We’ve all seen the studies and accusatory messaging – if only more women studied STEM subjects in college, then maybe there would be equity in academia and the workforce. But a new Cornell study has shown that most of the disparities are caused by the labor market rather than degree. Who would have thought?
Vast amounts of media are consumed through YouTube and television and these platforms are opportunities for positive representation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Does YouTube provide a more inclusive space for women’s voices and what can be done to combat stereotypes associated with female STEM communicators?
Academia is a place where knowledge can be gained and shared. However, the system could be improved by focusing more on training “the whole scientist.” This post describes recommendations to improve science training, including a framework for science communication to enable the next generation workforce to positively impact society.
The last wildfires season in Australia was terrible. Although my family and I weren’t directly affected by the fires, the air was very polluted. We would go out of the house only with masks, and we had air purifiers inside the house, to be able to breathe. There are many countries affected by wildfires, and even those that are not directly affected by wildfires, are affected by the air pollution.
I have an Australian PhD and deep expertise in wildfires, so through my not-for-profit called Tech4Future, I launched a global initiative to stop wildfires called F.I.R.E.(Fire Initiative in Research and Education).
A team led by astrophysicist Emily Rickman has announced the direct detection of a new benchmark brown dwarf around the star HD13724. Brown dwarfs, objects that are bigger than a planet but not quite a star, are important analogues to understand atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars.
Particle physicists claim they understand the universe, but the complexity of this surprising paradox behind our universe reveals to us that still 95 percent of the universe is yet not understood nor has it been seen directly. Mind dazzling indeed but if our universe would not contain e.g. entropy, wiggling particles possessing their own “wiggle-room” so to speak and slow, non-excited, as they seem to be, “hippy particles” as some of its fundamental components, we would not have the complex world we see today, including you and me.
Planet hunters at Geneva Observatory have been carrying out an ongoing planet search using a technique called ‘radial velocities’ for the past 20 years on a telescope located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. In a paper led by researcher Emily Rickman they report the discovery of 3 new massive planets and 2 low mass brown dwarfs (objects that are bigger than a planet, but not quite a star).
In some butterfly species, females have control over with whom and how many times they mate, and males have to dance during courtship to convince females that they are worthy. But in a group of South American butterflies, females and males are in conflict.
A Plautine passage captures the essence of a new conception on the equality between mothers and fathers within Roman families and shows its predictive value for subsequent development of family law.
Being too fat is bad for humans. But for seals, being fat is essential. They use blubber to stay warm in the water and to supply fat to fuel their metabolism when they come ashore. There’s a lot we don’t understand about how they regulate their fat reserves. How can they be so fat and stay healthy? How do they withstand and manage the big changes they experience in fat stores throughout the year? How does their energy balance respond to rapid natural or human-induced changes in their environment? In this Royal Society and NERC funded collaboration between Abertay University, the Sea Mammal Research Unit, and Plymouth University, Dr Kimberley Bennett borrowed a method from biomedical science to investigate how seal fat works to start to answer these questions.
Four years after Lisa´s Masters of Research in Maternal and Fetal Health at The University of Manchester, her paper “Placental Homing Peptide-microRNA Inhibitor Conjugates for Targeted Enhancement of Intrinsic Placental Growth Signaling” is finally published in Theranostics. In simple terms, it’s all about targeting the placenta in order to enhance its function by delivering therapeutic molecules to it. Here, Lisa´s going to talk about why on earth they did this research, how they did it, the results and what they mean!
In this study, conducted in collaboration between Bristol University, Bristol Zoo and Torino University, we demonstrate that the Sahamalaza sportive lemur is capable of using information on predator presence as well as predator type of different sympatric species, using their referential signals to detect predators early, and that the lemurs’ reactions are based on experience and learning.
