Animal Crossing has proven again and again to be an exquisitely well-designed game and has surprised many with its excellent representation of scientific concepts. Many players have written about the punnet squares of flower breeding, and others have made videos about all the animals in Blathers’s museum (even the bugs!). However, I’d like to turn your attention skyward. Let’s take a look at the meteor showers that happen above your island.
Greedy scientists and their grants
In 2009, there was a faux controversy called Climategate, in which a climate change research server was hacked and private emails were leaked. This event was then spun to create the impression that human-caused climate change was all a big conspiracy.
What exactly was the alleged motive for these scientists to make up climate change?
Easy; they did it for that sweet, sweet grant money. A 2018 article by the Heritage Foundation think tank entitled “Follow the (Climate Change) Money” makes the same claim. (Speaking of following the money, the Heritage Foundation itself received money from ExxonMobil until 2012).
(Grant) money makes a straightforward motive for any suspicious shenanigans in the scientific community. Just say the right things in your grant application and Uncle Sam will drop a fat stack of cash on your doorstep. Who wouldn’t fudge their data a bit to live like a king off of the National Science Foundation?
Except….that’s not how grants work at all.
Media literacy in the modern age
This post was written by ScIU Social Media Intern Jack Reasner, an undergraduate at IU’s Media School.
The Center for Media Literacy defines media literacy as “a 21st-century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.” Media literacy is becoming an invaluable skill. With an internet culture that breeds the “anything goes” mindset, it’s essential to take information with a grain of salt and to remember that misinformation can have very real consequences.
A reminder to the community: systemic racism is not just about the tools (but it’s a good start)
Content Warning: racism, violence, weapons, sexual assault, explicit language in some videos/links. Note: this is a lengthy post… sorry, not sorry.
Systemic racism has ravaged our country since its creation; America was built on it and continues to bask in it. It has taken lives and left them nameless and forgotten. More recently, though, some of those names are being heard and some of those faces are being seen.
Various calls to defund the police are ringing throughout social media and the news. And, candidly, I am for this. There are many functions that the police (as an institution) currently serve that would be better addressed by more specialized professionals. It is not realistic that (1) police training could be sufficiently expanded to provide proper education on managing such things, especially given that professionals in mental health and social work, for example, spend their entire careers learning and refining these skills nor that (2) many of those who self-select into the police force would be willing to work through such training and openly receive these lessons.
While I agree that redistributing funds from the police to more effective justice and safety measures is a critical step, I’m reminded of a quote in Bojack Horseman: “I can’t believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.” Let me explain.
Black Lives Matter & How You Can Help: A List of Organizations, Businesses, & Fundraisers
Black Lives Matter started in 2013, and took off in May 2020 to create one of the largest social justice movements in the country’s history. It now reaches around the world. This movement is still growing and you can help by donating your time, money, and/or intellect. In addition to the organizations mentioned in last week’s blog (No Space For Hate Bloomington, The Purple Shirt Brigade and Enough is Enough: Bloomington) we have put together a list of organizations, businesses, and fundraisers either associated with or supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
Local Organizations (more…)
Where is our administration right now?
This week, Bloomington has made national news for racist hate crimes and tolerance of them once again. This news has been covered well by the Indiana Daily Student, but Indiana University has made only one official statement, on Twitter and Facebook. That is unacceptable to me, so I am calling on our administration to do better. Content Warning: white supremacy, hate speech, violence.
To the Indiana University community, particularly those in our administration,
I do not know the best way to write this letter, because in full context, this moment deserves an entire dissertation worth of my time, research, writing, and other skills; it deserves yours too. I have been thinking a lot about context lately: I am a cis-hetero white woman who, with all my privilege, is afraid to walk home at night in this town, and I cannot imagine the abandonment and fear that those less privileged than me, particularly my Black colleagues, must feel every day.
So for context, let’s review the week in news in this community: (more…)
Potluck of neuroscience: Physics and charge
The more I learn about the discipline of neuroscience, the more I come to see it as the great scientific potluck of our day. While the actual meal at a potluck often seems disjointed, it allows guests to sample a wide variety of tasty foods brought by people from different culinary backgrounds. This post is the first in a series that will highlight contributions from various scientific disciplines that have furthered our understanding of how the brain and nervous system affect how we think and behave. Be on the lookout for more posts in the future!
While most scientific disciplines have contributed at least something to the neuroscience potluck party, the field of physics has brought many fundamental concepts (main dishes, if you will). The subfield of electricity and magnetism brought an especially exciting morsel: the finding that brain cells, called neurons, can send lightning-fast electrical signals, called action potentials. An action potential is an electrical wave that travels down an axon, the “sending” wire of a neuron. They occur in milliseconds, an incredibly fast event compared to other biochemical and hormonal signals in the body, which can take minutes, days, or months to communicate their messages. An action potential is enabled by a beautifully coordinated flow of electrical charge in and out of the neuron as it sails down an axon.
In neurons, electrical charges live in various atoms and small molecules that we call ions. I like to think of ions as two medieval armies (complete with swords, shields, battle axes, etc.) that are locked in a bitter feud.
