Spotlights

A picture is worth a thousand words, but what about a video? Keeping with our theme of the intersection of science and art, we invited the head of The Animation Lab, Dr. Janet Iwasa, from the University of Utah to share how she learned to create scientific animations.

Many of us appreciate wondrous scientific discoveries, pushing the boundaries of our knowledge and unlocking the secrets to our world. Many of us also appreciate beautiful prose, illustrations, sculptures and other artistic creations, capturing our imagination. In both cases, the world gains something new — a new idea, a new way to think about the world, or maybe some new inspiration for your own work. 

Depending on your experience, you might have felt your early education was a little lackluster. Or, you may have excelled. The pre-pandemic K-12 classroom was organized such that teachers shared information and students were expected to retain it. In addition, teachers “taught to the test,” meaning that educators built their curriculum around standardized tests. These tests were designed to evaluate a school to help determine funding budgets.

We highlighted awe-inspiring women in STEM all month long for Women's History Month. We certainly loved learning about all these amazing women (and many more we didn’t have enough weekdays to include!). We love seeing these women push against the boundaries of gender bias in STEM and refuse to be held back.

“If skeletons are hard, how do our bodies grow skeletons?”

“What opportunities are there for high school students to get research experience?”

“What are good and bad things that can affect our brains?”

“If the sun is behind the moon, why doesn’t the moon burn up and why don’t astronauts die?”

“Do you ever find being in research frustrating? What excites you about science?”

Black History Month is a time dedicated to celebrating the contributions of Black people to the United States. Originally beginning in 1926 as a week-long event, it extended to a full month in 1976.  All February long, we celebrated Black scientists and their significant contributions to science. Here is some more information about the scientists we shared on social media, and a few extra scientists too!

Science communication careers are varied and can be challenging to define. The UC Davis Graduate Student Association (GSA) in association with Science Says hosted a science communication career panel to increase awareness and offer opportunities to connect with professionals in a variety of fields.

We featured Drs. Grayson Doucette, Brittany Anderton and Alison Van Eenennaam representing scicomm careers in policy, digital media and academia, respectively.

Social media can be a powerful tool for good, and for bad, especially in science. It offers the opportunity to connect with those in and outside your field across the world, and lets scientists share visually appealing aspects of their work like photography from fieldwork or microscopy images.

The average person interacts with science through news outlets, yet science is constantly evolving with every new paper’s results. Often, results are sensationalized to grab the attention of readers instead of honestly reporting the material. So how do we, as scientists, report science responsibly and effectively? In her “Science Reporting for the Public” workshop, Lindsey Mooney describes some of the obstacles and best practices for reporting science.

It seems like there is a podcast for everything from horror and comedy to economics and science (check out our interview with the host of