The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) is hosting the SETAC North America 38th annual meeting this week and we have tied this AMA to a specific session, “Pharmaceuticals in the environment: Potential environmental and human health impacts.” Experts from across academia, government and industry are here to answer questions on this topic. The research being presented at our meeting will cover topics such as how fish react when a variety of medicines get through wastewater treatment and into their environment, to what levels of detection in water is risky to human health, to how veterinary medicines given to cattle get into the environment, among others. Please do note that we are asking members of the society who represent researchers from a variety of disciplines and sectors; the answers are not official SETAC positions. We encourage discussion and debate! Just please keep it professional. For more information on SETAC see http://www.setac.org Post your question and the organizers of the conference will find someone to answer it as soon as possible. Answers to questions will be most active during the session break at 10AM-11AM EST and immediately following 12PM-2PM EST, ending at 2PM EST.

Hi Reddit, my name is Seth Blackshaw and I'm a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. My research focuses on identifying the network of genes that controls how different cell types in the hypothalamus are specified during embryonic development, and on using these findings to both identify how specific cell types regulate behavior and determine how they can be replaced in neurodegenerative disease. I became interested in this work because I am convinced that to understand how neural circuits work, we have to name and catalog their basic components -- the thousands of different cell types present in the brain. If we can figure out how these cell types are made, we can then understand which behaviors they regulate and how they do so. We study development of the hypothalamus because it is a master regulatory center for many interesting and medically important behaviors -- ranging from circadian timing to sleep to aggression. I recently published a paper on Nature describing newly identified brain cells in mice that play a major role in promoting sleep.. My team observed that a specialized type of neuron that had never been found in this area of the brain before appear to connect a part of the hypothalamus, called the zona incerta, to areas of the brain that control sleep and wakefulness. This discovery could lead to the development of new therapies to help people with sleep disorders, like insomnia and narcolepsy, which are caused by the dysfunction of similar sleep-regulating neurons. I look forward to answering your questions at 1pm ET

Hi Reddit, The mammalian immune system is fascinatingly complex. Our understanding of how the immune system recognizes and responds to foreign pathogens has increased tremendously in the last 100 years, however, we still have a great deal to discover. This point is highlighted by the recent discovery of a heterogenous family of tissue-resident lymphocytes (white blood cells) called innate lymphocytes (ILCs), which have been reported to regulate fundamental processes such as host metabolism, wound healing, and host defense. Given the importance of ILCs in these processes, my research focuses on the molecular and cellular signals that activate and sustain certain types of ILCs (Group 1 ILCs) in specific contexts. Understanding these mechanisms could have implications for the treatment of cancer, viral infection, and type II diabetes. While research from the past few decades has revealed that the immune system bridges virtually all physiological systems as a central regulator of host homeostasis, the general public (as well as scientists in other fields) only have vague ideas about immune function. Specialized jargon rampant in the field represents a barrier for the understanding of important advances in immunology, and for public consensus on its translation to the clinic (e.g. vaccination). Therefore, Immunologists need to make their work more accessible by presenting it in public forums and communicating their studies in a clear manner to try and eliminate these barriers. I think that Reddit AMAs present an excellent opportunity to highlight exciting findings in Immunology, and demystify academic science through informed discussion! I am happy to answer questions about the immune system, innate lymphocytes, and the implications for tissue-resident immunity in health and disease. I’m also happy to answer any questions about our most recent work http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31183-2. Edit 1: Hi all! I’ll start answering questions at 3pm ET!! Edit 2: Thanks again everyone for your excellent questions! Hopefully I have satisfactorily answered them. I’m signing off for now, but if you have further questions you can contact me through www.osullivanlab.com

