How does flu work? What's the science of gingerbread? Find out in our November 20-26 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Can we understand our minds well enough to use the knowledge to transform legal systems - and could Harry Potter-style technology help? This, wintry and festive science, climate change, and the politics of science are among the topics covered by picks the ScienceSeeker editors have made of 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:

Image credit: Arthur Toga

• Technology from ‘Harry Potter’ movies brings magic of brain into focus by Bahar Gholipour at Spectrum
• Neurolaw: Combining Neuroscience and Criminal Justice by Michael W. Richardson at BrainFacts.org
• What If Consciousness Is Not What Drives The Human Mind? by David Oakley and Peter Halligan at The Conversation
• Is finding a pukka neurosignature for pain on the top of our discovery list? by Carolyn Berryman and Flavia Di Pietro at Body in Mind
• We got a good look at the interstellar asteroid and it’s weird and Ocean-covered planets may not be the places to search for life by Shannon Hall at New Scientist
• 1965: Rabbits versus relativity by  Gregory J. Gbur at Skulls in the Stars
• Podcast of the week #1: SoT 282: Funny Little Organism by Ed Brown, Shyane Joseph and, Penny Dumsday at Science On Top
• Podcast of the week #2: How the Flu Works at Stuff You Should Know
• How do Snowflakes form such Beautiful Patterns? at Mystifact 
• Of Poinsettia and Gingerbread – Christmas Chemistry Experiments by Solveig Boehme at Tang of Science
• The machine that converts carbon dioxide to stone in Iceland by Kristian Sjøgren at ScienceNordic
• Indonesian mosques to take up the mantle of fighting climate change by Philip Jacobson at Mongabay
• Trump puts controversial decision allowing elephant trophy imports ‘on hold’ by Shreya Dasgupta at Mongabay
• Sciencewashing the Neighborhood at Free Radicals
• New Tax on Graduate Students Would Harm the US by Jacob Carter at Union of Concerned Scientists
• Presence of fecal coliforms does not mean "there's poop here", but for aspiring poop-hunters is there an alternative? by Austin Bouck at Fur, Farm, and Fork

Check back next week for more great picks!

Which crabs kill birds? Are there more pesticides in food? Find out in our November 13-19 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Awesome things are happening in space, and in Earth's history - but perhaps we should pay more attention to what's happening here now? These themes and many others are covered by picks the ScienceSeeker editors have made of 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:

If only nature was all as tough as this. Credit:  JANOS/ISTOCKPHOTO

• Phoning E.T.: Message Sent to Nearby Planet That Could Host Life by Mike Wall at Space.com
• The Impact History Of Asteroids Revealed In Cosmic Dust by Martin Suttle at Science Trends
• Flash! Thunderstorms Intensify Over Busy Shipping Lanes by Kendra Redmond at Physics Buzz
• This 8000-year-old jar holds traces of what may be Eurasia’s oldest wine by Michael Price in Science Magazine
• 280-Million-Year-Old Fossil Forest Discovered in … Antarctica by Stephanie Pappas at Live Science
• Study Finds Humans Have More Empathy For Dogs Than Other People by Mohendra Shiwnarain at Science Trends
• Researchers advance models of maternal antibody link to autism by Sarah Deweerdt at Spectrum
• Brain Implant Successfully Boosts Memory For The First Time Ever by Daniel Nelson at Science Trends
• Logran, por primera vez, mejorar la memoria humana con un implante cerebral por José Manuel Nieves a ABC Ciencia 
• God in the Brain: the Science of Neurotheology by Viatcheslav Wlassoff at BrainBlogger
• We are witnessing a renaissance in psychology by Christian Jarrett at British Psychological Society Research Digest 
• Transgenic stem cells lead to a miraculous cure by Steven Salzberg at Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
• Embryos kill off male tissue to become female by Tina Hesman Saey at Science News
• Coconut crabs are a bird’s worst nightmare by Sarah Zielinski at Wild Things
• Carbon emissions back on the rise by Michael Lucy at Cosmos
• Is there really an increasing number of pesticides in food? by Richard Fussell at Analyte Guru
• What, Me Worry? Humans Are Blind to Imminent Environmental Collapse by William E Rees at The Tyee
• Rising greenhouse gas emissions and extinction are “especially troubling” to researchers by Morgan Erickson-Davis at Mongabay
• What’s The Unintended Consequence Of Electric Cars? by Eric Johnson at Science Trends
• Jane Goodall interview: ‘The most important thing is sharing good news’ by Rhett A. Butler at Mongabay
• MIT students fortify concrete by adding recycled plastic by Jennifer Chu at MIT News
• The mystery of the phantom reference by Anne-Wil Harzing at Harzing.com
• Can we please stop (mis)quoting Albert on Emmy, it’s demeaning? by Thony Christie at The Renaissance Mathematicus

Check back next week for more great picks!

