I feel seen 📚

Alan Turing was a mathematician & cryptographer who was a leading code-breaker in the team that decrypted Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine during WWII. He inspired modern computing & what became AI.

Instead of being hailed as a genius & hero, Turing was convicted as a homosexual & forced to endure chemical castration. He died by suicide at 41 in 1954.

The British government didn’t apologize until 2009 & Queen Elizabeth II finally pardoned him in 2013. #history #science

In 1916, 23 yr old chemist Alice Ball discovered a breakthrough in treatment for Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease). She was the 1st woman & 1st Black chemistry professor at UHawaii.

Tragically, Ball passed away months after her discovery due to complications from a lab accident.

What happened next? Arthur Dean, head of her dept, continued the work publishing Ball’s process as “Dean’s method.”

Fortunately, a colleague spoke up & the name was changed to “Ball’s method.” #HistoryRemix #science #history

Evolution doesn’t look how it’s depicted in pop culture. We often picture the famous “March of Progress” illustration where a series of apes stand in line leading to a modern human.

But evolution is not linear. It branches & divides without an intended direction or endpoint through natural selection.

Illustration by @keesey #science #history

Last night I shared two posts. The first was positive (Fred Rogers) & the second was abysmal (normalized gun violence).

On #Twitter, I suspect the latter would have garnered far more attention bc a race for publicly visible RTs, likes & follows favors promoting shock & outrage.

But here on #Mastodon, Mister Rogers wisdom was shared more widely.

This isn’t a scientific analysis but a mere observation reinforcing that social media will be what we make it. And I like this neighborhood.

Physicist Lise Meitner’s brilliance led to the discovery of nuclear fission. But her long time collaborator Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry without her in 1944, even though she had given the first theoretical explanation.

Albert Einstein called Meitner “our Marie Curie." She also adamantly refused to work on the atomic bomb during WWII. https://whyy.org/articles/lise-meitner-the-forgotten-woman-of-nuclear-physics-who-deserved-a-nobel-prize/ #science #history

In the U.S., recent annual estimates of bird deaths due to:

Cats = 2.4 billion bird deaths

Collisions from building glass = 600 million bird deaths

Land wind turbines = <200,000 bird deaths

Some politicians claim wind turbines “kill all the birds.”

But… they’re not really worried about birds. Rather, they prefer we stick with oil & gas over renewable #energy.

https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/ #climatechange

About 109 billion people have lived & died. Each grain of sand represents 10 million.

This stunning data visualization of human life by Max Roser was published in 2022.

Today there would be 805 green grains representing 8.05 billion people living on Earth. #science #art

The wealthiest 10% are responsible for 1/2 of global CO2 emissions. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/cop21-richest-10-per-cent-produce-half-the-world-s-co2-emissions-a6756511.html #climatechange

A lot of media outlets are reporting on #ClimateChange this week bc the smoke from wildfires in Canada has settled over highly populated cities in the US.

But climate change is all around us. It’s extreme storms. Severe droughts. Flooding & food insecurity & soaring temps. Insufficient energy infrastructure. The loss of biodiversity & increasing human conflict.

Climate change is everywhere. And we should be talking & reading about it, even when it’s less obvious in the wealthiest nations.

Did you know that soil helps us deal with #ClimateChange? After the ocean, it’s the 2nd largest carbon sink, meaning it stores & releases carbon in ways that regulate the greenhouse effect.

But deforestation, overgrazing, forest fires, intensive farming, construction & more have taken a toll. Today, 1/3 of the world’s soil is degraded, meaning it’s lost some of its ability to support animals & plants bc of physical, chemical or biological changes.

Protecting soils = protecting the planet🪱🌍

I love that I can share science or history or even *soil* ⬆️ on #Mastodon & every comment is thoughtful, polite & interesting.

It’s a nice reminder that despite what I became accustomed to elsewhere, social media can still be interesting & fun. Long live the #fediverse🖖 /2

Sometimes journalists, newspapers, “influencers,” scientists, politicians & the rest of us get things wrong. But instead of acknowledging our mistakes, too often, pride or social norms get in the way of saying so.

But it’s good to change our minds when we have new evidence or a new perspective or experience that shapes our perceptions.

That’s how we learn. How we grow. And talking about it should be normalized. The expectation rather than the exception.

A wee bit of personal news…

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has announced this year’s regional Emmy nominations & Serving up Science, the quirky PBS series I write & host, has received two - including one for host ☺️

https://www.wkar.org/2023-05-16/wkar-storytellers-receive-2023-regional-emmy-nominations #tv

You really never know where a career in #science will lead. It’s an honor to be nominated & I’m incredibly grateful to work with such a wonderful team at WKAR!

What's the world's deadliest animal?

The answer may surprise you. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Most-Lethal-Animal-Mosquito-Week #science #nature

I’m finding so many interesting posts & links about #science & #history on #Mastodon.

It’s not that this kind of content wasn’t on #Twitter, but it got lost in a sea of outrage in my feed, which was organized by algorithms, promoted tweets & ads.

The lack of those algorithms & a new chance to curate an intentional list of follows has certainly helped too. So I’m really enjoying interactions here & learning a bit along the way. (It is the Internet, so always check the sources of course!)

At 14, Mary Fairfax (later Mary Somerville) studied algebra & mathematics, defying her father’s wishes.

Eventually, she began experimenting & writing about #science. Her interests spanned fields from astronomy to chemistry to physics. Mary published articles & books & is now celebrated as a mathematician, scientist & writer.

Along with Caroline Herschel (see earlier #HistoryRemix post), she became one of the first 2 honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.3817

What kind of biologist should you be?

I adore this charming - and pretty accurate - chart by @rosemarymosco to help make the decision.

Also, fungi wins 🍄 #art #science

How a country’s healthcare expenditure correlates with its citizens average life expectancy.

With one notable anomaly.

Source: Latinometrics using World Bank data

Food waste is responsible for at least *6%* of global greenhouse gas emissions.

We can change that. Right now.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions #ClimateChange #food