The Krebs Cycle Cycle

hello!

that sounds quite intimidating! let’s see if i can help you out. so these are tips that have worked for me (or i’ve seen work for others based on what i’ve read/edited/etc). for science writing in general:

know your audience. how much prior knowledge of the subject do they know? what is the purpose of them reading this article? who your audience is will dictate how you write your article. in your case, it’s your professor, so they probably know a lot about the subject (or maybe not! maybe you’ll write about some niche topic they haven’t studied yet), they’re reading to grade, so they’ll be paying attention to things on the grading rubric, etc. these are all things to keep in mind when you’re prepping, outlining, drafting, and editing. 

structure your essay so it’s a story. just like any other essay, science articles should also have a beginning (intro and statement), a middle (paragraphs to support your statement), and an end (conclusion). usually in science essays the conclusion also serves as a discussion where the writer can finally insert their own opinions on things, and further discuss why the results in the article are important for broader implications. 

be concise. science writing is not like some other styles of writing in that it’s best to avoid fluff, unnecessary descriptions, flowery language, etc. keep it short and simple.

if you need to use jargon or abbreviations, be sure to define them (for jagon), and give the full phrasing (for abbreviations) the first time they’re used.

avoid using absolutes unless it really is an absolute. in science, hardly anything is 100% certain. that’s why phrases like these are used a lot: “the data suggest”, “x may be caused by y”, “x has been shown in controlled experiments to be caused by y”, “thus it can been hypothesized”, etc. unless it’s a law (like gravity), then we can never use an absolute to describe it, and biology especially is a lawless land. 

related, keep in mind that the word “data” is plural for “datum”. so it’s “the data are” not “the data is”. (i still catch myself making this mistake alskdfj)

like most writing, avoid the passive voice whenever possible, and keep to the same verb tense.

practice summarizing research results into concise sentences for your supporting points. it can be difficult to wade through all that jargon and data in an article, so it definitely takes practice. it’s almost like reading comprehension dialed up to 12. article titles and abstracts help with this a lot, as the authors have already summarized their main findings there. reading good examples can also help (like science news articles from reputable sources–you can see what kind of language they use to summarize key points). 

present data in an unbiased way. you may be writing an essay that argues one point over another, but that opinion should not leak into when you present study results. Ex. “60% of animals treated with ABC survived to the study endpoint, versus 10% of animals receiving the control” is unbiased, whereas “ABC had exceptional results in a study where the majority of animals treated survived” sounds pretty darn biased in favor of ABC, and may not be an accurate reporting of the results (maybe the drug actually sucked upon further studies?). Of course, if your essay statement is arguing in favor of ABC, then you can follow up your unbiased presentation of the results with something like “This study showed the efficacy of ABC in a controlled in vivo setting, and thus has promise for further studies”. 

however, “laundry-listing” data and results can make for a very boring read, so be unbiased, yes, but state things in a way where there’s a clear direction or train of thought. this part is tough; i have to admit i’m still practicing this “art” (which it definitely is). take my above example about ABC for instance. which one is easier to follow? the one i gave, or this: “Six out of 10 animals treated with ABC survived until day 42. One out of 10 animals treated with control survived until day 42.” you’ll notice this 2nd option is really stilted, boring, dry, and if the entire results section is presented like this, the reader will surely get lost as to what the point of it all is, and possibly fall asleep. so although personal bias should be avoided, there should still be direction and flow. take care to guide the reader. 

unless it’s your own opinion, every statement needs a citation. i use the free reference manager mendeley (it has a browser plug-in that adds articles you find online to its citation library, and then you can sync it with word doc and it does the citations for you). 

proofread and edit a lot (no one’s first draft is ever perfect), and if possible, send a draft to your professor or TA to look over it and see if you’re on the right track. 

phew! that’s all i can think of for now! i’m sure there’s sooo much more that goes into writing for science (and academia, in a more broad sense), but these are just a few main ones from me. 

if anyone else has something to add, please do!

it’s time to talk about a weird animal again here at bunjywunjy dot tumblr dot com (my house), and what better way to begin the new year than with an inspirational survivor to motivate us all with its sheer bullheaded tenacity?

you see, this animal has been around a very, very, very, VERY long time. 

it’s called the Coelacanth, and it’s your grandma.