What if China finds aliens? And where should you keep tomatoes? Find out in our Nov 6-12 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

What sends shivers down your spine? Art and music, or maybe the chance of finding aliens? This week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick include these and many other subjects 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:

Credit: June Yarham, used under Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence

• Exposing the Weird Pleasure of Aesthetic Chills by Maria Ter-Mikaelian at Medium
• What Happens If China Makes First Contact? by Ross Anderson at The Atlantic 
• 7 Major Experiments That Still Haven’t Found What They’re Looking For by Subodh Patil at Nautilus
• A bizarre supernova keeps exploding over and over again by Leah Crane at New Scientist
• The Loss Of The Martian Atmosphere Over Its Lifetime by Thomas Craven at Science Trends
• The Dynamic Duo: Jupiter's Independently Pulsating X-ray Auroras at Chandra X-ray Observatory

Credit: NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory

• In the fridge or on the windowsill: where’s the best place to keep tomatoes? by Kat Day at The Chronicle Flask
• It’s decorative gourd genetics season, muppet-huggers by Jeremy Yoder at The Molecular Ecologist
• How to Tell If You’re a Supertaster by Rob Desalle at Nautilus
• Podcast of the week: How can we stop infections carried by Mosquitos? by Jesse Noar at BacterioFiles 
• Confronting the environmental cost of marijuana by Brandon Keim at Anthropocene
• Ecologists Strike Back Against Invasive Green Crabs by Peter Arcuni at KQED News
• Mysterious 'geomagnetic spike' 3,000 years ago challenges our understanding of the Earth's interior by Christopher Davies at The Conversation
• Live from Falling Walls at Scientific American
• “Peel-and-go” printable structures fold themselves by Larry Hardesty at MIT News

Check back next week for more great picks!

How old is life? Could we drink the ocean more easily? Find out in our Oct 30-Nov 5 2017 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

In the world of science, poop can be data, and we can tell when wine has too much water. This week, the ScienceSeeker editors pick include these and many other subjects 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:

• Drawn to Geoscience: Bat Poop Is Helping Scientists Study the Past - The Plainspoken Scientist by JoAnna Wendel at The Plainspoken Scientist
• Turning Wine into Water and Other Nefarious Fraudulent Activities by Simon Nelms at Analyte Guru
• Life May Be Even Older Than We Thought! by Sanjoy Som at Sciworthy
• How scientists and supercomputers could make oceans drinkable by Rene Chun at Google
• From Longest Name to Loudest Sound, Scientists Catalog Over 100 Spider World Records by Christie Wilcox at Science Sushi
• Brilliantly colored ‘lost’ salamander rediscovered after 42 years by Shreya Dasgupta at Mongabay
• Is Cambodia’s plan to reintroduce tigers doomed to fail? by Logan Connor at Mongabay
• How unhealthy is the haze from Indonesia’s annual peat fires? by Loren Bell at Mongabay
• What Is Making All That Arctic Noise? by Martin Robards, Stephen Inslay and William Halliday at Ocean View
• The Winds of Winter at Letters from Gondwana
• Podcast of the week: Tara Smith by Cara Santa Maria at Talk Nerdy
• Catch-22, Clinical Trial Edition: Protecting Women and Children by Hilda Bastian at Absolutely Maybe

Image credit Hilda Bastian, used under CC BY-NC-ND license

• New study suggests people with OCD are especially sensitive to the seasons by Christian Jarrett at British Psychological Society Research Digest
• Fact or Fiction: False Memories from Replicants to Rituals by James Howe at Neuwrite San Diego
• The split brain revisited - a new perspective by Deric Bownds at Deric's Mindblog
• The Surprising Scientific Reason behind Physical Attraction by Sabrina Stierwalt at Scientific American 
• Direct Learning (Jacobs & Michaels, 2007) by Andrew Wilson at Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists
• Why Exploring Space And Investing In Research Is Non-Negotiable  and 5 Discoveries In Fundamental Physics That Came As Total Surprises by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang!
• Cosmic rays reveal unknown void in the Great Pyramid of Giza by Giorgia Guglielmi at Science

Check back next week for more great picks!

When scientists disagree: 5 (or 6) steps to understanding scientific controversy

With real scientists, the gloves are off. Credit: Ryan McGuire/StockSnap

by Gaia Cantelli, PhD

US scientists’ research on how to promote healthy eating in schools is deeply flawed, watchdog researchers have found. The original studies gained much media attention, secured millions of dollars in funding and are being implemented in thousands in schools. But independent scientists have found that they are filled with problems, including mathematical impossibilities and duplications. 

If you ever look up scientific theories online, it won’t be long until you encounter at least one story like this. Because science is a living subject and constantly evolving, scientists will inevitably disagree and controversy will arise. Choosing who to believe when you are not a subject expert yourself is tricky and confusing, especially if you are trying to use science to make an important decision. Here are 5 (or maybe 6) steps you might want to consider to make up your mind.