I've spent the past three months turning eggshells into leather so that I could make a leather jacket for an egg and then talk about dinosaurs. I'm really not sure what my job is some days. youtu.be/o7vcbvY1o9k?...
Alex Dainis PhD 🧬
@alexdainis.bsky.social
Science communicator talking about genetics, biology, chemistry, and blimps. She/her
So there is some scientific literature looking into cayenne and its active spicy compound, capsaicin, as a topical pain reliever. And there can be "spicy receptors" (TRPV1 channels) in your skin that respond to these compounds too. But all these players are likely doing is making spicy gym socks.
Rams players are putting cayenne pepper in their socks to stay warm against the Bears, according to NBC’s Melissa Stark 🤯
🚩 Short reads for big SVs 🚩 Long reads with tradeoffs 🟢 Tech with large variant detection, haplotyping, epigenetics + exceptional accuracy. See how to get green flags from the start...There's HiFi for That: bit.ly/3JminPa #PacBio #ScienceHumor #TheresHiFiForThat #HiFisequencing
I just received three separate AI notetaker summaries of a call I was in and y’all I do not want or need three different sets of badly taken notes.
What looks like a spinning window might just be your brain filling in the blanks. 🧠😵💫 In the Ames window illusion, @alexdainis.bsky.social builds a trapezoid “window” with shading that tricks your brain into seeing motion that’s not really there.
Sometimes I really feel like I’ve messed up my “influencer” journey. I’m out here trying to convince people to use science for good in their lives when I’ve missed my true passion and calling of being a collab cookie reviewer.
big day around here
Update: Our friend @alecluhn.bsky.social was found alive this morning! He is in good health with some injuries to his leg/foot. He is at a hospital in Bergen now. Thank you to the Norwegian helicopter team who found him and all the volunteers who searched in bad conditions. ❤️
My friend Alec is missing. Please share this widely incase it reachers any hikers who have seen him over the past 5 days during his solo hike in a Norwegian national park.
Alec Luhn, an American journalist, has been missing for days in Folgefonna National Park in Norway. He was last heard from on Thursday at the start of a solo hike.
Search Underway for Alec Luhn, American Journalist Missing in Norway
A search was underway Tuesday for Alec Luhn, 38, who was last heard from five days ago at the start of a solo hike.
nyti.ms
I’m sharing this hoping that someone hiking the same route in Norway might see this. Let’s find @alecluhn.bsky.social!
American climate journalist Alec Luhn missing on Norwegian glacier
A search is underway for award-winning climate journalist Alec Luhn, a Wisconsin native, who is missing on a Norwegian glacier.
cbsnews.com
I NEED to tell you the story of Tae Heung “William” Kim. He's a graduate student at Texas A&M where he's working on a vaccine for Lyme disease. He's a *legal permanent resident* of the United States. And he's been in ICE detention for 12 days & counting, transferred Tuesday to South Texas.
I wish I could work on my book after work but unfortunately my brain only functions for five hours a day and my job takes seven of those
The NIH’s 2024 budget of just under $37B generated $95B in economic activity in 2024 alone. 99.4% of new pharmaceuticals approved from 2010-2019 came from NIH-funded research. I’m hard pressed to think of anything that generates as much direct economic benefit as our NIH did before they destroyed it
TAPPER: 14 Republicans say you're risking undermining critical research by holding up NIH funding VOUGHT: If they were a company, their stock price would in shambles. They in some respects caused the pandemic. You have an entire institute that does nothing more than DEI research at the NIH.
"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪
Are you a PI in a biology field looking for postdocs? Here is a Starter Pack of early career biologists currently seeking postdoctoral positions! (Also if you are searching for a postdoc, let me know if you want to be added!) go.bsky.app/8zZNEGV
A clip from this week's episode of SciComm Summer, featuring @alexdainis.bsky.social. Check out Opinion Science for the full episode. ( opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/alex...)
We're hiring! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30219 The Cornell Department of Communication is hiring an Assistant Professor in Science, Environment, and Risk Communication! Applications received by September 15, 2025, will be given full consideration.
Cornell University, Department of Communication
Job #AJO30219, WDR-00053939 Assistant Professor in Science, Environment, and Risk Communication, Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US
academicjobsonline.org
Check out @andyluttrell.bsky.social's interview with fellow #scicomm awardee @alexdainis.bsky.social for his SciComm Summer series of the Opinion Science podcast!
This week on #SciCommSummer, @alexdainis.bsky.social shares how she avoided picking between her passions for science & filmmaking, making great online science videos. Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3pIH... Web: opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/alex...
Booms and plumes over LA tonight. (Don’t be alarmed if a sonic boom wakes you up.)
Today is a #BostonFamilyDay with free museum, zoo, and aquarium access for all school-age children and two guests! Here’s a list of our partners opening their doors to families today! 🧵 Museum of Fine Arts Institute of Contemporary Art Museum of Science Boston Children's Museum New England Aquarium
@alexdainis.bsky.social wanted to make a video about stable isotope testing and wound up uncovering what looks like honey fraud at her local grocery store. Our latest Reactions episode at ACS 🧪
Exposing Fake Honey Using Carbon-13
YouTube video by Reactions
youtu.be
I cannot emphasize enough how true & real this is. In almost anywhere on the political spectrum you ID with or major issue, there’s probably a bot/troll operation to encourage your rage and vitriol. And how/where that rage gets directed, esp understandable rage, is what they are out to influence.
People on this app get really angry every time I point out that social media manipulation is a real phenomenon that we are all stewing in and that’s having real world consequences and I’m sure part of that is engagement farmers who do that manipulation not liking people talking about it
Very proud of this video on honey fraud that I worked on with the @acs.org Reactions team! I really really wanted to write a video about stable isotopes, and along the way we found honey that might not really be what it claims to be… youtu.be/rKvNp0fAaZ8
Outdoor Afro is offering scholarships to cover the costs of anyone, at any age, interested in learning how to swim: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Nicole Verdun, director of the office that reviews cell and gene therapies at the Food and Drug Administration, and her deputy Rachael Anatol have been placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the agency. www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/t...
Top gene therapy regulator forced out at FDA
Nicole Verdun, top gene therapy regulator at the FDA, has been forced out of the agency.
statnews.com
If a human told you things that were correct 80% of the time but claimed, flat out, with absolute confidence, that they were correct 100% of the time, you would dislike them & never trust a word they say. All I'm really suggesting is for people to treat chatbots with that same distrust & antagonism.
New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...
People ask me for career advice sometimes, and my biggest piece of it is to tell everybody what you love and what you want to do, loudly and often. Sometimes, for me, that’s blimps 😂
Thank you for this lovely snapshot of some of what I do in front of and behind the camera!!
First up — @alexdainis.bsky.social, a science communicator and video producer creating content that makes science approachable, accessible, and fun. Take a sneak peek at Alex’s work behind-the-scenes! #BTS #scicomm