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

A document by Laura Hershey. Click on the document to view its contents.

Hi Reddit. My name is Sumeet Vadera and I am Director of Epilepsy Surgery at University of California, Irvine. I did my Neurosurgery and Epilepsy Surgery training at the Cleveland Clinic. Here is a link to my profile page http://www.ucirvinehealth.org/find-a-doctor/v/sumeet-vadera/. Here are some aspects of my career that might be interesting to the Reddit community - 1) As an epilepsy surgeon, we have a variety of surgeries that we perform that can be broken down into diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Diagnostic procedures require implanting electrodes within the brain to localize where the seizures are coming from. I have written several papers that have to do with this technique http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=vadera+s. I also have a neurosurgical robot at UCI that helps me perform these surgeries and they recently wrote about the robot and our surgeries in the OC Register http://www.ocregister.com/articles/brain-650683-device-surgery.html Therapeutic procedures are performed after we know where the seizures are coming from and these include resections (temporal lobectomy, hemispherectomy, etc) and implantation of neurostimulators. 2) I wrote a paper that was published last month in Journal of Surgical Education looking at “National Incidence of Medication Error in Surgical Patients Before and After Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Duty-Hour Reform.” This is something that has never been looked at before and has some really interesting results. We showed that since the 80 hour Duty Restriction for resident training, there has been a spike in medication errors within teaching hospitals. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26089160 3) We use high tech tools to treat patients with epilepsy. I have robots, lasers and neurostimulator devices that assist me in treating patients who have epilepsy that fails medications. I’ll be back at 3 pm EST (12 pm PST, 9 pm UTC) to answer Ask me anything about about epilepsy surgery, neurosurgery in general, or residency training. EDIT1: Finished my case early today, I’m here to answer questions now. EDIT2: Dr Jack Lin, Director of Epilepsy Neurology at UCI has joined me to answer questions related to the neurology side of epilepsy surgery. EDIT3: Thank you for all the great questions, I hope this was helpful for everyone. I will check tonight if there are any more questions so keep them coming. Feel free to email me at sumeetvadera1@gmail.com. We also are doing some exciting research at UCI and we are always looking for good people to get involved. Feel free to contact me about that as well.

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

I examine the topic of training scientific generalists. To focus the discussion, I propose the creation of a new graduate program, analogous in structure to existing MD/PhD programs, aimed at training a critical mass of scientific researchers with substantial intellectual breadth. In addition to completing the normal requirements for a PhD, students would undergo an intense, several year training period designed to expose them to the core vocabulary of multiple subjects at the graduate level. After providing some historical and philosophical context for this proposal, I outline how such a program could be implemented with little institutional overhead by existing research universities. Finally, I discuss alternative possibilities for training generalists by taking advantage of contemporary developments in online learning and open science.

A document by Dr. Juan Moisés de la Serna. Click on the document to view its contents.

Topological Dipole Field Theory was proposed as an extension of the Standard model of particle physics. The transition amplitude per time for a propagation of a gauge boson can be computed from this theory. This research paper shows a numerical implementation of Topological Dipole Field Theory for a simple photon propagation. For simplicity the numerical simulation is applied to a monochromatic gamma ray such that it can be executed in one space and one time direction. Effects of Topological Dipole Field Theory like the high probability for fluctuations of energy and momentum are taken into account.

Hi Reddit! We are CANN, a subdivision of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety. Within the last year we have petitioned from initial formation, to committee, to our current subdivision status. We believe that with the exponential growth of the legal cannabis industry, offering a scientific community of professionals, researchers, and academics will improve safety standards and industry practices. A part of the American Chemical Society, we at CANN use our resources to develop workshops, training sessions, symposium and general sessions on cannabis health and safety-related topics at national, regional and other meetings of the American Chemical Society. We aim to support future chemists with training, mentoring programs, research opportunities, and other resources. Today our group is open for discussion to help educate a broader audience. Thank you all for your participation and for the CANN volunteers that fielded questions. We received more than 820 questions and more than 3000 upvotes. We hope that we were able to shed some light on this popular topic and that you will reach out to us again if we can be of any assistance. We would also like to encourage membership and volunteerism as there is always lots to do. Email us at tweetcannabis@gmail.com. Thanks to Ezra Pryor, Jahan Marcu, Ph.D., Erika Oltermann, Melissa Wilcox, Guillermo Moreno, Christopher Hudalla, PhD and Jeff Raber, PhD for answering questions.