Hi, we’re Drs. Ben Poulter (NASA), Thomas Gumbricht (CIFOR), David Olefeldt (University of Alberta) and Etienne Fluet-Chouinard (University of Wisconsin) — we study techniques to map wetlands around the world, how they change over time, and how this information can be used to understand how wetlands function and provide ecosystem services to people. Wetlands can be mapped using a variety of techniques, from sending people out into the field using inventory techniques to taking advantage of satellites in orbit around the Earth and using the electromagnetic spectrum. Recently, a new map of tropical wetlands was published by Thomas Gumbricht as well as a high-resolution map of global surface inundation by Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, both databases are being used for a variety of purposes, including to understand how wetland affect climate change by emitting methane. Join our AMA to find out how satellites are helping in the quest to learn more about where wetlands are located, how human activities affect wetland area, and how climate change is affecting methane emissions from wetlands. We’ll be back at 12 pm ET to answer your questions, AMA! Mapping tropical wetlands http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13689/full High-resolution global wetland mapping http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425714004258 Understanding wetlands and methane emissions http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8391/pdf

Hello Reddit, I’m Michael S. Okun. I received my M.D. from the University of Florida and was also trained at Emory University, one of the world’s leading centers for movement disorders research. I am currently chairman of neurology, professor and co-director of the Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration at the University of Florida College of Medicine. The center, which is part of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases and the McKnight Brain Institute, is unique in that it is comprised of 40+ interdisciplinary faculty members from diverse areas of campus, all of whom are dedicated to care, outreach, education and research. I helped construct a one-stop, patient-centered clinical-research experience for national and international patients seen at the University of Florida. In 2015, I was recognized at the White House for being a Champion of Change for Parkinson’s Disease. I serve as national medical director for the Parkinson’s Foundation and have been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Smallwood Foundation, the Tourette Syndrome Association, the Parkinson Alliance, the Bachmann-Strauss Foundation, the Parkinson’s Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. During my research career, I have explored non-motor basal ganglia brain features and I currently hold two NIH R01 grants on deep brain stimulation. I’ve been an integral part of pioneering studies exploring the cognitive, behavioral and mood effects of brain stimulation. I hold the Adelaide Lackner Professorship in Neurology and have published over 350 peer-reviewed articles. I’m a poet (“Lessons From the Bedside,” 1995) and my book “Parkinson’s Treatment: 10 Secrets to a Happier Life” was translated into over 20 languages. My latest book, “Tourette Syndrome: 10 Secrets to a Happier Life” was recently published. I’ll be answering your questions about Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders at 1 p.m. EST. Ask me anything! Thank you for spending an hour with me. It was a lot of fun and your questions were great. Here are some recent articles that you may be interested in reading: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2650798 https://theconversation.com/parkinsons-disease-new-drugs-and-treatments-but-where-are-the-doctors-83334 Michael S. Okun, M.D.

Hi Reddit, My name is Lillian L. M. Shapiro and I am a postdoctoral scientist at Vanderbilt University. My research focuses on how environmental changes affect the biology of mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit. I recently published a methods & resources study titled “Quantifying the effects of temperature on mosquito and parasite traits that determine the transmission potential of human malaria” in PLOS Biology. This work was part of my PhD studies and concerns how temperature shapes mosquito and malaria parasite traits, and how changes in these traits impact malaria transmission. We found that warmer temperatures increase the potential of malaria transmission up to about 26ºC (79ºF), but temperatures hotter than this may actually decrease risk, suggesting that the range where malaria can flourish could shift geographically under predicted climate change scenarios. I will be answering your questions at 1pm ET. Ask me Anything! EDIT: Because this AMA started a little late, I can continue answering questions (today) beyond the normal 2pm ET cutoff, I just might be a little bit slower in responding.

Hi reddit, My name is Marc Hurlbert and I am the Chief Mission Officer of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation https://www.bcrf.org/, the nation’s highest rated breast cancer organization. I lead BCRF’s $59.5 million research portfolio which is distributed in grants to over 275 scientists this year alone. We fund the best and brightest researchers in the world. They come from all disciplines of science and are given the freedom to pursue their most creative ideas and promising research leads. A scientist myself, I am particularly interested in metastatic disease and disparities that exist among various ethnic groups in breast cancer care. I will be answering your questions at 1PM ET today – Ask Me Anything!

