Been a bit busy these last two weeks - welcome to the world little one 🩷🩷🩷

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This is a great use case for AI - weeding out predatory journals that target scientists and convince them to pay lots of money to have their work “reviewed and published” then don’t actually peer-review the work, undermining scientific authority 🧪 dx.doi.org/10.1126/scia...

This is one of the most impressive pieces of science communication from the 19th century - a highly accurate embroidered quilt of the solar system by American astronomer and teacher Ellen Harding Baker (1847-1886) What’s your favourite science inspired artwork?🧪

Female gorillas recognise their friends after years apart Gorillas move between different social groups to prevent inbreeding etc. But after 20 years of studying this, scientists have found that females tend to gravitate towards groups with gorillas they had grown up with, even after years apart

I’ve just learned about a pregnant orangutan who had really bad morning sickness until her keeper gave her some special pregnancy tea Keepers at Denver zoo had noticed that orangutan Eirina was refusing to eat/drink That’s until her keeper remembered a tea she had drunk during her own pregnancy 🧪🌿

4 #science stories from the last week, that you might have missed…🧪 👣 7,000 steps a day may be as good as 10,000 🩸At-home endometriosis test shows promise 🦟 Ivermectin promises to reduce malaria transmission 🫜 Beetroot juice may lower blood pressure in older adults

This is why you can’t always trust AI overviews. I am not a playwright and this particular play was written by Sandra Seaton.

Today I got to cover a HUGE breakthrough in sloth science: Contrary to popular belief, sloths do indeed fart www.livescience.com/animals/scie... 🦥🧪

Women with ADHD may be significantly more likely to suffer from severe PMS and PMDD PMDD is known to affect roughly 3.2% of women, although clinicians suspect many are left undiagnosed ADHD is also seriously underdiagnosed in women, up to 75% of women with the condition going undiagnosed 🫶🧪

🧪"The myth of meritocracy in science collapses under the financial sacrifices expected at every career stage...the hidden costs of ‘doing science’ are profound. These burdens disproportionately exclude those without generational wealth, compounded by race and gender." dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

The Maria Leptin | EMBO Science Journalism Fellowships support life scientists pursuing a career in #ScienceJournalism and science journalists who wish to further their scientific education. Apply now: www.embo.org/funding/fell... #LifeSciences #funding 🧪

So this happened this week…prioritising growth and chatbot agreeability can have unintended consequences for vulnerable users. www.livescience.com/technology/a...

✨FREELANCE SCIENCE JOURNALISTS✨ Hi! I’m the Trending News Editor at Live Science & we’re looking to expand our pool of trending freelance science writers These stories need a 24h turnaround and cover all areas of science, from medicine to climate change, archaeology and zoology Details below 👇

new boots on waiting for my friends to come pick me up

Blue-lined octopuses have the MOST TOXIC relationships 🐙😳 The females are much larger than the males and often eat them after mating. So to avoid this, the males inject the females with poison to paralyze them until they’ve finished…doing their business. WHO IS WORSE IN THIS RELATIONSHIP???

Well…that’s a relief phys.org/news/2025-02...

3 science stories from the last week that you might have missed 🧪: 😖 Chronic stress inhibits brain circuits that promote flexible decision making while boosting circuits for inflexible habits 🏔️ Mountain ranges could be treasure trove of natural hydrogen 🧠 Gut microbiome linked to MS

3 science stories from the last week that you might have missed 🧪 ☁️ Solar-powered device captures CO2 and converts it into fuel 🧠 Mitochondria help shape our memories by helping connections form between neurons 🪰 Fly larvae have evolved fake termite faces on their butts to infiltrate their nests

Very excited by this article from Science - when asked to draw a scientists, around a third of kids now draw women! 🧪✨ www.science.org/content/arti...

Have you heard of the Matilda Effect? When the work of female scientists is credited to a man🧪 Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science, so here are five victims of the Matilda effect: (Add your favourite forgotten #womeninSTEM to this list!👩‍🔬)

Meanwhile, over on Instagram... www.instagram.com/reel/DF5pZGY... w/ @pandoradewan.bsky.social and @livescience.com

You’ve heard of Ada Lovelace, but have you heard of her tutor, Mary Somerville - described in her obituary as the Queen of Science 🧪

3 science stories from the last week that you might have missed 🧪 ☄️ Asteroid dust contains ingredients for life, including “letters” of DNA 🦴 Scientists create bone marrow on a chip to study how it responds to chemotherapy 🐻‍❄️ Polar bear fur doesn’t get icy because it is so greasy

3 science stories from the last week that you might have missed: 🧪 Bacteria found to eat (some) forever chemicals 🩸 Neanderthals’ blood type may have contributed to their demise 👶🏻 Molecular timer behind preterm birth uncovered #sciencesky

I’m personally very excited about NASA’s upcoming Pandora Mission 🛰️ The Pandora Mission is due to launch in fall 2025 and will help James Webb in the search for potentially habitable planets outside of our solar system.