BACKGROUND: The polysaccharide hyaluronan is a major component of the extracellular matrix and has been observed to impact retrovirus infectivity in biological settings. Hyaluronan has also been applied in biotechnology as a non-immunogenic, biocompatible agent to improve control of drug delivery and lentiviral transduction. We carried out a preliminary investigation to ascertain if the presence of hyaluronan influenced titre performance of an engineered retrovirus during the production, capture and infection steps that constitute key metrics for retroviral bioprocess performance. RESULTS: The PG13.pBabe.puro stable packaging cell line constitutively produces retroviral particles with the gibbon ape leukaemia virus (GaLv) envelope protein and was used here with HeLa cells for retrovirus titration. An established bench-scale retrovirus production procedure was investigated in which packaging cells are chemically biotinylated and progeny retrovirus bound to streptavidin-coated paramagnetic particles (SPMPs) to achieve both retrovirus concentration and enhanced retroviral infection of target cells. Post-biotinylation incubation of PG13.pBabe.puro cells with up to 100μg/mL hyaluronan did not impact the base titre of unconcentrated progeny retrovirus. Incubation of target HeLa cells with up to 100μg/mL hyaluronan did not influence the susceptibility of HeLa cells to infection by retrovirus bound to SPMPs. However, post-biotinylation incubation of PG13.pBabe.puro cells increased titre of progeny retrovirus bound to SPMPs by up to 395%. CONCLUSION: These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that the presence of haluronan after packaging cell biotinylation increases the efficiency of capture of biotinylated retrovirus by SPMPs. Further work will be needed to confirm if this is indeed the case and if packaging cell incubation with hyaluronan, or related biocompatible carbohydrates, could improve bioprocess performance of other retro- or lenti- viral vectors in therapeutic applications.

Hi Reddit! I’m Eric Caine and I study risk factors for suicide and ways to prevent suicide. With colleagues in Rochester and from around the world, I’ve investigated many factors that contribute to suicide, with a recent focus on links to unemployment, the choice of specific methods, and the burdens of suicide and attempted suicide involving youth and adults in the middle years of life (20s-60s). The ICRC-S is devoted to developing community-based public health approaches to help people change their life trajectories so that they don’t become suicidal, or if they do, so that they can reach out for help or accept it when offered. These approaches complement methods that we use every day to treat people who have survived an attempt or seriously considered killing themselves. I participate in the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, which wrote the latest version of our national strategy to prevent suicide and also works with the CDC, states, and local organizations to reach out to vulnerable populations and individuals. Since 2001 I’ve led a series of collaborative initiatives in China that deal directly with suicide prevention, the delivery of mental health services in developing countries, and the potential for public health approaches to reduce injuries and prevent premature deaths. I’ll start answering questions at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC), AMA!

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

Hi! I’m Melody Bomgardner, Senior Business Editor for C&EN. I write about food and agriculture for the magazine, in addition to other topics like advanced biofuels and other environmentally-friendly technologies. Earlier this year I wrote an extensive cover story about plant-based protein sources [link “plant-based protein sources” to http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i6/Calling-Plants-Fulfill-Proteins-Promise.html] and got the idea to write about hemp. Before I began research for the hemp feature, I didn’t know very much about this crop, but I ended up learning much more than would fit in the story. I look forward to your questions. Hi, I’m Anndrea Hermann, M.Sc, B.GS, P.Ag., and I’m the President of Hemp Technologies, Sales and Business Development Officer of Hemp Production Services, Principle The Ridge International Cannabis Consulting and Founder/Host iHempRadio. I am the lead instructor of Oregon State University’s course on Industrial Hemp, as well as a Health Canada Authorized Hemp THC Sampler and Canadian Hemp Licensee who has advised Health Canada on a wide spectrum of Cannabis projects (from 2001 to the present). I am a current board member of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, President Emeritus and current board of the National Hemp Industries Association and special committee member for the European Industrial Hemp Association. I have assisted with creating and reviewing hemp regulations in Canada, the European Union, South Africa, Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand, India, Vermont, Virginia, Tennessee, North Dakota, Missouri, Colorado, California, Oregon and Michigan, for example. These regulations govern the hemp industry. While state initiatives have legalized two main types of Cannabis, marijuana for medical or recreational uses has gotten a lot of attention lately while the effort to revive industrial hemp production in the U.S. is much less well known. This ancient crop traveled with the colonists to North America and was a staple of agricultural production in the U.S. up to the 1930s. Since then it has been largely illegal to grow hemp in the U.S., though it was legalized in Canada in 1998. Now, though, the 2014 Farm Bill allows some controlled plantings of hemp in any state that has an agriculture department willing to oversee production for research purposes. Many vegetarians and vegans know the hemp seed – called grain – is rich in essential amino acids and fatty acids. For more about the potential for a hemp resurgence in the U.S., check out: Hemp, No Longer Illegal, Is Poised For A Comeback In The U.S. [http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i46/Hemp-Longer-Illegal-Poised-Comeback.html] Update! I’m pleased to report that analytical chemist and hemp variety expert Jace Callaway will also be joining us today. We’ll be back at 11 am EST (8 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything! Hey all - it’s now 12:07 and our official live hour is over. But I invite our experts to continue answering questions as they have time available. Please give a hemp-hearty thank you to Anndrea and Jace!