Edit: Hi everyone! Many thanks for those who were interested in this topic, I really enjoyed answering your thought-provoking questions. I am signing out now, but will try to check back later and answer a few more. Hello Reddit! I’m a chemical ecologist at Rothamsted Research in the UK. Up until the age of eight I had wanted to become a pilot, an ambition that was stopped short after a failed attempt to fly a home-made glider. However, I think it was my innate curiosity that eventually made me realise that I wanted to do something connected to nature. Endless hours a day spent in the back garden, natural history books, influential teachers and, later in life, great mentors supported me on my way to becoming an ecologist. First at the Plant Protection Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (http://marton.agrar.mta.hu/start.php?lang=en), and later at Rothamsted (https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/). I was amazed by the dedication and focussed work of inspiring scientists who wanted to make a difference, thereby setting a standard for me. After my third level studies, I was introduced into the amazing world of semiochemicals (behaviour- and development-modifying chemicals). Since then, I have found myself immersed in this magical world of chemical communication that invisibly governs key interactions among organisms! It is fascinating stuff! I mainly work with insect pests in agro- and forest ecosystems. I identify volatile compounds from the pests’ host plants or the insects themselves. I then use these compounds to manipulate the behaviour and development of the plant, or the insect, to help keep the pest’s population under control. I recently also started to study the chemical ecology under our feet. The soil is a tough one, because it is much less accessible, and therefore harder to research, than the environment above the ground. However, when something is discovered here, it has the potential to be ground-breaking! In a world where environmental, human and food safety are fortunately becoming increasingly important, we need alternative, non-toxic ways to tackle pests, and chemical ecology research offers such solutions. The recent ban of many key pesticides is also driving the focus of plant protection in this direction. It would be great to discuss my research with you. Feel free to ask me anything! On Thursday 26th October at 4pm (BST) I will be live on Reddit Science AMA. In the meantime, you are welcome to find out more about me in a blog entry I wrote for Rothamsted’s ‘A day in the life of a research scientist’ blog series (https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/articles/day-life-dr-jozsef-vuts). (Rothamsted Research is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England at Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 2JQ under the registration number 2393175 and a not for profit charity number 802038.)

Hi Reddit, My name is Ke Lan and I am a professor and the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Virology at Wuhan University, Wuhan, P.R. China. My researches focus on the mechanism of latent infection and oncogenesis caused by Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpes virus. Dr. Xing Wang and Mr. Zhe Zou who worked in my lab before will join me to answer questions. Dr. Xing Wang is now a professor at the Department of Gastroenterology, Xinqiao Hospital affiliated to the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, P.R. China. And, Mr. Zhe Zou is now a technician at the Department of Gastroenterology, Xinqiao Hospital affiliated to the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, P.R. China. We recently published an article titled “Male hormones activate EphA2 to facilitate Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus infection: Implications for gender disparity in Kaposi’s sarcoma” in PLOS Pathogens. Previous studies have shown that the incidence of Kaposi’s sarcoma is higher in males, however the reason has not been addressed. In our study, we found that male hormones and its receptor (AR) can promote KSHV infection by activating an important cellular signaling pathway. Our findings suggested that males are more vulnerable to infection of KSHV due to the male hormones, providing an explanation to the higher incidence of Kaposi’s sarcoma in males. We will be answering your questions at 1pm ET – Ask Us Anything!

I’m James Owen Weatherall, a professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine, where I’m also a member of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science. I’m interested in the mathematical and conceptual foundations of physics, model-building in finance, and epistemology more broadly. In my new book Void: The Strange Physics of Nothing, I talk about the historical and conceptual issues related to the physics of “nothing,” from controversies about empty space in the 17th century to the strange features of the vacuum state in quantum field theory today. You can read more about it in this interview with Physics Today. I’m also the author of The Physics of Wall Street, which looked at how modeling ideas moved from physics into finance during the 20th century. And right now I’m writing a book on why false beliefs persist and spread, even when everyone cares about believing true things about the world. I’m looking forward to talking about the philosophy of physics, finance and mathematics, and of course, nothing. I’ll be back at 4pm EDT to answer your questions! EDIT: That’s a wrap. Thanks for the great questions!

