If it nerds, gift it! At last! Our seasonal round up of online gifting opportunities that will tickle the corners of your nearest and dearest science nerd’s heart. Although there’s a plethora of tacky science stuff out there—hanging a caffeine molecule on a pendant chain is so last year, and not at all scientific IMHO—I’ve… Read More »2017 Cool Science Gift Guide
We first squealed with delight over the APOPO HeroRATs in a cool science gifts post waaaaaay back in November 2014. Always on the lookout for science treasures, we couldn’t help but introduce the amazing impact the rats’ olfactory abilities were making in mine detection and tuberculosis screening in Africa.
Oh, and the cute! Valentine’s Day is coming soon…
We adopted a couple of the rodents (Hans and Gertie), added APOPO Hero Gifts to our browser bookmarks and sent some virtual baskets of bananas to our nearests and dearests. With regular updates from our adoptees, APOPO is never far from our hearts and minds.
So, what have the giant pouched rodents-of-unusual-size been up to since then? We thought you’d like to share in the awesomeness (and of course the cuteness—squee!) of this amazing organization.
Apart from sticking to deadlines for timely submission, what other useful habits could/should writers adopt to help workflow? Here are some habits that could help keep the words coming, and why they might help.
Enough about you—what about us?
It would be correct to say that here at Talk Science to Me, we pretty much eat, sleep and breathe science. In fact, that’s how our mastermind, Eve Rickert, explained her journey into #scicomm for a class of health science writers at Kwantlen Polytechnic University we were invited to speak to earlier this month. From tales of the pistol-packing shrimp that stuns its prey with sound waves, to the excitement of bacteriophages that bring the dead back to life, Eve brought a fresh sense of marvel and storytelling about the world of science writing to inspire the students.
But what about the rest of the team? What particular moments hooked them into reporting, editing and designing science materials? Read on to find out more…
Read More »Cool science memories from the team
One of the things I love about science is the appreciation it can inspire for things I might otherwise consider horrifying, or just gross. One great example of this is Cymothoa exigua, also known as the tongue-eating sea louse. I should mention that the animal in question doesn’t necessarily “eat” the host’s tongue in the conventional sense: It latches on and consumes blood and mucus until the tongue completely shrivels up. Then the isopod crustacean stays right where it is and switches to just grabbing part of whatever the fish eats and slowly growing larger, before eventually detaching and swimming away. A few things about this before we go back to the whole wonder and fascination part…
Read More »Treasures: The tongue-eating sea louse