Join me & the other 2025 @scicommlab.bsky.social Teacher Ambassadors on Thursday, January 8th @ 7pm ET. To end our year-long ambassadorship, we will showcase FREE lesson plans we authored around Science Communcation Lab films for our high school biology classes. Registration: bit.ly/sclambassado...

"...it checks all the boxes — authentic science, student-led inquiry, & ready-to-go NGSS-aligned materials..." 😊 Check out this guest post from @brewerbiology.bsky.social after teaching our free unit about @reichertfroglab.bsky.social's research 🐸🔊🧪 www.galacticpolymath.com/blog/what-ca...

What Can Singing Frogs Teach Us About Evolutionary Tradeoffs? — Galactic Polymath

Will female frogs be attracted to males who produce many short calls or to males with fewer, longer calls? This evolutionary tradeoff was the question my high school biology students investigated in t...

galacticpolymath.com

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

They ended the experiment when either copulation or cannibalism occurred with the pair! 😂

Curious news@curiousnews.bsky.social · last yr.

Female Jumping Spiders Of Two Species Prefer The Sexy Red Males Of One, Leading To Hybridization

An inspiring workshop in Long Beach on ocean plastics hosted by Algalita Marine Research and Education. Highlights were collecting beach nurdles, seeing urban sea 🐢, & a homegrown dinner @ Captain Charles Moore's house, who raised the alarm on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. #nurdlestoturtles

Looking to bring real-world stories into your classroom? I’ve been using free films + classroom guides from @scicommlab.bsky.social‬, and they have changed how I teach science. 🔗 Learn more: bit.ly/scleducators ✍️ Sign up: bit.ly/sclsignup 🎥 Explore films: bit.ly/freesciencef... #SCLAmbassadors

Free Videos & Resources for Science Teachers

Our videos teach the who, how, and why of science Inspire deep learning with our free content! Learn More Sign Up for Free Our content aligns with science standards and supports student outcomes of......

bit.ly

Spent a week in Oregon w/ Project ICE & COLDEX-Center for Oldest Ice Exploration. From holding 5,000 year old ice & seeing the gases trapped is inside, to sampling a 60,000 year old ice core (& keeping it afterward!), to seeing foraminifera fossils as climate indicators…it was an amazing week! ❤️🧊

They’re popular, they’re polarizing, and at this point, we’ve all heard about them: GLP-1 medications like Ozempic. Here’s how they actually work, from the former FDA commissioner who’s taken them.

How Do GLP-1 Drugs Override Our Biology?

In his new book, a former FDA commissioner unpacks the latest science on metabolism, weight loss, and how GLP-1 drugs actually work.

sciencefriday.com

Did you know that sea slugs steal chloroplasts from algae as portable snacks?! Neither did I, but a new Cell paper demonstrates that they do. 🐌🧪 My favorite part is the researchers called the storage for these stolen hors d’oeuvres “kleptosomes” 😂🥰 Summary from Nature & Cell paper linked below.

‘Wildest thing’: solar-powered slug steals chloroplasts and stores them for emergencies

Marine creatures house contraband structures in special organelles, which the animal raids for food in times of need.

nature.com

BIG NEWS! We’ve found that ash trees are fighting back against ash dieback disease! 🌳💪 Scientists at Kew & QMUL ‪@qmul.bsky.social have discovered that young ash trees are evolving resistance to this devastating fungus - & fast 🌍 Read the story👉 www.kew.org/read-and-wat... #PlantScience #SciNews

If, like me, you wore glasses in school, you're gonna have some empathy for our #FishOfTheWeek. In the photo below, the four-eyed fish doesn't look very strange at all. But trust me, these guys are far stranger than they seem at first glance 1/5

A new study confirms race and ethnicity are not valid substitutes for ancestry in genetic studies. scim.ag/3SNgwEo

Race, ethnicity don’t match genetic ancestry, according to a large U.S. study

Data from the All of Us program confirm what many geneticists have long promoted

scim.ag

RFK Jr.‘s extreme anti-vax views — and his related conflicts of interest — were a huge problem during his confirmation process. So he promised not to change the vaccine advisory panel. Today, he fired every single expert on that panel. It's a public health disaster.

RFK Jr. ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory committee

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines.

apnews.com

One of the most thoughtful end of the year gifts from a student that used to live in Hawaii and he made it himself, so talented! Happy Summer everyone! 🥰 😎🌺

Students examined plastics in our environment by sampling the air for microfibers (there were lots!), viewing H2O samples from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, sifting through ocean beach sand (many nurdles & microplastics). Looking forward to learning more of the impacts this summer with Algalita!

