How does saving nature pay off? Which movies do time travel right? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of July 23-29 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science stories include a poisonous item that sounds like it's straight out of a murder mystery, the latest news on Alzheimer's disease, and a podcast with a brilliant story about a pet snail. 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:

Captive-bred baby giant pandas in the 

captive-breeding facility in Chengdu province, China.

Image credit: Joshua Doubek/CC-BY-SA 3.0 

• Pandanomics: What Is Giant Panda Conservation Worth? Billions Every Year by GrrlScientist at Forbes
• How we discovered three poisonous books in our university library by Jakob Povl Holck and Kaare Lund Rasmussen at ScienceNordic
• Milky Way’s black hole provides long-sought test of Einstein’s general relativity by Alexandra Witze at Nature
• Ask Ethan: Which Movies Get The Science Of Time Travel Right? by Ethan Siegel at Starts with a Bang! 
• Scientists Create Atomic Solid-State Drive With Potentially 1000x More Memory Than Conventional Devices by Alex Bolano at Science Trends
• Food cravings peak twice nightly, in countries all around the world by Frankie Schembri at Science
• Biogen and Eisai: Let the Alzheimer's Arguing Commence by Derek Lowe at In The Pipeline
• Podcast of the week: Loneliness: Stories about finding friends by Cindy Joe and Patrick Honner at The Story Collider
• Acrobotics: a revolutionary movement by Cathal O’Connell at Cosmos

Credit: Boston Dynamics

Check back next week for more great picks!

What happens to our mind when we sleep? Which nearby planet have we found new moons around? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of July 16-22 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

There's loads happening in space this week, with stars eating planets and fighting their way through clouds of dust - and a new 'oddball' in our solar system. 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:

When we sleep, we are not as inactive as we look.
Image credit: Travis Swicegood, used via Flickr
CC BY-SA 2.0 licence.

• While We Sleep, Our Mind Goes on an Amazing Journey by Michael Finkel at National Geographic
• Podcast of the week: Creating God by Shankar Vedantam, Rhaina Cohen, Parth Shah, Jennifer Schmidt, Thomas Lu, Laura Kwerel, Adhiti Bandlamudi. and Tara Boyle at Hidden Brain
• Ten new moons—including one ‘oddball’—discovered around Jupiter by Paul Voosen at Science
• Forget Alien Megastructures, New Observations Explain Tabby’s Star With Dust Alone by Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang
• Star’s dimming and brightening may indicate it’s eating a planet by John Timmer at Ars Technica
• First snake found in amber is a baby from the age of the dinosaurs by Michael Le Page at New Scientist
• No need for slime panic: it’s not going to poison anyone by Kat Day at The Chronicle Flask
• Can CRISPR be dangerous in gene therapy? by Mike at QulMind
• Can mowing less promote a suburban bee utopia? by Kari St. Laurent at Envirobites
• The Endangered Species Act is Itself Endangered by Charise Johnson at Union of Concerned Scientists
• In the Columbia–Snake River Basin, Salmon Are Losing Their Way by Jodi Helmer at NRDC
• Lava Boat Bombed by Kilauea and Other Volcanic News by Dana Hunter at Rosetta Stones

Check back next week for more great picks!

Five reasons why a career in STEM can change your family's trajectory

STEM careers span many parts of life: These scientists
at KU Leuven in Belgium help brewers make better beer.
Image copyright: Andy Extance 

by Gaia Cantelli, PhD

Have you ever thought about a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)? You may know that jobs in manufacturing and farming are not predicted to do too well in the coming years. Such change is scary, but it could also be a great opportunity for yourself and for your family. More and more jobs require additional qualifications after high school, so you might be considering going to college, or getting a diploma in something that can help you. This is where thinking about STEM comes into play. Becoming a scientist or a doctor, however, may seem out of your league or too expensive. There are other options that seem more focused on landing you a good job – a job that can help you live a better life than your parents did. A business degree, for example, would scream “employable” from the top line of your resume, right?

