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Effectively communicating “Research that matters!”

Science Borealis Leave a comment Announcements and Site News, Communication, Education, and Outreach, General Science, Health, Medicine, and Veterinary Science, Science in Society, Special Dates & Events

Lené Gary, General Sciences editor In November 2018, Canadian Blood Services (CBS) partnered with the Center for Blood Research (CBR) […]

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The Calls of the Past: How Dinosaurs Might Have Communicated

21mediair Biology and Life Sciences, Environmental and Earth Sciences, General Science
Looking at a dinosaur skeleton in a museum display mount or its isolated bones in a collections drawer, it can sometimes be hard to think of these animals as living creatures. Individual beings who had lives, motives, and interactions with each other. So much of paleontology focuses on fossil animals separate from the world they lived in, and paleontologists are cautious of assuming too much about the activities of creatures they can’t observe in life.…

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Schizomids, the unstoppable arachnids

Gil Wizen Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach
What if I told you that right under your nose there is an entire group of arachnids that hardly ever receives any attention? It contains many species and has a worldwide distribution, but you will not hear about them in the news or see them presented on mainstream media. A couple of months ago I gave a talk about minor arachnid orders (any arachnid that is not a spider, scorpion, mite or tick) at Nerd…

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Effectively communicating “Research that matters!”

Science Borealis General Science
Lené Gary, General Sciences editor In November 2018, Canadian Blood Services (CBS) partnered with the Center for Blood Research (CBR) and Science Borealis to launch their first-ever Lay Science Writing Competition. The contest challenged Canadian Blood Services research trainees to showcase their work in short, well-crafted articles. The theme, “Research that matters!”, inspired the entrants […]

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The Train for Rewards Blog Party is live

Zazie Todd Biology and Life Sciences, Health, Medicine and Veterinary Science
The Train for Rewards blog party is now live. You can read an amazing set of posts from talented dog trainers and animal behaviour professionals on the reward-based training of dogs and cats.Check it out here.Then share your favourite posts on social media with the hashtag #Train4Rewards.There is also a photo post where you can add a photo of your pet to show your support for training with positive reinforcement. (It's a pet-ition, geddit?!).

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STEMinism Sunday: STEM Books for Junior Scientists

L. E. Carmichael Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach, General Science
Welcome to STEMinism Sunday! As a former woman in science, I have a deep and enduring interest in the experiences and representation of women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). This series will be an opportunity for me – and you – to get to know some of these intellectual badasses. I’m on the road right now, posting between adventures in Cape Breton (*waves from Nova Scotia*), so it’s a quick one today…

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Star Colors: (B)lue is for Rigel, (R)ed is for Betelgeuse

Vikas Nath Communication, Education and Outreach, Physics and Astronomy
To a casual observer, all stars may appear white. But they are not. Stars come in different colors: Red, Blue, Orange, Yellow, and White. They are differently colored because they have different surface temperatures. And objects at different temperatures emit different colors. Star Colors in Fahrenheit (not Kelvins) Hotter stars emit a shorter wavelength of light and appear blue or blue-white. While the cooler stars emit a longer wavelength of light and appear red. We…

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Hiding behind chaos and error in the double pendulum

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group bloggers Biology and Life Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Technology and Engineering
If you want a visual intuition for just how unpredictable chaotic dynamics can be then the go-to toy model is the double pendulum. There are lots of great simulations (and some physical implementations) of the double pendulum online. Recently, /u/abraxasknister posted such a simulation on the /r/physics subreddit and quickly attracted a lot of attention. In their simulation, /u/abraxasknister has a fixed center (block dot) that the first mass (red dot) is attached to (by…

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