SEE-la-kanth. say it right sonny, my ears aren’t what they used to be

Coelacanths are the oldest form of lobe-finned fishes on the planet. their  relatives first appeared 400 million years ago, and immediately made themselves famous by being the very first vertebrates to wiggle onto dry land. (they immediately wiggled right the fuck back into the water, as they had forgotten to evolve lungs first)

these fishes later evolved those weirdly buff fins into actual legs and developed into the first true land animals, though tragically they lack the Coelacanth’s roguish sense of style.

there’s a lot of stumpy little legs in this picture

while these lobe-finned fish did go on to become literally all land-dwelling vertebrates ever INCLUDING YOU, the Coelacanth was content to retain its fishy shape and continue on as it always had. for 400 fucking million years. 

they probably barely even noticed all those major extinction events. meteor who?

it’s coelaCAN, not coelaCAN’T.

today, Coelacanths are still more closely related to you than they are to most other fish. think of it as the weird cousin that never gets invited to the mammal family reunion.

the Coelacanth’s relationship to land vertebrates has long been known from fossils, but Science believed it had gone extinct sometime in the Cretaceous period more than 60 million years ago. so imagine Science’s surprise when a live Coelacanth was pulled up by a fishing trawler in 1938, off the coast of South Africa.

surpriiiiiiise! bet you thought you’d seen the last of me

this makes them the first ever example of a Lazarus Taxon (which is an absolutely badass phrase that would make a damn good name for a rock band), meaning it’s an evolutionary line we thought was extinct but they lived, bitch.

today, the Coelacanth is known to live in the Indian and South African oceans, where they thrive in deep water far away from the prying eyes of their nosy hairless ape relatives. 

they are mostly active at night and can grow to be 6 and a half feet long, and live more than 60 years. they don’t have much personality, but BOY are they tenacious.

I make up for it with my stunning good looks

Coelacanths mostly drift with the current, eating whatever happens to pass by that’s smaller than they are. this just goes to show that laziness does pay off in the long run! 

it’s a valid survival strategy, MOM.

Coelacanths don’t have many natural predators, as they taste completely disgusting. sharks are pretty much the only predator who will give it a try, but sharks also eat outboard motors and license plates so that’s really not saying much.

all that aside, these ancient fish can motivate us to face the challenges of the new year. just remember, if a weird fish with demi-legs can survive for 400 million years on the benefits of laziness and just being kind of weird and disgusting, so can you!

Sympathy Cards for Scientists 

plus six or seven people who just….can’t figure out what a frog paper could possibly be. (guys it’s…a scientific paper. about frogs.)

and this one

which made me laugh despairingly because i mean

Strange Antarctic bacteria that live off air alone could be key to finding alien life

Scientists have discovered a new type of bacterium, that most hardy of organisms, which can survive solely off the chemicals in air – and the discovery could change the way we think about life living on other planets.

The microbes have been found in Antarctica and can exist off a diet of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, staying alive in the most extreme conditions where other food and energy sources are scarce.

Could low-level life forms on other planets be living off nothing but the gases in the atmosphere? It’s a possibility we’re now going to have to consider, according to the team from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

“Antarctica is one of the most extreme environments on Earth,” says lead researcher Belinda Ferrari. “Yet the cold, dark and dry desert regions are home to a surprisingly rich diversity of microbial communities.”

Science wasn’t actually certain how fungi like cordyceps “hijacked” their host’s behavior, and we always kind of assumed it was causing some simplistic damage to the brain.

As it turns out, it works much more elaborately and much MORE like the dramatized sci-fi horror parasites constantly inspired by it.

These fungi integrate themselves on the cellular level with the host’s tissues, actually seem to send signals to the host’s muscles and even alter the host’s genes with their own.

All the while, THE BRAIN ISN’T INVADED AT ALL.

The story of an invasive species.

Poison-ivy an unlikely hero in warding off exotic invaders?

Dozens of studies have looked at the effects of Japanese knotweed on natural communities in Europe and North America. Yet Bucknell University professor Chris Martine still felt there was something important to learn about what the plant was doing along the river in his own backyard.

“The more time I spent in the forests along the Susquehanna River, the more it seemed like something was really going wrong there,” said Martine. “In addition to the prevalence of this single invasive species, it looked like the very existence of these forests was under threat.”

What Martine noticed was similar to what local nature lovers and biologists with the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program were also starting to see: these forests, specifically those classified as Silver Maple Floodplain Forests, were not regenerating themselves where knotweed had taken a foothold.

One of the most interesting deep sea creatures.