Wrong. While in the US business and finance are predicted to open up around 900,000 more jobs by 2022, healthcare jobs are going to create over a million new jobs for nurses and physicians assistants alone. Meanwhile, the same studies showed that there are 1.7 open computing jobs for every unemployed computer science professional, which means that we need more computer scientists! Not only are there going to be many more science and technology jobs in the future, but these jobs are going to be secure and relatively high-paying. They may be your ticket to changing your family’s trajectory altogether.

Working in science is not what TV would have you believe – a bunch of egg-heads nerding out on a university campus. Most STEM professions are normal jobs for normal people. No matter how much time and money you are able to invest in your education, investing in STEM training is a great way to land yourself a bright future. 50% of US STEM jobs are available to those without a four-year degree and can therefore be very efficient and very wise investments, even if your means are limited. In the US, graduates of STEM programs earn on average 10% more than those with similar qualifications in other fields. They also enjoy the security of knowing that their skills are going to be in demand.

Here are a few ideas on how you can start working towards your STEM career right now, no matter where you are in life:

Is lab-grown meat really meat? Should DNA donors get to see their genome? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of July 9-15 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science posts include stories about weird particles occasionally passing straight through us - some we know are real, called neutrinos, and others we're less certain of, called dark matter. They also include the latest studies on new ways to produce food, and what we should eat and take for health. 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:

Photodetectors under the South Pole  light up when neutrinos
travel through the ice. Credit: NSF/IceCube

• Supermassive black hole shot a neutrino straight at Earth by John Timmer at Ars Technica
• This Is How Much Dark Matter Passes Through Your Body Every Second by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang 
• Kilauea Produces a Stunning Lava Whirl! by Dana Hunter at Rosetta Stones 
• The Floor Is (Usually) Not Lava by Arianna Soldati at Scientific American Observations
• To Understand the Growing Wildfire Threat, Look to the Tree Rings by Larry O'Hanlon at NRDC
• Rising ocean waters from global warming could cost trillions of dollars by John Abraham at Skeptical Science
• Australia’s Recycling Crisis by Jesse Crowe at Into The Void Science
• As Reefs Disappear, Some Fish Find Themselves Defenseless by Richard Kemeny at Hakai Magazine ‏
• Salamanders have ‘tricks up their sleeves’ for weathering climate change by Morgan Erickson-Davis at Mongabay
• New research proposes solutions for reducing environmental costs of feeding Earth’s 7.6-billion human population by Mike Gaworecki at Mongabay
• The Cattle Industry Is Having a Cow Over Whether Lab-Grown Meat Should Be Called Meat by Rose Eveleth at Slate
• If you give your DNA and tissues to science, should you get a peek at what they might contain? by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel at Science
• Healthy Diet May Lower Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration by Enrico de Lazaro for Sci-News.com
• An unusual method by Thomas Morris 
• Podcast of the week: The Chemistry Behind Nerve Agents with Ira Flatow and Rick Sachleben at Science Friday
• Polymer synthesis gets a jolt of caffeine Using the stimulant as a catalyst, researchers create new gels for drug delivery. Polymer synthesis gets a jolt of caffeine by Anne Trafton at MIT News
• Exposure to "Fentanyl" in the Field by Kevin Shanks at The Dose Makes The Poison 
• CRISPR-Enhanced Cancer Cells Induce Tumor Cell Killing by Dan Modano at Reliawire
• Mindfulness training increases strength of right insula connections. by Deric Bownds at Deric's Mindblog
• Unique brain 'fingerprints' may narrow search for autism subtypes by Damien Fair and Oscar Miranda Dominguez at Spectrum News 
• 1920s infoviz, and “Flapperism” as the culmination of Western Civilization by Seth Frey at Enfascination

Check back next week for more great picks!

