<![CDATA[SKYPE A SCIENTIST - Skype a Scientist Blog]]>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 13:44:07 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[How we can support wildlife]]>Sun, 13 Apr 2025 19:46:19 GMThttps://www.skypeascientist.com/sasblog/how-we-can-support-wildlifePoster by Zillah Smith
Article by Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D., squid biologist

We are living through the 6th mass extinction in the history of life on earth. Just since 2000, North America has lost 22% of our butterfly abundance.  When it comes to protecting our local wildlife, we can make a huge difference by taking easy actions. These actions fall into 2 major categories: building habitat, and slowing climate change.
Creating Habitat
One of the leading causes of animal decline is a loss of a good place to live. We think of cities as being places with mostly people, but humans and wild animals tend to choose the same locations to live! We pick spots where there are a lot of resources, like rich soil and plentiful water. Animals need the same resources people do, so when we take up space we don't need (lawns, I'm looking at you), it takes important space away from animals.
An easy way to address this problem is making some of the space you control more hospitable to the animals we share our world with.
1) Plant native plants This includes trees, flowers, grasses, and more. Don't panic over making it perfect- adding any native plant, especially a diverse array of native plants, will make things better for the critters living nearby.
2) Remove concrete so water can enter the soil instead of roll into sewers, and native plants have more space to grow
3) Stop using pesticides Pesticides don't just kill the insects we want- they kill the native pollinators that we absolutely need to grow food and maintain a healthy ecosystem. Break up with your pesticides.
Slowing Climate Change
Obviously slowing climate change is a huge job, and in the United States, the change we need the federal government to make isn't going to happen any time soon. The good news is that cities and neighborhoods can make meaningful changes to slow this train down.
You don't have to do ALL of these things, but doing any of them is great!
1) Switch to green energy. Contact your electric company and switch to a provider that sources their energy from green sources, like wind, geothermal, or solar.
2) Get solar panels. Many places have government programs to help pay for household solar! They can greatly reduce or even sometimes cover your whole electric bill.
3) Reduce food waste. Share your food, shop thoughtfully at the grocery store, don't be afraid to eat your leftovers
4) Compost any food scraps or uneaten food
5) Buy less stuff. When you DO buy stuff, try to get it used before buying new.
6) Advocate. Tell politicians (especially local politicians!) to support:
  • Public Transit
  • Green energy
  • Laws that require efficiency in buildings
7) Take public transit, or at LEAST share your ubers/lyfts: Taking public transit is the best way to get around, but we know it's not a perfect solution all the time. Make things cheaper for yourself and your friends by sharing an uber if you're going in the same direction. Offer a ride to prevent another car on the road to events.
8) Make your house more efficient. Effectively insulating your windows and doors will decrease your energy bill and reduce energy consumption.

and perhaps most importantly...

9) Talk to your friends and family about climate change: Social science suggests that people are most likely to change their behaviors based on how their social circles behave. Guilt doesn't work, shame doesn't work well. Be a positive influence in your social group. Preventing climate change doesn't have to be a struggle, and we can do it together!
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]]><![CDATA[Protecting our Oceans]]>Sun, 13 Apr 2025 19:40:47 GMThttps://www.skypeascientist.com/sasblog/april-13th-2025Poster by Meg Mindlin
Article by Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D., squid biologist

We rely on the oceans for food, oxygen, medicine, and it's full of SO many amazing animals. Unfortunately, our oceans are warming, filling with pollution, and we're losing species we barely understand. Here's what we can do to protect the critical ecosystems that live in our oceans:

Protecting animals in the ocean
1) Pay attention to the fish you eat You can either eat less seafood and avoid this entirely, or try to only eat fish that are caught sustainably. Many fisheries are simply catching more fish than the wild animals can replace. This is a pretty complicated situation, with a lot of factors, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium regularly updates guides on what is a best choice, good alternative, or seafood that should be avoided.
2) Advocate for marine protected areas Marine Protected areas are internationally recognized places in the ocean where some activities are restricted. Sometimes fishing is restricted to allow species to recover from over-fishing. In the US, these marine protected areas are under threat by the Trump administration.
3) Ask local businesses to use less plastic There's a lot of plastic in the ocean, but fishing it out is not the answer. Preventing the plastic from ending up in the ocean, however, is really important. Individually, no matter how hard we try to reduce our individual plastic use, it's unfortunately a drop in the bucket. Try to make changes that extend past your household, like advocating for plastic bag bans, or asking local take out places to switch to cardboard take out containers.

Slowing Climate Change
Obviously slowing climate change is a huge job, and in the United States the change we need the federal government to make isn't going to happen any time soon. The good news is that cities and neighborhoods can make meaningful changes to slow this train down.
You don't have to do ALL of these things, but doing any of them is great!
1) Switch to green energy. Contact your electric company and switch to a provider that sources their energy from green sources, like wind, geothermal, or solar.
2) Get solar panels. Many places have government programs to help pay for household solar! They can greatly reduce or even sometimes cover your whole electric bill.
3) Reduce food waste. Share your food, shop thoughtfully at the grocery store, don't be afraid to eat your leftovers
4) Compost any food scraps or uneaten food
5) Buy less stuff. When you DO buy stuff, try to get it used before buying new.
6) Advocate. Tell politicians (especially local politicians!) to support:
  • Public Transit
  • Green energy
  • Laws that require efficiency in buildings
7) Take public transit, or at LEAST share your ubers/lyfts: Taking public transit is the best way to get around, but we know it's not a perfect solution all the time. Make things cheaper for yourself and your friends by sharing an uber if you're going in the same direction. Offer a ride to prevent another car on the road to events.
8) Make your house more efficient. Effectively insulating your windows and doors will decrease your energy bill and reduce energy consumption.

and perhaps most importantly...