COVID-19 lockdown: Some good news for the environment
Since the coronavirus outbreak, many of us had to shelter-in-place or practice social distancing. For some of us, this meant working from home, and for others, it meant traveling to their workplace fewer days of the week. Either way, people commuting less to work can mean many different things: fewer cars on the streets, fewer factories, office and school buildings utilizing electricity. The scare of the spread of coronavirus has also gotten us re-thinking our travel decisions such as the local or international flights or long road trips that we once did without hesitation. Though all these sound like a massive disruption of plans, there is a silver lining to it: the positive impact the lockdown has on the environment. (more…)
‘Your experiment is stupid’: Mentoring in science
Science in the modern world is never done in a vacuum; every single discovery is a result of the coordinated efforts of a team of scientists working together to answer important questions.
If success is to be expected, every graduate student, post-doc, and early-career professor should have a mentor or a team of mentors. In a scientific setting, this person is typically the principal investigator (PI), who directs the lab and projects happening therein. PIs and their mentees have a very interdependent relationship. A mentee benefits from the guidance of a more experienced scientist, who has made the mistakes and knows what to watch out for. Conversely, PIs often have more duties than getting research done, so they rely on their mentees in this respect. If these two parties aren’t working well together, research progress slows, and sometimes even comes to a screeching halt.
At this point in my career, I’m still a baby fledgling Ph.D. student and, thus, have a lot more experience being the mentee than the mentor. However, a recent experience at a conference gave me insight into the mentor-mentee relationship from a perspective different than my own.
How Your Diet Impacts the Environment
This post was written by ScIU Social Media Intern Natalie Westcott, an undergraduate in IU’s Media School.
It’s no surprise that our environment is entering a state of climate emergency. Global temperatures are rising, carbon emissions are rising, and sea levels are rising while arctic ice is melting. Climate scientists all over the world study these changes in our environment and urge people to make changes in their diet in an effort to fight these devastating effects. Famous primatologist Jane Goodall once said, “you cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Are you making a difference?
The food you put into your body not only affects your own health, but also the health of our planet. The world’s food system accounts for about twenty-five percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This includes “the raising and harvesting of all plants, animals, and animal products we eat”. Meat and dairy products alone account for over fourteen percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year. To put it into perspective, that’s equivalent to the yearly emissions from all the cars, trucks, airplanes, and ships combined.
Lamb, beef, and cheese have the largest climate footprint, respectively. Dairy emits more greenhouse gases than poultry and farmed fish. Plant-based foods have a much lower impact than meat, and plant emissions only happen after the crops leave the farm, post-production. This includes the processing, transportation, cooking, and waste disposal of the crop. Whereas most emissions from meat, dairy, and fish occur during production from feed production and manure.
If you want to help save our environment and fight against climate change, making small dietary changes can make an impact. Consuming less animal products like meat and dairy, and instead eating more plant-based foods like grains and vegetables, will help fight against the effects of global warming. Decreasing the demand for animal products will reduce the number of animals being raised for consumption and in turn reduce the emissions produced by this process.
You can also make an impact by making small changes in where you get your food, and how you dispose of it. Buying local food has a variety of environmental benefits. First, it significantly reduces your own carbon footprint by limiting food miles. Imported everyday foods can take thousands of miles to be shipped to its final destination, using large amounts of fossil fuels and creating air pollution. By shopping locally, you reduce the transportation needed to get the food, which then decreases the associated fossil fuels, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. With a little bit of research, you can find places near you that sell local food and support local farmers. Farmer’s markets [1] and local grocers are some of the most popular places to purchase locally grown foods. Here in Bloomington, we have Bloomingfoods – a local co-op market that sustainably supports the local growing of crops in Southern Indiana. However, many people face obstacles surrounding sustainable food choices. Buying from farmer’s markets and local groceries often takes time and money that many people don’t have access to. Another sustainable option would be to grow your own produce! Although gardening requires time and maintenance, this is another significantly cheaper sustainable option. Here are some tips on planting your own crops.
How you choose to dispose of your food also has great environmental impacts. It can be easy just to toss your leftovers in the trash, but these scraps are extremely valuable. Landfills in the U.S. receive 167 million tons of garbage annually. Twenty-one percent of this garbage is food scraps alone, and over fifty percent of municipal garbage set out at the curb is compostable. If you are a homeowner, or if your municipal district offers food waste pick-up, composting is an easy way to make use of your leftovers. Composting food waste improves soil and protects the climate. Compost improves biological, chemical, and physical characteristics of the soil, which overall increases soil fertility. Food thrown away in garbage ends up in landfills. These scraps generate methane which is a dangerous greenhouse gas. When these scraps are composted, they actually sequester carbon and reduce global warming. Think twice before you throw away your food scraps and learn how to compost at home to make use of these valuable resources.
There are some structural issues that make being more sustainable more challenging to practice on an individual level. For example, we are missing infrastructure to facilitate growth and fair distribution of local food and composting. The current system in place is set up to prioritize large-scale food manufacturing and distribution over more small-scale local grocers. If these structural issues are impacting your ability to make these sustainable changes, there are many other ways to fight against the climate crisis. Read our other blog post to learn more about how you can help the environment.
References:
Composting at Home
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
In Season: Grow Your Own Produce
Top Benefits of Growing Your Own Food
Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions
Climate and environmental impacts
Your Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered
Edited by Clara Boothby and Benjamin Greulich
A Note from the Social Media Chair: The Bloomington City Farmer’s Market has failed to address white supremacy for over a year, and they continue to fail now. For those of you who are local and would like an alternative options to staying green try the People’s Market, nearby farm stands, or contact your favorite vendors directly.