Honored to be selected for the first cohort of SCL Educator Ambassadors! I love how the films are centered on getting to know the scientist behind the science, storytelling at its best! Thanks for the opportunity to uplift scientists. I am enjoying authoring for you & getting to know the SCL team!

Science Communication Lab@scicommlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Meet the SCL Educator Ambassadors! 👩‍🔬👨‍🏫🌟 These award-winning #STEMTeachers are using film + storytelling to bring real-world science into classrooms through freely accessible films & resources. Learn more: bit.ly/sclambassadors #ScienceEd #NGSS #SCLAmbassador #SCLAmbassadors

Believe it or not, all three of these fish are the same species… the bluehead wrasse. Wrasses are protogynous hermaphrodites, meaning they transition from female to male over the course of their lives. Each phase can look radically different from each other as evidenced here #coralcitycamera

Using remote sensing, students tracked bats in the woodlot behind our school and learned about WNS (white-nose syndrome), a fungus spreading among native 🦇 populations, interrupting their hibernation and killing bats in Michigan and other states. #place-basedteaching

AP Bio learned about parental care to discover mom & dad pigeons make milk by performing a mock brain biopsy & ELISA test for the presence of prolactin. Then modeled prolactin gene activation & learned of other lactating non-mammals. The 3rd case study I authored for Science Communication Lab! 🙂

Ss predicted the “flashier sex” in Mexican boulder spiny lizards to learn females court males! Then did a dating card mingle w/ other examples & read abstracts before modeling how both nature (hormones) + nurture (nematode load) influence coloration. A case study I wrote for @scicomlab.bsky.social

Image of library book display labeled: “It's A Warning Not An Instruction Manual.” Books on display: • On Tyranny • Twenty Lessons From The 21st Century • 1984 • A Handmaids Tale • Diary of Anne Frank • Parable of The Sower • Fahrenheit 451 • Animal Farm • Brave New World ~TAiLS of a Bookworm

Look forward to this day every year where my students get to learn suturing from a real cardiac surgery PA. Thanks Dr. Jose Valdez, Dr. Thomas Meitzler, and Annie Meitzler, RN for teaching my AP Biology classes this skill!

AP Bio students determined why okapi at the local zoo are not breeding by analyzing their urine cortisol levels, examining their zoo enclosure, modeling the HPA-axis, & redesigned their zoo enclosure to reduce their stress & encourage breeding. Based on @BeccaCalisi research & a @scicommlab film.

Fun day having students listen and view 🐸 call spectrograms then calculate the call durations and frequencies to determine who will attract the most frog ladies! Students learned about tradeoffs, either long calls or frequent calls, you can’t have both! Great lessons by @galacticpolymath.com

Students listened to 🐸 calls and analyzed their spectrograms to learn about tradeoffs in nature: frogs can have long calls or frequent calls, not both! Then tried to figure out which call attracts more ladies. Great lesson set called Balancing Act by Galactic Polymath! www.galacticpolymath.com

People sometimes think of Antarctica as being barren and devoid of life, but the ocean surrounding the continent is incredibly rich with wildlife and biodiversity. Photos of new discoveries and insights from our wonderful Australian colleagues… 🧪🥼❄️🌊🦑 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Sea pigs, icefish and trilobites: Antarctica’s mysterious marine life – in pictures

Characterised by darkness and cold temperatures, the extreme environment of Antarctica’s deep sea is largely unexplored. Now, after a special marine science voyage, a team aboard Australia’s national ...

theguardian.com

Enjoyable day at the For-Mar Nature Center in the greater Flint area designing watershed models, river testing, & my favorite part…seeing a taxidermy passenger pigeon and orioles (my first time ever)! Lots of great bird watching there & invigorating to connect with nature. Thank you MI STEM Network!

Scientists have birthed a ‘super cannibal’ that never grows up. Could it be key to combating Australia’s cane toad menace?

Scientists have birthed a ‘super cannibal’ that never grows up. Could it be key to combating Australia’s cane toad menace?

There’s quiet optimism that gene-edited ‘Peter Pan’ tadpoles could help control one of the world’s worst invasive species The toad’s eyes seemed to glow red, its warty and poison-soaked skin – normally splodged in browns – instead a porridge of creamy whites. This albino toad was produced by a team of scientists with one foot in a Sydney university laboratory and the other in a research station on the vast tropical savannahs and wetlands far away to the north near Humpty Doo. It was September 2023 and for the man who dreamed it into being, the toad was but an opening act in a radical new play against one of the world’s worst invasive species. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

theguardian.com

I just heard former Senate staffer Gabe Garbowit say that EVERY sign at EVERY protest needs to say “IMPEACH, CONVICT & REMOVE” and nothing else. Without a clear, specific demand, Congress can just ignore us. We have to be crystal clear about what we want them to do! PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!!