Science! With Friends

If you’ve ever wondered if Beyoncé has a scientific counterpart, wonder no more: it’s Attabey Rodríguez Benítez, a.k.a. Science Bey! Attabey is a chemical biologist and bilingual science communicator with a passion for understanding Nature’s power and sharing it with others. She explains how her research is helping us learn about the many tricks enzymes can do, as well as teaching them novel tricks that can be used in disease therapies. She also shares her journey as a first-generation college student, telling us how her work as a scientific illustrator is harnessing the power of images to communicate science more effectively, especially across linguistic barriers. The friends also discuss Attabey’s AAAS Mass Media Fellowship with Science Friday, and how her work with the Women in Red WikiProject is helping to increase awareness of Latinas in STEM.

You can find Attabey on Twitter and Instagram @ScienceBey. You can also learn more about her amazing work on her website at https://science-bey.com/ and at the links below.

https://linkedin.com/in/attabey
https://www.chembio.umich.edu/
https://www.lsi.umich.edu/profiles/alison-narayan-phd
https://www.lsi.umich.edu/profiles/janet-smith-phd
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_63IT70AAAAJ&hl=en

Attabey’s Ultimate Guide for Figure-Making:
https://science-bey.com/science-illustration-eng

Yale Ciencia Academy Fellows:
https://www.cienciapr.org/en/blogs/yale-ciencia-academy/meet-2020-yale-ciencia-academy-fellows

AAAS Mass Media Fellows:
https://www.aaas.org/programs/mass-media-fellowship/2020-mass-media-fellows

Science Friday:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/

Women in Red WikiProject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red

Adriana Ocampo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Ocampo

In the final installment of May’s “scientists who sci-fi” series, Jocelyn and Bradley are joined by Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, who takes us along on her journey from high-school dropout to condensed matter physics Ph.D., nanotechnology researcher, and NASCAR physicist. Diandra tells us how she made the decision to step away from academia to become a full-time writer of genre-bending scientific nonfiction and fiction works, and how her “speculative fiction” approach explores the social, cultural, and ethical aspects of scientific advances that are already underway or are likely to come to fruition in the near future. The friends also discuss how an engagement with storytelling can help scientists to become not only better communicators but also better thinkers.

You can find Diandra on Twitter @drdiandra. You can also learn more about her amazing work on her website at https://www.drdiandra.com/ and at the links below.

The Physics of NASCAR:
https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Nascar-Science-Behind-Speed/dp/0452290228
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/19/11065240/daytona-500-2016-nascar-200-mph-physics-drafting-strategy
https://youtu.be/bbMCypdr-I4

Science Saturday: She's Got a Ticket to Ride (Jennifer Ouellette & Diandra Leslie-Pelecky):
https://youtu.be/cZmf5nS_xrw

“Physics is a Survival Skill”: https://youtu.be/rxKLAh977HY

Biomedical Applications of Nanotechnology: https://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Applications-Nanotechnology-Vinod-Labhasetwar/dp/0471722421

Further reading:

“Narrative Style Influences Citation Frequency in Climate Change Science,” PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167983


Digital Storytelling Lab@ Columbia: http://www.digitalstorytellinglab.com/

The Story Grid: https://storygrid.com/books/


“A biomimetic eye with a hemispherical perovskite nanowire array retina,” Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2285-x

Nanodiamonds & nanoparticles for cancer treatment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5253274/
https://phys.org/news/2015-01-nanodiamonds-chemoresistant-cancer-stem-cells.html

The End of October: https://www.amazon.com/End-October-novel-Lawrence-Wright/dp/0525658653

Have you heard the one about the astrophysicist who's afraid of the dark? Trust us, friends, you haven't heard anything yet! This week, Jocelyn and Bradley hit the hyperdrive with Dr. Kaitlin Rasmussen (a.k.a. C.M. Fields): astrophysicist, Animal Crossing enthusiast, and writer of horror and science fiction. Kaitlin shares her research into the secrets of ancient stars, her work as a science fiction consultant, and the most significant influences on her science and her stories. In addition, the friends discuss the complexity of space travel, the importance of LQBTQ+ representation in science fiction, and what makes something truly scary.

