About a month ago I was contacted by a colleague who invited me to write a piece on the topic of science outreach for an electronic journal (Ithaca). I was happy to accept, but when I later pondered on what I would have liked to write, I could not help thinking back at a piece on the power and limits of the use of analogies in the explanation of physics, which I wrote 12 years ago as a proceedings paper for a conference themed on physics outreach in Torino. It dawned on me that although 12 years had gone by, my understanding of what constitutes good techniques for engagement of the public and for effective communication of scientific concepts had not widened very significantly. 

Life may be detected in a single ice grain containing one bacterial cell or portions of a cell which means it could be found in the frozen sea spray from the moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter.

Finding that will take is a mass spectrometer onboard a spacecraft, and that will happen when the Europa Clipper mission launches in October with the The SUrface Dust Analyzer.

The authors couldn't simulate grains of ice flying through space at 2 to 3 miles per second to hit an observational instrument so they used an experimental setup that sent a thin beam of liquid water into a vacuum, where it disintegrates into droplets. They then used a laser beam to excite the droplets and mass spectral analysis to mimic what instruments on the space probe will detect.

A recent study in mice suggests the the liver is key in a molecular link that may also cause humans with diabetes to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Unlike type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes is overwhelmingly in obese people so if the findings in mice ever apply to humans the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease in such people could be avoiding it in the first place.

Given that most adult women did not have access to the HPV vaccine in youth, the clinical burden of cervical cancer in the United States has not yet declined.  

Women still get tested and a few thousand still die each year. The authors believe that the increase in saved life-years has not occurred because taxpayers haven't yet spent enough.

Risk factors like salt and sugar intake and high blood pressure for heart attacks and disease need constant rethink if they are going to be more than folk wisdom.

Low-salt and sugar-free have too many vested interests to get critical thinking on how valid population-level statistics are for individuals, and 'high' blood pressure rarely gets questions about how reliable the correlation was that picked 130/85 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) as high blood pressure for everyone. Thosa blood pressure numbers are the clunkily-named systolic on top over the diastolic below. The top is the pressure in arteries as the heart beats while the bottom is the pressure at rest.(1)

If humans in space are happening any time soon, it will be despite government involvement rather than because of it. NASA couldn't even build a telescope without going 25 years and 1,000 percent over budget. By the time all cultural parties pick away at a manned space program, it will be so expensive and time-costly it won't be worthwhile, and the private sector will throw all that baggage out and just do it.

The James Webb Space Telescope program showed NASA is incapable of doing Big Engineering now, but they can put cute robots on other planets, and fund smaller projects, like how we might grow plants. Early results for how monitors that plants can wear and will stretch as plants grow are due to a NASA grant, and that is a very good thing.

Humans and five whale species are the only mammals known to go through menopause. Why is unclear but a new study sought answers.

Scientists found that females of short-finned pilot whales, false killer whales, killer whales, narwhals and beluga whales and experience menopause live around 40 years longer than other female whale species of a similar size and speculation is that by living longer without extending their reproductive lifespan they have more time to help their children and grandchildren, without increasing the “overlap” period when they compete with their daughters by breeding and raising calves at the same time.

At a recent meeting of the board of editors of a journal I am an editor of, it was decided to produce a special issue (to commemorate an important anniversary). As I liked the idea I got carried away a bit, and proposed to write an article for it. 

Like old media such as newspapers and televisions, content on social media is tailored toward audience engagement. Television and newspapers have long known that 'dead bodies sell' but in social media it can be sold in real-time. It has sped up information - and cynicism. Fifteen years ago Reuters was caught augmenting photos of an Israeli attack on terrorists so it looked like more smoke and destruction than actually occurred and few in media were bothered, more recently outlets pulled a photo of British Princess Kate of Wales because it had been retouched. Only after the audience flagged it, though.

If a small survey in California is indicative of young physicians nationwide, emergency room culture will need to change for younger residents to have interest.

The news comes at a worrisome time. Increased government control of health care has meant plummeting interest in emergency medicine among graduating medical students. Women are even less likely to enter the field and instead opt for a culture that requires less assertiveness and self-advocacy, according to the survey.