Here's a very cool #Science article! Octopuses change genes in strange ways.

It's explained by #Scientist and #ScienceWriter Meg Mindlin at the #Octopus web site
OctoNation https://octonation.com/octopus-can-edit-their-rna-heres-how/

new #Introduction for the bsky bridge : I’m a #BioChemist turned #ScienceWriter, write a feature for every issue of #CurrentBiology, 2/month, mostly about #ecology #evolution #environment also #human, #cultural things seen thru #biology prism. Plus #ScienceBooks, most recently: #Intertwined: From insects to icebergs Also writing a #musical #FamilyHistory #memoir around #biography of our old #cello. #PirateLuthier fixing unloved #violins #NoCars #cycling, #trains, #liveable #cities #townmouse

If you enjoy reading science papers as much as I do, you'll enjoy this collection of papers posted on phys.org from my science writer friend Emily Velasco @MLE_online

https://phys.org/search/?search=Velasco+&h=0&s=

"Like a bright city in the middle of a barren desert, our galactic neighborhood is enveloped by a cosmic void — an enormous, almost unfathomably empty pocket of space."

My latest for Quanta Magazine!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-nearly-nothing-might-solve-cosmologys-biggest-questions-20230725/

The (slow) thread collecting all my features published in #CurrentBiology this year starts here. #ProseAndPassion #Science #ScienceWriter #ScienceJournalism #biology #ecology

One thing I stupidly forgot to mention in my #introduction is that I'm a #technophile. (I knew the command prompts for changing the font and background colors in DOS by the time I was in kindergarten.) But I *did* mention I'm a #writer, and writers also typically enjoy #reading. And while I'm now a #ScienceWriter, I grew up reading #fiction (especially #fantasy) almost exclusively.

If you know me at all, you know I'm a little obsessed with #monsters, so whenever I start exploring a new #AI art bot, the first thing I do is test its imagination by asking it to make me a #Jabberwocky, For the unfamiliar, a Jabberwocky (or, technically, a Jabberwock) is a horrifying creature of limited but wild description from a nonsense poem of the same name by Lewis Carroll.

So far, my experiments with AI art bots rendering Jabberwocks have been disappointing, but this time, things seem to be different. After a very brief introduction between me and this AI art bot and a very simple text request, I think #MidJourney may have actually visited #Wonderland.

Apparently this works better if you include hashtags, so here's a fresh #introduction... I'm a freelance #sciencewriter who lives in eastern Washington and writes mostly about #birds. Other interests include, #knitting, #gardening, and #parenting. AND my first books comes out next year, see pinned toot for more. Hello Mastodon!