Hi Reddit, my name is Haig Kazazian and I’m a geneticist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. For the past 27 years, I’ve been studying human genetics and I am passionately committed to understanding how “jumping genes,” also known as retrotransposons, affect how genetic diseases manifest in my patients. These pieces of DNA are capable of moving around the genome and can potentially disrupt functional genes and lead to diseases like hemophilia and muscular dystrophy. Interesting fact about myself, in 1999, my colleague Arupa Ganguly and I received a “cease and desist” letter from Myriad Genetics, for studying the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes because they held the patent. We became the first plaintiffs in the 2013 Supreme Court Case, which unanimously ruled that naturally occurring DNA sequences aren’t patent eligible. More on the ruling here [ http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/06/details-on-association-for-molecular-pathology-v-myriad-genetics-inc/]. I’ve recently published a review on the last fifty years of “jumping gene” research and you can read all about it here: [http://www.fasebj.org/content/31/9/3712.full]. I’ll be back at 1pm ET today to answer your questions.

I’m Chris Cogswell, a PhD in Chemical Engineering and host of “The Mad Scientist Podcast”, a show that discusses scientific concepts by teaching the history and philosophy of pseudoscience! I’m here to answer any questions you have about scientific outreach to the public through non-conventional means, my research background (both scientific and non-scientific), and any skeptical or weird science questions you may not normally get to ask. I received a Bachelors of Science in Chemical Engineering and Philosophy from the University of New Hampshire in the spring of 2012, where in Chemical Engineering I did research on electrochemical plating methods for computer chip design. In the realm of philosophy I did a lot of research on the conversion from science to pseudoscience, and why the public accepts some technologies while others lag behind due to political, economic, and sociological barriers. In the fall of 2012 I joined Northeastern University for my PhD studies under Dr. Sunho Choi, where I performed research on the creation of nanomaterials for a variety of applications in the realm of green chemistry and sustainability. The materials I worked on include Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs), a class of self-assembling porous structures with extremely high surface areas and chemical activity, and lamellar (layered) silicates such as zeolites and clays. I like to tell people that MOFs are like K’nex, while the lamellar structures are like Lego. While in my PhD I realized that what was really important to me was scientific outreach to the public. I had members of my own family and friends who believed all number of wacky theories, and would argue with me constantly about them. I had also spent a lot of time with undergraduate students as a TA and then as a lab manager for our research group, as well as middle school and high school students through lab tours and outreach events. Through these teaching experiences I saw that students loved to learn about these myths and legends, and how they fit into the larger narrative of scientific history. Probably what put the final piece of the puzzle together for me was working with Dr. Lucas Landherr, aka Dante Shepard of the webcomic Surviving the World! His research group is attempting to find interesting new ways to teach STEM through art or the use of non-conventional tools. We wrote a comic together on the use of assumptions in Engineering, which has been really well received in the engineering education community, and this caused me to attempt to start up something of my own. In the final year of my PhD I started The Mad Scientist Podcast, and have been teaching science through the history of pseudoscience ever since. I’m really excited to answer any questions you have on the way technologies change over time, pseudoscientific topics, engineering, nanomaterials, doing something unconventional with your science training, and podcasting as a means of education! As long as I keep getting questions I will keep answering them, so feel free to ask whatever. You can find my show here: https://audioboom.com/channel/themadscientistpodcast Or on our website! https://www.themadscientistpodcast.com/ You can find our webcomic and the work of Dr. Landherr here: https://www.northeastern.edu/landherr/stem-comics/science-comic-assumptions/ And we are part of two podcast networks, the Dark Myths collective and Blank for non-Blank (an educational network). EDIT: Well, looks like things are wrapping up! Thanks to everyone who took the time to ask a question and read my responses. I’m on Reddit all the time on my regular account, so I’ll be sure to pop in and continue answering questions as you have them! Thanks to the Mods for setting this up! -Chris