Find more Information on Kaitlin Rasmussen at:

Website: http://sites.nd.edu/kaitlin-c-rasmussen/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/C_M_Fields and https://twitter.com/toomanyspectra

Art: https://www.redbubble.com/people/toomanyspectra/shop

Consulting: https://moralesmanuscripts.com/

Story Links:

Even the machines are eaten in the end (forthcoming from Selene Quarterly Magazine)
Nothing in the Dark (forthcoming from Decoded Pride Month Anthology)
The Quiet City: https://www.prismaticamagazine.com/issue-9
Every Star is Mad: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087L8RGWV
Hang Up: https://gumroad.com/swamphousepress#kZnHZ
A Brief History of Us: http://bewilderingstories.com/issue818/history_us.html
The Accelerated: https://www.vulturebonesmag.com/05_09_theaccelerated_cmfields

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Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you are a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell), Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

Bradley and Jocelyn jettison to the future with scientist and science fiction author J. Dianne Dotson. Here the friends discuss her early career in life sciences. They then teleport to her current career as a science writer and author, discussing her series science fiction novels called The Questrison Saga®. They talk about not only alien planets, spaceports, and future technology but also that which connects us to being human, even non-human creatures, like family, love, space fashion, and, most importantly, space food!!! Dotson tells them about her childhood dreaming up characters, the importance of Science and Art, and the beauty of having her characters seem so real. And together, Dianne and the friends dream big, journeying as true Questri among the many possibilities of space and imagination alike.


You can find more information about J. Dianne Dotson at

Main Website: https://jdiannedotson.com
Science Articles: https://jdiannedotson.com/science-writing-articles/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jdiannedotson
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdiannedotson/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdB5U4h2_xpbRWbNdm_M7OQ

You can find her books and other writings at:

The Questrison Saga®
-Book1: Heliopause https://www.amazon.com/Heliopause-Questrison-Saga-Book-One/dp/0999408208/ref=sr_1_7?crid=3C06X2N1KG7LN&dchild=1&keywords=j.+dianne+dotson&qid=1589388822&sprefix=J.+Diann%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-7
-Book 2: Ephemeris https://www.amazon.com/Ephemeris-Questrison-Saga-Book-Two-ebook/dp/B07Q3SYXNG/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3C06X2N1KG7LN&dchild=1&keywords=j.+dianne+dotson&qid=1589388822&sprefix=J.+Diann%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-3
-Book 3: Accretion https://www.amazon.com/Accretion-Questrison-Saga-Book-Three/dp/0999408267/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3C06X2N1KG7LN&dchild=1&keywords=j.+dianne+dotson&qid=1589388797&sprefix=J.+Diann%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-1

Press and Short Fiction and Non-Fiction: https://jdiannedotson.com/press.

Jocelyn and Bradley are in their happy place this week, at the intersection of science, art, and storytelling! In this episode, the hosts discuss the powerful and pervasive notion of “the two cultures”—sciences on the one hand and humanities on the other—and consider why it is so difficult and so important to move beyond this deeply entrenched dichotomy. They also discuss parallels between the writing process and the process of scientific discovery, why creativity and emotion are crucial elements of science, and how the arts and humanities help to cultivate habits of mind that are essential for success in STEM fields. Finally, the hosts introduce May’s month-long series featuring “scientists who sci-fi,” discussing the role science fiction has to play in both predicting and influencing the science of the future.

Further reading:

On C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures”: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-update-on-cp-snows-two-cultures/

Science fiction “predictions” that came true:
https://www.sciencealert.com/these-15-wild-sci-fi-predictions-about-future-tech-actually-came-true
https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/techandscience/26-outrageous-sci-fi-predictions-that-actually-came-true/ss-BBWDI7z

The Science of Interstellar: https://www.amazon.com/Science-Interstellar-Kip-Thorne/dp/0393351378

Brad’s TEDx Talk, “The Science of Tomorrow”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T2j6qzA99M

Jocelyn’s Nepris session, “Science Stories - Why Scientists Need History, Art, Literature, Music, & More!”: https://ifthenshecan.nepris.com/Video/ifthen-women-stem-science-stories---why-scientists-need-history-art-literature-music-more-71333

Consilience Journal https://www.consilience-journal.com/

The Runaway Species: https://www.amazon.com/Runaway-Species-human-creativity-remakes/dp/1936787520

The Universe in Verse: https://www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/

More on Science Fiction future's: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08674-8

For more podcasts on the power of science fiction in science, art, and society, please listen to Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders Podcast "Our Opinions are Correct: https://www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/

In the last two months, COVID-19 has drawn the public’s attention to zoonotic diseases in unprecedented—and often profoundly misleading—ways. The Chinese origins of SARS-CoV-2 have (re)awakened powerful cultural stereotypes that are now routinely invoked to explain the virus’s transmission to humans. In reality, the lives of bats, viruses, and humans are intertwined in far more complex and profound ways, as bat virologist Dorothy Tovar explains in this week’s episode. Dorothy tells Jocelyn and Bradley why bats’ unique immune systems make them ideal reservoirs for viruses, and why bat behavior and viral evolution combine to create a perfect storm for novel viruses to emerge. She discusses her research at the intersection of immunology and ecology and how she is working to understand the environmental factors that underlie zoonotic disease dynamics. The friends also discuss Dorothy’s science journey, and how a fateful parasitic encounter during a childhood visit to Haiti sparked a lifelong passion for science and public health.

