When I was living in Mexico and working in a kitchen in 2011, one of the first things I noticed in the restaurant was that the eggs were left out on the table all day! They were never put in the refrigerator. I thought this was so strange! Why don’t they spoil? How long do…
Month: October 2019
The bird you never knew you loved: The American Woodcock
If someone asked you what a Timberdoodle looks like, would you know? What about a Whipperwon’t? Prairie Turtel? Brush Snipe? All of these are known aliases and colloquial names of the common American Woodcock (Scolopax Minor), but for some reason, you have never seen or heard of it. These cute little plump, long-beaked birds are…
PSA: Don’t Kill Your Unknown Roommates a.k.a House Centipedes!
We’ve all been there. You come home late at night, turn on the lights, and you see what looks like a super hairy bug on the kitchen floor scurry away to darkness at 1.5ft per second. It’s the house centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata). Now, before you grab your shoe and try to kill your newfound roommate,…
Showing some love for the Opossum
Opossums get a lot of bad street cred. They look like giant rats, they sometimes hiss when provoked, and people often like to bring in exterminators or pest control to get rid of them. But today, I’m going to break down why they are actually one of the coolest mammals right in your backyard. Seriously….
PhD’s and Politics Series Part 2: Science Literacy in the USA
What is science literacy? In a recent NPR poll, 1 in 4 Americans thinks the sun revolves around the Earth (it doesn’t). A YouGov poll found 41% of British adults think antibiotics cure viral infections (they don’t). Understanding that Earth goes around the sun (astronomy) and that antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections (microbiology)…
PhD’s and Politics Series Part 1: Science Representation in Congress
In 2012, I was at the University of Iowa in the first year of my PhD when Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the famous astrophysicist from the Hayden planetarium, came to give a free seminar to students. He was on tour promoting his new book “The Space Chronicles.” Having recently read another one of his books…
Some chemistry on water and ice.
October 9th, 2019 Water is considered the most important resource on planet Earth. It’s vital to existence. We all know the basic facts: It covers 71% of the globe, the human body is made up of 60%, etc. etc. Let’s look at one aspect of water that we may not know, and some situations that…
The undisputed living champion – the tardigrade.
Bruce Banner probably wishes he had tardigrade DNA repair powers. Everyone thinks the fruit fly or the cockroach are the most resilient animals on the planet. But really, it’s the tardigrade (a.k.a. ‘water bear’ and ‘moss piglet’). Here’s why: These badboys have been around for over 500,000,000 years. They survive and thrive in the most…
Creative communication.
October 3rd, 2019 The reason I started this blog was to communicate science in a way that is easily interpretable. So, today I’m going to tell about a time when I was able to communicate science in an interesting way. MosquitoMate, Inc. It goes back to 2017 when I was hired as the Field Operations…