Hi Reddit, My name is Natasha Agramonte and I am a Research Fellow at the CDC Entomology Branch and a PhD Candidate at the University of Florida. My research focuses on how insecticide resistance affects mosquito blood-feeding behavior. I recently published a study titled ‘Pyrethroid resistance alters the blood-feeding behavior in Puerto Rican Aedes aegypti mosquitoes exposed to treated fabric in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Insecticide resistance is a problem in mosquito control, because it increases disease risk, control costs, and environmental damage. Using a pyrethroid-susceptible and a pyrethroid-resistant strain of Ae. aegypti, we observed the blood-feeding behavior using fabric treated with four distinct but related insecticides. The results of this study indicated that higher amounts of pyrethroid chemicals are necessary to reduce blood-feeding behavior in the resistant Puerto Rican strain of Ae. aegypti, but interestingly the blood-feeding resistance was different (and lower!) than when the chemicals were directly applied to the mosquitoes for two chemicals: permethrin and etofenprox. I look forward to answering any and all of your mosquito questions at 1pm ET. Ask me Anything! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @mosquito_PhD.

Hi Reddit! EDIT: And that’s all for us from the Swope Team! Thank you for the great questions. Sorry we couldn’t answer every one of them. And thank you for the reddit gold, even if it wasn’t made in a neutron star-neutron star collision. We are Ben Shappee, Maria Drout, Tony Piro, Josh Simon, Ryan Foley, Dave Coulter, and Charlie Kilpatrick, a group of astronomers from the Carnegie Observatories and UC Santa Cruz who were the first people ever to see light from two neutron stars colliding. We call ourselves the Swope Discovery Team because we used a telescope in Chile named after pioneering astronomer Henrietta Swope to find the light from the explosion that happened when the two stars crashed into each other over a hundred million years ago and sent gravitational waves toward Earth. You can read more about our discovery–just announced yesterday–here: https://carnegiescience.edu/node/2250 Or watch a video of us explaining what gravitational waves and neutron stars even are here: https://vimeo.com/238283885 We also took the first spectra of light from the event. Like prisms separate sunlight into the colors of the rainbow, spectra separate the light from a star or other object into its component wavelengths. Studying these spectra can help us answer a longstanding astrophysics mystery about the origin of certain heavy elements including gold and platinum. You can watch a video about our spectra here: https://vimeo.com/238284111 We’ll be back at 11 am ET to answer your questions, ask us anything! Dr. Ben Shappee: I just completed a Hubble, Carnegie-Princeton Fellowship at the Carnegie Observatories and am mere weeks into a faculty position at University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. I’m a founding member of the ASAS-SN supernova-hunting project. Dr. Maria Drout: I am currently a NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories and I also hold a research associate position at the University of Tornoto. I study supernovae and other exotic transients. Dr. Tony Piro: I am a theoretical astrophysicist and the George Ellery Hale Distinguished Scholar in Theoretical Astrophysics at the Carnegie Observatories. I am the P.I. of the Swope Supernova Survey. Dr. Josh Simon: I am a staff scientist at the Carnegie Observatories. I study nearby galaxies, which help me answer questions about dark matter, star formation, and the process of galaxy evolution. Dr. Ryan Foley: I am a a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz. I represented the Swope Team at the LIGO and NSF press conference about the neutron star collision discovery on Monday in Washington, DC. Dr. Charlie Kilpatrick: I am a postdoc at UC Santa Cruz. I specialize in supernovae. Almost Dr. Dave Coulter: I am a second year graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. I am a founding member of the Swope Supernova Survey. EDIT: Here’s our team! https://imgur.com/gallery/8lZyg

I am Sue Natali, Associate Scientist at Woods Hole Research Center (http://whrc.org/staff/susan-natali/). I’ve been working in the Arctic since 2008, and my research has involved fieldwork across Alaska and in northeast Siberia. I study the effects of climate change on arctic ecosystems and the consequences of these changes for carbon cycling. My research addresses these questions: How do climate change and fire affect permafrost thaw? How do plant communities respond to warmer temperatures and ground thaw? How does permafrost impact soil moisture? What are the impacts of these changes on carbon cycling? What are the implications of permafrost thaw for global climate? I’ll be back at 1 EDT to answer all your permafrost and climate change questions. Ask Me Anything! The AGU AMA series is conducted by the Sharing Science (http://sharingscience.org) program. Sharing Science: By scientists, for everyone. More at sharingscience.agu.org.