What's the science of perfect pizza? How did life emerge on Earth? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of July 2-8 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Two of this week's best science picks are a little influenced by drugs, with the US authorities approving the country's first drug derived from marijuana, while we also get the lowdown on addiction. 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 physics of perfect pizza by Phil Dooley at Cosmos Magazine
• Big Bangs and Squibs: A Physicist Turns Pyrotechnician for the Day by Rebecca Thompson at Physics Buzz
• In a first, astronomers witness the birth of a planet from gas and dust by Dan Clery at Science
• What was it Like When the Universe was Inflating? by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang 
• FDA Approves First Drug Derived from Marijuana by Nora D. Volkow at Scientific American
• Scientists finally have an explanation for the 'Gaia puzzle' by James Dyke and Tim Lenton at The Conversation
• Barriers Are Meant To Be Broken by Taylor Richardson at Stories in Science
• Implicit gender, racial biases may hinder effectiveness of conservation science, experts warn by Basten Gokkon at Mongabay
• There are a few things environmentalists actually do agree on by Nathanael Johnson at Mother Jones 
• How Eating Seaweed Can Help Cows to Belch Less Methane by Judith Lewis Mernit at Yale Environment 360
• Podcast of the week part 1: Water Conservation Through Better Communication by Meghann Percy and Jennifer Adler at Kiss That World
• Podcast of the week part 2: Dirt and Development, The Second Genome by James Gallagher at Discovery
• What Is Science for? A Portfolio by D. Graham Burnett and Mark Dion at The Point Magazine
• Addiction As a Brain Disorder of Emotion Regulation at Inside the Alcoholic Brain

Check back next week for more great picks!

What's the latest on alien life? What happens when a rattlesnake bites you on a vein? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of June 25-July 1 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

This week's best science news includes many amazing measurements, including whether planets in other solar systems have moons, the magnetism of a supernova, and the carbon contained in a city's trees. 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:

In this image from the Cassini, backlighting
from the sun spectacularly illuminates Enceladus'
jets of water ice, which contain organic molecules that
may be important for life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

• Joe and the Whale by Chelsea Murray at The Deep
• City forests store rainforest-levels of carbon, study finds by Morgan Erickson-Davis at Mongabay
• Did a massive eruption spur Christianity in Iceland? by Mary Caperton Morton at Earth Magazine
• Alien Life Could Look Up To A Moonless Night Sky by Brian Koberlein at Forbes
• Researchers Observe Magnetic Field Generated by Supernova Remnant 1987A at Sci-News.com
• Complex Organics Are Out There by Derek Lowe at In the Pipeline
• Brains Improved by Graphene Are on the Horizon by Dexter Johnson at IEEE Spectrum
• The Search for Cancer Treatment Beyond Mutant-Hunting by Siddhartha Mukherjee at New York Times
• A Rattle With Death by Kyle Dickman at Outside Magazine
• He's a superstar of the science world but no-one knows his name by Michael Slezak at ABC News
• World Microbiome Day: Journals Collection by Laura Cox at Microbe Post
• Dr Bob Sears medical license on probation resulting from his anti-vaccine views by Skeptical Raptor
• Dear Stewardship People: Can't We All Just Get Along? by Jasmine Marcelin at Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention 
• HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis: What Is It, and Why Aren’t Women Using It? by Caroline Vrana at Sciworthy
• Estimated Global Disease Burden From US Health Care Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Matthew J. Eckelman and Jodi D. Sherman at American Journal of Public Health
• 5 Facts About Catalysts You Might Not Know by Kevin Reed at Chembites
• The power of big data - insight by Ed Pinches at Insight
• The Supreme Court has decided on gerrymandering, what does it mean for the math and stats community? by Karen Saxe at Capital Currents
• Male scientists are far more likely to be referred to by their last names, impacting status and awards by Katie Langin at Science
• Podcast of the week: Pride: Stories about coming out in science by Charlie Cook and Shayle Matsuda at The Story Collider
• These are not “immigration” policies by Rose Hendricks

Check back next week for more great picks!