9) Talk to your friends and family about climate change: Social science suggests that people are most likely to change their behaviors based on how their social circles behave. Guilt doesn't work, shame doesn't work well. Be a positive influence in your social group. Preventing climate change doesn't have to be a struggle, and we can do it together!

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]]><![CDATA[Funding Science Saves Lives]]>Sun, 13 Apr 2025 19:36:26 GMThttps://www.skypeascientist.com/sasblog/funding-science-saves-livesPoster by Amy Schwartz
Article by Dr. Mike Feigin, cancer biologist

Federal funding for science is absolutely essential to the lives of everyone living in the US. We might not notice it, but federal workers are critical for ensuring the safety of our food supply, monitoring spread of diseases, predicting extreme weather events, and training the next generation of cancer researchers. The Trump administration has devastated all of these essential activities with extreme funding cuts and massive firings of the scientific workforce.  

How does federal funding of science save lives?

Funding scientific research – The federal government funds every facet of scientific research, from fundamental physics research to clinical trials of new Alzheimer’s drugs, and everything in between. This funding comes from many sources, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DoD). All three of these funding bodies have had their funding levels for research drastically cut since the start of 2025. As an example of the direct impacts of these cuts, patients undergoing clinical trials for advanced cancer at the NIH have had their treatments interrupted, severely impacting their lives.     

Monitoring emerging diseases – The federal government, through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is responsible for detecting and monitoring the growth of infectious diseases, including influenza, Covid, and the measles. Recently, thousands of scientists at the CDC have been fired, limiting our ability to detect and respond to emerging diseases. This is particularly critical as anti-vaccine advocates are now placed at the highest levels of our health system, and infections diseases once mostly eradicated in the US are making a comeback. 

Making sure our food and drug supply is safe – The federal government, through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), protects us by ensuring the safety of our food and prescription and over the counter drugs. The Trump administration has fired over 3,000 FDA employees. This will harm the FDA’s ability to ensure the safety of our food supply and significantly lengthen the time it takes to approve new drugs. As a result, there will be increases in contaminated foods reaching all of us, with limited ability to determine where the contamination arose.

Monitoring weather events and climate change – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the federal agency that provides weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate models, delivers seasonal outlooks to farmers to manage their planting and harvests, inspects fish and shellfish for safety, among thousands of other reports we rely on in our everyday lives. Over one thousand people  have been fired by the Trump administration in recent months. Staff shortages will lead to lack of real-time storm monitoring, making dangerous hurricanes and tornadoes even more deadly.

Training the next generation of scientists – The federal government provides funding for scientific training, from grade school through graduate school.  These programs are now under attack on several fronts. First, the government has completely eradicated programs specifically designed to support students from under-represented groups (minorities, women, LBGTQ+, low socioeconomic status). Second, the government has decreased funding levels for other programs, in many cases halving the number of students who can participate. Finally, the government is revoking visas of foreign students, forcing them out of the country and ending their educational advancement. The result of these actions is a severely weakened scientific workforce and will result in fewer scientists available to make discoveries in the future. 

What can you do to help: Contact your Congressional representatives! Tell them to reverse the funding cuts to our critical scientific agencies, including the NSF and NIH. Make sure they understand how these cuts are making the US a less safe and less healthy country, and ruining our scientific future.

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]]><![CDATA[Biology is Bigger than Binaries]]>Sun, 13 Apr 2025 19:30:47 GMThttps://www.skypeascientist.com/sasblog/biology-is-bigger-than-binariesPoster by Franz Anthony
Article by Dr. Jess McLaughlin

Biology is never simple, especially when it comes to sex! Here's some cool examples of how diverse sex can be in nature.

How Many Sexes Are There?
Social insects like honeybees live in colonies where only some of them reproduce- the queen lays eggs, the drones mate with her, and the workers don't mate at all. They don't really fit into two sexes like we're used to! Other organisms like fungi can have thousands of different sex types. It turns out it's really hard to figure out how many sexes there are in nature!

Sex Can Change
Many organisms change their sex characteristics over their lifetimes. Clownfish all start out male, but the biggest one in a group will become female! Other animals go the opposite direction, with fish like wrasse starting out as all female and the oldest fish eventually becoming males. It's not just fish, either- in some birds, if the ovary of a female bird is damaged, it will start to develop male-like plumage and behavior.

Plants Do Things Differently
Plants don't fit into our ideas of sex at all. Many plants, like lilies, produce both types of reproductive cells in the same flower, meaning they're both "male" and "female" at the same time! These plants- which are called "perfect flowers"- aren't the only plants doing things their own way, either. Some plants have male and female flowers on different parts of the same plant, or switch between types over their lives.
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