You can find Dorothy on Instagram and Linktree @iamdorothytovar, and you can learn more about her amazing work at the links below!

https://woods.stanford.edu/people/dorothy-tovar
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/factors-allow-viruses-infect-humans-coronavirus/
GoldieBlox Q&A for kids: https://youtu.be/2xsOerD5cd0
Reddit Q&A: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ezstsw/science_discussion_series_the_novel_coronavirus/
Association of Science & Technology Centers Q&A: https://www.astc.org/astc-dimensions/qa-with-dorothy-tovar/



Stanford Black Bioscience Organization: https://sbbo.sites.stanford.edu/

The IF/THEN initiative:
https://www.ifthenshecan.org/
https://twitter.com/IfThenSheCan

More on bats, viruses, and humans:

“How China’s ‘Bat Woman’ Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus,” Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1

“The Origins of SARS-CoV-2,” Benhur Lee Lab at Mount Sinai School of Medicine:
Part 1: https://leelabvirus.host/covid19/origins-part1
Part 2: https://leelabvirus.host/covid19/origins-part2
Part 3: https://leelabvirus.host/covid19/origins-part3

“The Coronavirus Is Mutating. What Does That Mean for a Vaccine?”, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/16/opinion/coronavirus-mutations-vaccine-covid.html

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Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you are a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail:

It’s Earth Day, friends, and we’re celebrating with two of our planet’s best friends, climatologist Dr. Natalie Umphlett and climate change ecologist Dr. Ramesh Laungani! This scientific super-couple talks with Jocelyn and Bradley about the challenges and rewards of communicating with the public about climate change. Natalie shares her work in making climate data more available and relatable through the Climate4Cities project, and Ramesh tells us how his first ecology class transformed his perspective on science and how he is working to do the same for his students. The friends also discuss how we can shift the discourse around climate change to engage in more productive ways, humanizing the numbers and balancing global perspective with local solutions.

You can learn more about Ramesh, Natalie, and their incredible work at the links below!

Ramesh Laungani (@DrRamBio): https://www.doane.edu/ramesh-laungani
Natalie Umphlett: https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/who/people/faculty-member.asp?pid=927
High Plains Regional Climate Center: https://hprcc.unl.edu/
Climate4Cities: https://hprcc.unl.edu/climate4cities/index.php
Nebraska School of Natural Resources: http://snr.unl.edu/
1000 STEM Women (@1000STEMWomen): https://1000stemwomen.wixsite.com/home
Warm Regards podcast (@OurWarmRegards): https://warmregardspodcast.com/

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Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you are a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell), Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.

If a bat handed you a margarita, would you take it? How about $3.7 billion?

Controlling agricultural pests and promoting the health of agave plants—used to make tequila—are just a couple of the superheroic services bats provide our ecosystems and economies. In this high-flying episode, bat conservationist Kristen Lear introduces Jocelyn and Bradley to the magnificent variety and diverse talents of bat species, busting a few myths along the way. Kristen explains that she has long been drawn to bats as “underdogs,” and she tells us how she has traveled the globe and climbed an actual, literal mountain of bat guano to study them. She also shares her current project integrating ecology with social sciences research to develop bat-friendly agave management strategies in Mexico. Finally, the friends discuss how our land use patterns have altered bats’ habitats in ways that exacerbate the threat of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19, and how we can mitigate the threat to protect the health of bat and human populations moving forward.

You can find Kristen on Twitter @BatsForLife, Instagram @batsforlife_kristen, and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/ratsandcanoes. You can also learn more about her amazing work on her website at https://kristenlear.wixsite.com/batconservation/ and at the links below.

