Science Connected, Author at Science Connected Magazine

A disco clam shows off it's bright red tissue and flashing display. Lindsey Dougherty, University of Colorado at Boulder

Disco Clam, Colorful Mystery

January 2, 2020January 3, 2020 Science Connectedchemical defense, clams, coral reef, disco clam, peacock mantis shrimp, predator

By Neha Jain (@lifesciexplore) Dazzling bright-red tentacles first lured Lindsey Dougherty to the study of disco clams, which are found in coral reefs in the tropical waters off the coast of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. In a recent study, Dougherty’s research team found that the disco clam’s colorful tissues are noxious (unpleasant or distasteful) and are involved in its chemical defense against one of its predators. This is the first study to demonstrate that bivalve tissues can chemically deter predators. Most bivalves, such as clams, mussels, and oysters, are dull in…

Education Science Videos Technology

What is a Computer?

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019 Science Connectedcomputers, Science with Sophie

Here at Science Connected, we tip our hats to our Sophie Shrand, our favorite science comedian! The Season 2 Finale of the hit series Science with Sophie is all about COMPUTERS! Sophie asks, “what IS a computer?” and answers with bananas because…reasons. Join Sophie to dive into binary, hardware, computers vs. humans, and more. Plus, meet Sophie’s newest character who, by total chance, is here just in time for The Matrix 20th anniversary. Can you believe that the original Matrix movie is 20 years old this year? We can’t. Seriously.…

Stacks of a nuclear power plant. (Credit: Markus Distelrath/Pixabay)

Anthropology Book Reviews Citizen Science Health SciStarter Blog

Nuclear Radiation, Citizen Science, and Civic Engagement

December 13, 2019December 9, 2019 Science ConnectedFukushima, Japan, nuclear radiation, radiation brain moms

In Japan after a nuclear radiation disaster Book Review: Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists: The Gender Politics of Food Contamination after Fukushima. By Aya Hirata Kimura. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Nuclear Radiation and Food Safety In March 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that would result in a tragic loss of life. Water overtook the seawalls at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and damaged critical systems. These events resulted in one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. Survivors near…

Climate Ecology Geology

Fossil pollen holds clues to past

December 9, 2019December 9, 2019 Science Connectedbogs, climate change, floodplains, pollen, soil science

By Mackenzie Myers What if, instead of ancient treasure and tombs, Indiana Jones researched ancient pollen and soil? Beyond just a seasonal nuisance or a crucial component of agriculture, pollen can be a key to understanding the past. It clues researchers in to how land was used thousands of years ago, as well as what the climate conditions were like at that time. And according to a new study from North Carolina State University, this tool may be available in more areas than previously thought. Painting the past with fossil…

Biology Botany Genetics

Genome Revelations: How Green Plants Evolved

December 4, 2019December 9, 2019 Science Connectedbiodiversity, botany, evolution, genome, green plants, phylogenomics

By Jacqueline Mattos (@mattosjacq) Plants are ancestral organisms that have evolved over millions of years, leading to the broad diversity we see today. Green plants evolved from a common ancestor into approximately 450,000–500,000 species today. There are many gaps in understanding of their diversification that scientists still struggle to fill. In a recent paper published in Nature, researchers from the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative reviewed and analyzed genomic data from 1,124 plant species and provided the most complete evolutionary relationship tree for green plants to date. Genomes, transcriptomes, and…

Animals Citizen Science SciStarter Blog

Caterpillars Count

November 22, 2019November 20, 2019 Science Connectedarthropods, caterpillars, citizen science projects, data collection, insects

From big to small, we all count. Even caterpillars. Caterpillars are important Caterpillars are familiar to us. When a butterfly flutters past you, you know that it was once a caterpillar. Now it’s time to count the caterpillars and arthropods (creatures, like insects, with segmented bodies) that you see to help scientists understand how their populations are changing. You can get started today with the Caterpillars Count! project. Even though this project doesn’t just focus on caterpillars, who can resist a good alliteration? In 2015, Dr. Allen Hurlbert of North…

Engineering Technology

Emerging Battery Tech for Energy Industry

November 18, 2019November 19, 2019 Science Connectedbattery technology, energy industry, lithium batteries, renewable energy

By Emily Folk, @EmilySFolk Advances in battery technology are transforming one of the most promising movements in the modern energy industry: the push toward renewable energy power solutions. Solar, wind, geothermal, and even hydro energy sources have a lot to offer besides near-limitless energy generation. They are clean in the sense that they have little to no impact on the surrounding environment, and they are generally inexpensive to produce under the right conditions. The problem with most renewable energy sources is that they tend to come with a glaring limitation.…

Figure Five: Forum participants choosing where to allocate resources. Image Credit: Museum of Science, Boston

Citizen Science Climate Environment SciStarter Blog

Boston is Wicked Hot: Here’s What They’re Doing About It

November 15, 2019November 13, 2019 Science ConnectedBoston, resilience, urban heat, urban heat islands, Wicked Hot Boston

Want to learn more about this initiative? Check out the Wicked Hot Boston series, Parts One and Two. Want to address climate hazards in your community? Head over to SciStarter.org/NOAA to find a citizen science project. Wicked Hot Boston It’s true: the world is getting hotter, and Boston is becoming WICKED hot. This past summer, the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS) team and local citizen scientists began to measure extreme temperatures. They used sensors provided by CAPA Strategies to make an ambient air temperature map of Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline,…

Biota Project Opinion

Data Literacy in South Asia: From Outsourced to a Lead in Tech

November 12, 2019November 12, 2019 Science Connectedculture, data literacy, South ASia, Women in STEM, women in tech

Opinion By Sabah Ul-Hasan (@sabahzero) on behalf of The Biota Project Blog (@thebiotaproject) What is outsourcing? Reverberating effects from British colonization of South Asia and the ‘modern’ world I live in the United States, and I was recently in a room full of scientists when someone made a wonderfully distasteful joke about receiving a call from customer support and that the person on the other end of the phone line had a “funny accent.” If you’re unfamiliar with the term “outsourcing,” fear not. There’s an entire NBC television series about…