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misciwriters Biology, Research, Uncategorized

Camouflaged: Finding cephalopods

Written by: Irene Park

Edited by: Ada Hagan, Alisha John, Belle Moyers, Kevin Boehnke

When I was watching Finding Dory, one character caught my eye: Hank the octopus (or septopus since he’s missing a tentacle). Throughout the movie, Hank uses his camouflage ability to blend into his surroundings, a very useful skill for Dory’s quest to reunite with her family without getting noticed by humans.  

I could not help but think how helpful Hank’s camouflage ability would be for different professions: hunters, nature photographers, and perhaps even people in the military. Unsurprisingly, researchers are already taking notes from cephalopods — which include octopuses like Hank, as well as squids and cuttlefishes — to develop better camouflage technology.

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misciwriters Biology, Disease research, Research

The “FADS2” diet: How vegetarian populations have different genomes

By Belle Moyers

It turns out that what your ancestors ate can influence your ideal diet. At least, that’s what researchers at Cornell University and the University of Pune, in India, have announced after analyzing several hundred peoples’ genomes and blood samples in the United States and India.

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misciwriters Science communication, Technology

Communicating science: From Michigan, across the world (wide web)

By Ada Hagan

“Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone” – Albert Einstein

We’ve discussed it on the blog before, but science has a communication problem. Sure, research is performed and shared via research articles or at scientific conferences, but rarely do scientists directly relay results outside of their academic niches. Few scientists disagree with broader science communication in theory, especially since much of the funding for research is provided by taxpayer dollars. And we learned in our first “Science behind-the-scenes” post that the final step of the scientific method is to “communicate your results.” So why is it that researchers don’t interact more with non-researchers regarding science? Part of the issue is that the intense specialization of researchers into a narrow topic, combined with a lack of effective communication training, makes effective communication a difficult task.

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misciwriters science behind the scenes, Science communication

Communicated, not classified: The importance of collaboration in science (Science behind-the-scenes)

By Molly Kozminsky

Close your eyes and picture a scientist. What do you see?

In 1983, David Wade Chambers published results from a study conducted on 4,807 children as they progressed from kindergarten through fifth grade in the United States and Canada. The test? To draw a scientist. In what must rank as one of the most adorable research experiences ever, the drawings were scored for seven indicators of a “standard image of a scientist:”

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misciwriters Biology, Disease research, genetics, Public health, Research, Technology

Science and social media: How “oversharing” is helping human genetics

By Christina Vallianatos

We live in an age where oversharing is overabundant. From your best friend’s artsy food pictures (#boozybrunch), to your coworker live-Tweeting her labor experience (“C-section in 20 minutes!”), it seems like we know the intimate details of everyone’s lives, all the time.

But what if some of those TMI moments weren’t necessarily “too much information”? What if they’re actually helping to solve one of the biggest dilemmas in human genetics: the identification of disease-causing genes?

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misciwriterseditors Biology, blog, Disease research, Microbiology, Research, Technology

Virus vs. Bacteria: Enemy of my enemy

By Ada Hagan

In 1917, almost a century ago, a French-Canadian scientist, Felix d’Herelle, and his colleagues discovered bacteriophage. As I discussed in a previous post, bacteriophage (phage) are the viruses that prey on bacteria, turning them into viral factories. The battle between phage and bacteria has raged for millennia, resulting in a beautiful co-evolution where predator and prey each grapple for a temporary upper hand.

We’ve been exploring the depths of this complex relationship, searching for ways to use this enemy of our enemy as a tool against the bacterial infections that plague us. Along the way, we’ve found a number of different techniques to exploit these micro-allies.

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misciwriters Disease research, Microbiology, Opinion, Public health, Science education

Defending human health: A thankless job

By Ellyn N. Schinke

Growing up, I was an avid soccer player. But, I never wanted the glory of being a team’s leading scorer. Defense was my home. That is until I scored my first goal. I was elated, but quickly realized that I had never in my time on defense received anywhere near the validation that I had for that goal. I could save goals or shut down the other team’s star player, but that usually went unnoticed. If anything, I was typically criticized for something I didn’t do more often than I was praised for something I did. This experience taught me something important – defense is a thankless job.

The same pattern that I saw in my soccer experience happens all the time with public health.

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misciwriterseditors Biodiversity, Biology, blog, Disease research, Ecology, evolution, Microbiology, Research, Technology

Michigan Meeting 2016 Coverage

microbe mtgs

MiSciWriters is proud to partner with the UM Center for Microbial Systems to provide live coverage of the 2016 Michigan Meeting “Unseen Partners: Manipulating Microbial Communities that Support Life on Earth.” In lieu of our traditional Tuesday post, we will be live-blogging the event at the links below, and live-tweeting from @MiSciWriters during the following times:

  • Monday, May 16 9:00am-3:30pm, 7:00-8:30pm
  • Tuesday, May 17 9:00am-3:30pm, 7:00-8:30pm
  • Wednesday, May 18 9:00-12:00

We hope you’ll join in the conversation by commenting on the blog, or tweeting with the hashtag #MiMicrobe. Enjoy!

Update: Live blogging coverage is released as an event unfolds, placing the posts in reverse-chronological order. So if you want to read everything, start from the bottom of the page.

Monday, May 16 Coverage – https://misciwriters.com/portfolio/michigan-meeting-2016-monday/ 

Tuesday, May 17 Coverage – https://misciwriters.com/portfolio/michigan-meeting-2016-tuesday/

Wednesday, May 18 Coverage – https://misciwriters.com/portfolio/michigan-meeting-2016-wednesday/

misciwriters Research, science behind the scenes, Science communication

Science behind-the-scenes: Correlation and causation

By Belle Moyers

When talking about scientific issues, the phrase “Correlation doesn’t imply causation” is sometimes thrown around.  But what does it mean?  Science makes statements about cause and effect.  Smoking causes lung cancer.  Carbon emissions cause climate change.  Higher temperatures cause increased violence.  Clearly, scientists have some way of inferring causal relationships.  But how do they grapple with the idea that “Correlation doesn’t imply causation”?  If they don’t use correlation, what tools do they use to infer causation?

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misciwriterseditors Biology, blog, genetics, Neuroscience, Research

Why “cute” matters

By Irene Park

Life can be exciting sometimes, but it can also just be downright stressful. The dinner event that took me two weeks to plan is attended by only a quarter of the people on the guest list, my to-do list never gets shorter, my car suffers yet another bump in the parking lot, and so on.   

There are many ways that I deal with stress—such as exercising, listening to music, and hanging out with friends. But I have one secret way to de-stress that I usually don’t talk about at work: watching videos or looking at pictures of cute animals, like this one or this one, that melt my heart and force me to let out a huge “awwwww.”

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