National Geographic Explorer: https://youtu.be/3qn4EAU4wsU
Mission Unstoppable: https://youtu.be/o0qlgNKKwnQ
Skype a Scientist: https://youtu.be/yMXo7FFgwF0
Exploring By the Seat of Your Pants: https://youtu.be/hp1DeznlG7Y
Sustainability Spotlight: https://youtu.be/oTx8ciBXn8I
Looking for the Mexican Long-nosed Bat: https://vimeo.com/228372359

“Economic Importance of Bats in Agriculture,” Science (2011): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/332/6025/41.full

Bat-inspired drones:
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/engineers-build-robot-drone-mimics-bat-flight-53794
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/01/pentagon-seeks-laser-powered-bat-drones/144964/
https://phys.org/news/2019-02-flight-smarter-nimbler-drones.html

Medical advancements inspired by bats:
Echolocating cane for the blind:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/bioinspired-assistive-devices/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239181

Stroke medication: https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/draculin-stroke-drug-from-vampire-bats-moves-closer-to-circulation

Bat tongue-inspired surgical robots:

Math is having a moment. Never before, perhaps, has a graph loomed so large in our cultural consciousness, as we embrace the public health imperative to “flatten the curve.” Whether you’re a numbers whiz or think you would rather die of COVID-19 than revisit your high school math class, Jocelyn and Bradley will show you that the soul of mathematics is compassion. Fundamentally, math is not about numbers, but about relationships. Math is a tool for empathy, teaching us how our actions affect one another and enabling us to make informed decisions to take better care of each other. Math connects us, and at the same time, it helps us understand how we are connected. In this episode, the hosts discuss the unique status of mathematical knowledge as a means of thinking, interpreting, predicting, and intervening. In particular, they consider what we might call the numeracy gap—disparities in mathematical understanding—and how this gap has fueled conflicting interpretations of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. From risk calculations to exponential growth functions, math is the mental apparatus that allows us to project from what we are observing to what we will observe in the future, from our individual realities to our collective reality.

When are you ever going to use algebra? Right now, friends. Right now.

For further information:

Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

“Hold the Line,” by Yale epidemiologist Jonathan Smith:
https://elemental.medium.com/hold-the-line-17231c48ff17

Exponential growth:

Coronavirus vs. every 2000s epidemic (Cary Huang): https://youtu.be/n4no04822NQ
Exponential growth and epidemics (3Blue1Brown): https://youtu.be/Kas0tIxDvrg
Simulating an epidemic (3Blue1Brown): https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs

Interactive graphs:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

The story behind ‘flatten the curve,’ the defining chart of the coronavirus:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90476143/the-story-behind-flatten-the-curve-the-defining-chart-of-the-coronavirus

Modeling the pandemic:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/modelers-struggle-to-predict-the-future-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-67261
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-are-sick-lost-february/608521/

Further Reading:

The Great Influenza, John M. Barry: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences, John Allen Paulos:

. . . And although each of us
one day runs short on the future, for all
there’s the present we stand in, shifting
our pains from one leg to the other,
and, always behind us, the past, having
made it through everything, its hands
on our shoulders, urging us on.

—Ted Kooser, 13th U.S. Poet Laureate


As we all speculate about the future of the COVID-19 pandemic and wonder what the world will look like in its wake, the past holds important clues and context to help us make sense of what we are experiencing. Jocelyn and Bradley are joined this week by medical and environmental historian Dr. Gregg Mitman, who offers a historical perspective on the current crisis. Gregg shares his knowledge and insights about past disease outbreaks, including the 1918 flu pandemic and the 2014-15 Ebola epidemic in Liberia. The friends discuss the moral, political, economic, and environmental dimensions of disease, including how our land-use patterns increase the risk of zoonotic diseases; the persistent tendency of disease outbreaks to spawn conspiracy theories, xenophobia, and eugenic rhetoric; and how epidemics expose and exacerbate existing inequities in society. Gregg also shares his hope that, both locally and globally, we can create new communities and infrastructures of care that will enable us to navigate the current pandemic, while also shaping a more sustainable and just world as we move forward from it.

You can find Gregg on Twitter @greggmitman, and you can learn more about his amazing work at https://gmitman.com/ and at the links below:

https://ls.wisc.edu/news/lessons-from-past-epidemics
https://history.wisc.edu/people/mitman-gregg/

Watch In the Shadow of Ebola: http://intheshadowofebola.com/film

A Liberian Journey: http://liberianhistory.org/

Further reading:
Disease outbreaks and xenophobia: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/us/disease-outbreaks-xenophobia-history/index.html
Interview with Peter Daszak: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-pandemic-cause-prediction-prevention.html
Francesca Melandri’s “letter from the future”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/a-letter-to-the-uk-from-italy-this-is-what-we-know-about-your-future

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Contact Science! With Friends (especially if you’re a scientist interested in a lively conversation about your science and science story) at Gmail or Twitter!
• Gmail: [email protected]
• Twitter @SciWithFriends
• Facebook: Science With Friends

Science! With Friends Podcast is created and hosted by Jocelyn Bosley (@SciTalker) and Bradley Nordell (@bradleynordell), Produced and edited by Vince Ruhl.