Science Sushi
• Huge space rocks could have helped start Earth’s plate tectonics by Michael Marshall at New Scientist
• Recovery: A tale of three hurricanes by William Hooke at Living on the Real World
• Five questions you were too embarrassed to ask about the expanding universe and The Big Bang Wasn’t The Beginning, After All by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang!
• The Last Woman to Win a Physics Nobel by Elizabeth Landau at Scientific American
• The Real Problem With Voice Assistants Like Siri Is Your Brain by Robbie Gondalez at Wired
• Who cares that we no longer have privacy? by Ransom Stephens at The Measure of Things
• Researchers Learn How Ketamine Acts on the Brain by Rick Nauert at PsychCentral
• The Psychology of Taking a Knee by Jeremy Adam Smith and Dacher Keltner at Scientific American
• Suicidal tendencies hard to spot in some people with autism by Katherine Gotham at Spectrum
• What Germany’s election results mean for science by Quirin Schiermeier and Alison Abbott at Nature

Check back next week for more great picks!