Please explain!: Recent Episodes

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Ever heard of Flossie Wong-Staal or Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgin? No? Those were two pretty cool scientists, having a lot of impact on our today's world. And they are by far not the only impressive female researchers!

However, only 1 out of 3 employees in research&development is female!

In this episode of "Please Explain!" we looking at this imbalance between male and female researchers, what gender bias has to do with it and how you can yourself help to close the gender gap!

For further reading and full disclosure, here our references:

• The retracted paper : The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19723-8

• How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403

• Male researchers’ ‘vague’ language more likely to win grants: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01402-4

• Is blinded review enough? How gendered outcomes arise even under anonymous evaluation: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25759

• The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066212

• Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189136

• Flossie Wong-Staal on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flossie_Wong-Staal

• Article about Flossie Wong-Staals work: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-wednesday-edition-1.5650749/pioneering-hiv-aids-researcher-flossie-wong-staal-remembered-as-strong-woman-in-a-man-s-world-1.5650750

• Definition of gender gap: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/the-gender-gap-actually-got-worse-in-2017/

• Numbers of women employed in R&D: http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs55-women-in-science-2019-en.pdf

• Gender representation in authorship: http://www.eigenfactor.org/gender/#

• Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474

• The Frequency of “Brilliant” and “Genius” in Teaching Evaluations Predicts the Representation of Women and African Americans across Fields https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0150194

• Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534707002704

• Practical tips for man to close the gender gap: https://www.themuse.com/advice/9-ways-men-can-should-help-close-gender-pay-gap-at-work

• Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests: https://tinyurl.com/26sc6e7s

• Housework Is an Academic Issue: https://tinyurl.com/bkxf4j7v

• Dorothy Hodkin https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1964/hodgkin/biographical/

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Merry Microbes, everyone!

This episode is all devoted to the jolliest of the seasons! Independant of you counting yourself to the group of people starting to indulge in mulled wine and cookies with the first cold day of the year (guilty!) or are more a supporter of Team Grinch, we hereby serve you 20min of wintery fun facts about microbes! Interesting for people with and without previous knowledge about microbiology!

In case we tickled your fancy, here some links where you can read more about the topics:

Semi-sarcastic rants about Santa Claus (really fun read!):

https://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b5261

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4676089/

How Pseudomonas is making it snow:

https://www.mpg.de/10470442/ice-formation-bacteria-syringae

Learning about those parasitic poop twigs:

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/12/the-word-mistletoe-literally-means-dung-twig/

https://blog.nwf.org/2012/12/12-things-to-know-about-mistletoe/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe

The effect of having Christmas with in-laws on health:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452231719300090

https://www.bmj.com/content/328/7443/794

Why microorganisms are a key factor in chocolate production:

https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2018/06/the-microbial-ecology-of-chocolate.html

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15462126/

Microbial production of vanillin:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768639/

How chocolate might help you stay healthy:

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2014/march/the-precise-reason-for-the-health-benefits-of-dark-chocolate-mystery-solved.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4696435/

Learn about inequalities in chocolate production and why we recommend to buy fair trade/UTZ certified chocolate:

https://makechocolatefair.org/issues

https://www.fairtrade.net/product/cocoa

https://utz.org/what-we-offer/certification/products-we-certify/cocoa/

Why we like lichens:

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/about.shtml

Some interesting facts about reindeers:

https://www.britannica.com/animal/reindeer

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In our second episode of "Please explain!", Helena explains why eating hot soup might be the only cure for your obligatory autumn cold. We also talk about how vaccines work and why they are so important for global health. Bonus: showing off our incredible sound effect skills while taking you on a time travel to 17th century England.

And of course here as well some links in case you want to know more about some of the topics we touch upon:

• How do vaccines work? https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/covid-19-vaccines/how-do-vaccines-work

• The story of Edward Jenner and the development of the vaccine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/

• Where does the false belief of autism being induced by vaccines come from? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908388/

• If you need more reasons why vaccines are awesome: https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/

• List of available vaccines https://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/en/

• How much does it cost to develop a vaccine? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24160863/

• Life expectancy https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2019-uneven-access-to-health-services-drives-life-expectancy-gaps-who#:~:text=In%20low%2Dincome%20countries%2C%20life,have%20been%20disaggregated%20by%20sex

• About the smell of summer rain https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/07/28/geosmin-why-we-smell-air-after-storm-13240

• More fun facts about sea otters https://aquarium.org/a-sea-otters-toolkit/

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In our very first episode of "Please explain!" we are talking about what antimicrobials are, how they work and why you should always follow the prescription advice. And yes, there might or might not be fun facts about squids (#Schroedinger's squid).

Since we take our science serious, here a list of the references we used to produce this episode:

• The evolution of the peppered moth : https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-008-0107-y

• Antimicrobial resistance and One Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP): https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html

• About the use of antimicrobial agents in animals and humans in Denmark: https://www.danmap.org/downloads/reports

• Helenas paper about antibiotic resistant bacteria from Danish chicken meat: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857918300979WHO

• Pros and con of phage therapy: https://www.healthline.com/health/phage-therapy

• Some more info on Pseudomonas aeruginosa: https://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/pseudomonas.html

• Some more info on Listeria monocytogenes: https://www.cdc.gov/listeria/index.html

• The Hawaiian bobtail squid and its symbiont Vibrio fischeri: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/comments/S0960-9822(08)01137-8