So, turns out US readers don't necessarily know what 'tiddler' means... Which is why i'm now banned from doing headlines for the time being.

3 science stories from the last week that you might have missed: 👧 Kids learn even when they seem like they aren’t paying attention 🍵 Green tea could protect brain in older age 🍬 Specific gut bacteria may influence our sugar intake

Here's the latest #sciencenews from @livescience.com this week, courtesy of @pandoradewan.bsky.social www.livescience.com/planet-earth...

Scientists have finally figured out how spiders smell 🕷️ Male wasp spiders were found to have thousands of tiny hair-like projections on their upper legs (but not females) And these projections could detect female pheromones In other words male spiders smell with their legs to track down females

Crows don’t forget a face - and they can also hold a grudge They even teach their friends and family about humans they don’t like (Saw these outside the window this morning…what have we done to offend them 😳)

Volcanoes can turn the sun blue 🌋 Aerosols in the eruption plume affect the scattering and absorption of light in the atmosphere, resulting in the sun appearing blue, purple or green www.livescience.com/planet-earth... by Patrick Pester

Mount Everest is still growing Not far from its base is a river - scientists believe this was once 2 separate rivers that merged 89K years ago The increase in water flow accelerated erosion of the bedrock, making the earths crust lighter and causing the surrounding land to rise -including Everest

Today’s fact: winter’s on Neptune last around 40 Earth years! Having said that, average temperatures on the planet through the 165 year orbit are about -220C, so summers aren’t exactly balmy 🪐

Want to know what's happened this week in the world of #sciencenews? Our news editor @pandoradewan.bsky.social has you covered 🧪 It's a regular feature that we run on @livescience.com, so check it out if this is your vibe www.livescience.com/planet-earth...

Ants vs humans - who is faster at problem solving? 🐜 In a new study, scientists set ants and humans the same geometric puzzle (albeit at a different scale). Individually the humans were way faster than the ants. But once they were put into groups things looked very different…

There are fish that can breath air and live on land for years at a time Lungfish evolved nearly 400 million years ago and have a primitive sort of lung that allows them to extract oxygen from air When water dries up they burrow into mud, surround themselves in mucus and enter a state of dormancy

One of my 2025 goals is to share a daily fun fact, so here’s day 1 England has more tornadoes per square km than any other country From 1980-2012, it had 2.2 tornadoes per year per 10,000 square km. By comparison, the entire USA (which has most tornadoes overall) had 1.3 annually per the same area

3 #science stories from the last week that you might have missed: ☕️Social solitude (like reading a book in a cafe) boosts energy and connectedness 🧫CO2-eating bacteria could recycle carbon into things like fuel at its source 😴Breathing coordinates memory consolidating brain waves during sleep

Archaeologists have made an unusual discovery among China’s famous Terracotta Warriors which they hope might offer new insights into how the ancient army was structured #history #archaeology www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Santa’s reindeer are probably all female 🦌 Both male and female reindeer shed their antlers every year But while males usually shed in late autumn (after mating season), females tend to keep them until calves are born in spring In most depictions of Santas reindeer, they have antlers in December

Jupiter’s moon Io is thought to be the most volcanically active world in our solar system. Only a little larger than our own moon, Io has an estimated 400 volcanoes. But NASA scientists are only just learning why…🔭 #scisky #space #sciencenews www.livescience.com/space/nasa-s...

I have a question for #WomenInSTEM - what have been the biggest barriers you have faced in your career and how have you overcome them? Do you think you have been treated differently at any point because you are female identifying?

3 #science stories from the last week that you might have missed: 🌊New ghostly predator discovered at the bottom of the Atacama Trench (see photo) ☕️Coffee drinking could add 2 years to your healthspan 🐋Humpback whale breaks migration record, travelling 13,046km in search of sex

My first weekly roundup for @livescience.com is live 🤩🧪

I’m very lucky to work at a company that values human authorship. But it’s becoming increasingly rare in journalism. And yet, all these media companies getting their reporters to use AI to push out more content are actually shooting themselves in the foot… www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202....

74% of UK academics have been harassed for sharing their research, according to this article in the Conversation. It’s a very sad but very important read. Academia is all about discussion, but people have become too comfortable hiding behind their keyboards theconversation.com/death-threat...

Reindeer could teach us how to treat cancer 🦌 Reindeer regrow their antlers every year - to support this rapid growth, they activate genes normally involved in promoting tumours. But they also activate genes involved in tumor suppression These same mechanisms may also help treat human cancers

Southern giant hornets - the size of golf balls - have been spotted in Europe for the first time 😳 Scientists say the hornets, Vespa soror, could be a serious threat to human health and native species, especially honeybees pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

It’s interesting that the emojis show the earth from three angles 🌎 🌍 🌏 but not the fourth. Though 🔵 is a fair approximation of what it would look like. People underestimate the Pacific.