I’m Mike Liemohn, a Professor in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering (http://clasp.engin.umich.edu/) at the University of Michigan (umich.edu). You’ve probably seen Gravity, The Martian, or The Fantastic Four, so you know that outer space is a dangerous place. But isn’t outer space a vacuum of nothingness? Beyond no air to breathe, what else could possibly hurt you? It turns out…lots! I investigate the physics at work in the almost-nothingness of our solar system. I am also the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics2169-9402/) a leading journal in this field of understanding the Sun, solar eruptions, magnetic storms, the radiation belts, and the aurora at Earth and other planets. I am also currently teaching a very fun course at U-M called SPACE 101: Intro to Rocket Science. I hope to have an engaging discussion with you about the fascinating physics happening in the near-emptiness of outer space, and explore the many ways that space might pose a danger to astronauts, to satellites, or even to power grids here on Earth. I’ll be back at 12 pm ET to answer your questions, Ask Me Anything! The AGU AMA series is conducted by the Sharing Science (sharingscience.org) program. Sharing Science: By scientists, for everyone. More at sharingscience.agu.org.

Hi Reddit, My name is Graham Lord and I am the Professor of Medicine at King’s College London. My research focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that cause inflammatory bowel diseases. And my name is Richard Jenner and I am a Reader (Associate Professor) in Molecular Biology at University College London (UCL). My research focuses on understanding how gene transcription and chromatin modification regulate immune cell function in health and disease. We recently published a paper titled “Genetic variants alter T-bet binding and gene expression in mucosal inflammatory disease” in PLOS Genetics. We found that the transcription factor, T-bet bound to genetic variants associated with human mucosal inflammatory diseases, such as celiac disease, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. We also developed a new technique called “OligoFlow” that allowed us to identify altered transcription factor binding to these variants. We will be answering your questions at 1pm ET – Ask Us Anything! Click here for more information about Dr. Jenner’s lab.

Hi fellow dataviz enthusiasts! My name is Nadieh Bremer and these days I freelance as a data visualization designer, under the name of Visual Cinnamon. Since July of 2016 I’ve been doing a personal collaboration with Shirley Wu called data sketches, creating an elaborate visualization ±each month, during which I created works about the words spoken in the LotR movies, all Olympic gold medal winners, the fights in Dragon Ball Z, a “breathing” Earth and more. In 2011 I graduated as an Astronomer (still very much drawn towards the subject, either in data such as in this exoplanet visual and HR-diagram, or in design elements, such as in Royal Constellations). I then became a Data Scientist for Deloitte Consulting where I gradually discovered my passion for the visualization of data (and Self-Organizing Maps), making complex things accesible to non-experts. From December 2014 I finally decided to go heads-on into data visualization, and started freelancing in 2017. I find myself focusing on making non-standard visualizations that convey a lot of information, so people can also find their own stories beyond the general point the visual wants to make, while also being visually appealing to draw people in. But I also like to experiment with web techniques that haven’t quite found their way into dataviz, such as the gooey effect and other experiments And finally, I enjoy diving into the world of data-art every now and then with works such as The art in pi & Marble butterflies I’ll be back at 18:00 CET / 9:00am PST to answer your questions (proof that it’s me)! Update: Here now and answering questions! Update: And done! All questions answered, thanks for tuning in, hope some of the answers were helpful

A document by BugsR4Girls . Click on the document to view its contents.

A document by Dr_Barbara_Ostfeld . Click on the document to view its contents.

Hi Reddit! We’re the editors for Science Advances, an open access journal that accepts longer research articles (up to 6,000 words). Since our launch in February of 2015, we’ve published more than 1,500 papers and have a number of articles with tens (and even hundreds) of thousands of downloads, and hundreds of citations. As we mature as a publication, we continue our interest in areas of great scientific breakthroughs and innovation on both broad and disciplinary-specific levels. The journal is broadly organized in the areas of life and biological sciences, earth and environmental sciences, and physical and materials sciences. This month our publications range from water on the moon to the diverse interests of people who participated in the Women’s March to the internal GPS of seabirds. Feel free to ask us about what makes for a good research article, what topics we’re interested in, what questions we find most intriguing, and anything about open access. We’re also happy to chat about what makes us different and unique as an open access journal of AAAS, and what the editorial process here is like. We have editors Kip and Warren here to answer your questions as well as the managing editor Philippa Benson. What do you want to know about publishing and open access? We’ll be back at 2 pm ET to answer your questions, Ask us anything!

Hi Reddit, I’m Elijah Meeks. I wrote D3.js in Action and I just open sourced Semiotic, a data visualization framework focused on information modeling. I used to do data visualization in the digital humanities, including projects like ORBIS, Kindred Britain and the Digital Gazetteer of the Song Dynasty. Now I work at Netflix visualizing user behavior, algorithm performance and just big data more generally. Lately I’ve been pushing for the community to take a critical look at professional data visualization: how we design roles, how data visualization is seen by leadership and how we evaluate data visualization products. Proof of Life Follow me on Twitter Read my pieces on Medium Some examples of my work: My Blocks A visualization of Archer ORBIS - Geographic and Transportation Data Visualization of the Roman Empire A timeline of US Wars EDIT: Okay I came back and responded to a few more things and it was totally worth it.

Thanks for the great questions, Reddit! We’re done answering for the day and are off to finish preparations for tomorrow’s Earth Gravity Assist maneuver. Tomorrow, NASA’s asteroid-hunting spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, will fly by Earth and use the planet’s gravitational pull to slingshot itself onto a new trajectory. This maneuver, called an Earth Gravity Assist (EGA), will put the spacecraft on course to rendezvous with a primitive, near-Earth asteroid named Bennu. The spacecraft will reach Bennu next year, map the asteroid, and collect a sample of surface material (called regolith) that will be returned to Earth for study in 2023. This mission will bring the largest sample of space material to Earth since the Apollo missions’ lunar samples. We’re a group of scientists and engineers based at the University of Arizona—home to the mission’s Principal Investigator’s office and the Science Processing Operations Center—ready to answer your questions about OSIRIS-REx, EGA, and the mission to collect some of the oldest material in the solar system. We’ll be online from 1 to 3 pm PST (4 to 6 pm EST). Ask us anything! Proof: https://www.asteroidmission.org/reddit-ask-us-anything-earth-gravity-assist/ Dr. Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Sara Knutson, OSIRIS-REx Science Operations Lead Engineer Dr. Ellen Howell, OSIRIS-REx Senior Research Scientist, Asteroid Spectroscopy Joshua Nelson, OSIRIS-REx Science Operations Engineer Anjani Polit, OSIRIS-REx Mission Implementation Systems Engineer Heather Enos, OSIRIS-REx Deputy Principal Investigator Dr. Lucy Lim, OSIRIS-REx Assistant Project Scientist

Hello everyone. My name is Andy Kirk and I am a UK-based freelance data visualisation specialist. I do dataviz design consultancy, run training workshops, write books, give talks, undertake research work, lecture at Imperial College and I am the editor of visualisingdata.com. I also provide data visualisation services to the Arsenal FC performance team. You can find me on the web, on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I launched visualisingdata.com at start of 2010 to continue learning, research and writing about the subject. It won (gold, 2015) and lost (silver, 2016) awards at the last two Kantar Information is Beautiful awards event. I tend to be known for my list-making, with my ‘Best of…’ monthly and ’10 most significant developments’ posts quite popular as well as my ‘Little of visualisation design’ #LittleVis series. I also try to compile useful data resources for folks trying to make sense of all the options out there, such as dataviz tools, the chartmaker directory and dataviz books. Since I became a freelance professional in 2011 I have focused, primarily, on providing data visualisation consultancy and training workshops – of which I have delivered over 210 public and private training events across the UK, Europe, North America, India, South Africa and Australia. You can see my past clients listed here. In July 2016, I released my second book entitled “Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design”, published by Sage. So that’s me in text form here’s proof that I am actually me. ** Update @ 6:30pm (BST): I’m back, let’s do this **