Hi Reddit! My name is Emily Petroff and I just finished my PhD at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. My research focuses on finding short, bright bursts of light with large radio telescopes like the Parkes telescope in Australia. I mainly study things called “Fast Radio Bursts” which only last a few milliseconds but release more energy than the Sun does in a day. These bursts seem to be coming from distant galaxies in stellar explosions or collisions of neutron stars but we still don’t know exactly what causes them. Last year, I led a team that discovered the first fast radio burst in real-time and used telescopes around the world to try to find out where it came from. Since then we’ve been learning more about these bursts and our team just published the discovery of 5 more from the past 6 years of data. Less than 20 of these bursts have ever been found, but more than 1,000 are happening every day throughout the Universe. We are hoping we will be able to use these bursts to learn about the extreme objects that caused them and the galaxies they live in. This year I also led a team that found that other curious signals in our data were actually coming from microwave ovens at the telescope site. We were able to show that these nearby signals don’t have anything to do with fast radio bursts but that local interference can show up in unexpected ways, especially with more and more electronics encroaching on sites for radio astronomy. Have questions about radio astronomy? Signals from space? Pulsars and neutron stars? I’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, Ask me anything! UPDATE: Thank you to everyone for the questions so far; I’ve had a great time! I’ll be back later today to answer more questions!

A document by Philip Dunay. Click on the document to view its contents.

Hi, I’m Paul Knoepfler, stem cell and genetics researcher, author, & blogger. You may have heard about the new gene editing/genetic modification technology called CRISPR. It is totally changing how we scientists genetically modified cells and even organisms. What used to take years and potentially millions of dollars can be done in weeks or months for a few thousand bucks. In my lab we use CRISPR to do research on stem cells and cancer. Others are doing similar work for a variety of other conditions, while some are making new GMOs in record time such as plants, super-muscled cows or micro pigs CRISPR is transforming the way we do some of our science, but at the same time it is raising difficult questions that require public education and debate. For instance, are we ready to make genetically modified people (what I call GMO sapiens as a mashup of Homo sapiens and GMO)? Is it OK to do this for trying to prevent genetic diseases? What about for human enhancement via designer babies? Could we draw the line between the two? How does this technology even work and what are the risks? Are past works of art like Brave New World and GATTACA now appropriate to discuss as human genetic modification appears to be marching toward reality? Or is that just going to scare people? What about eugenics turbo-charged by new technology? How do we find the right balance in discussion of this revolutionary issue so that we do not freak people out, but at the same time we have a real discussion that doesn’t sugar coat things or dodge real potential issues? There’s a lot to talk about so let’s dive in. You might want to check out my blog at http://www.ipscell.com and my new book on today’s topic, [GMO Sapiens: The Life Changing Science of Designer Babies](http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9542 You can also view my TED talk on human genetic modification and the possibility of designer babies.) You can also want follow me on Twitter @pknoepfler if you like for all the latest, I will be answering questions starting at 1 PM EST (10 AM PST, 6 pm UTC) Ask Me Anything!

Hi reddit, Twenty years ago, I left my tenured professorship of marine biology for Hollywood. I had a single goal — the cure for being boring (especially for scientists, some of whom need it bad). I found it in a narrative template I crafted and labeled as “The ABT.” It comes indirectly from the co-creators of the Emmy and Peabody award-winning animated series, South Park. In a 2011 Comedy Central documentary about the show, they talked about their “Rule of Replacing” which they use for editing scripts. They replace the word “and” with “but” or “therefore” to improve storytelling — so I turned it into the “And, But, Therefore” template (the ABT). It is now the central tool in my mission to keep people from being boring. I present it in my new book, “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” use it in my work with individual scientists, and have built my Story Circles Narrative Training program around it, which I now run with scientists from NIH and USDA. Together, with this marvelous narrative tool, we are fighting to make the world a tiny bit less boring of a place. I’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! WRAP UP TIME: Hey Folks – The two hours is up, I want to thank ALLLLL of you for all the excellent and fun questions – hope I did a halfway decent job of at least getting to some of them. One last time, my webinar this week is the prime resource for everything I was talking about – the one hour webinar I did on Tuesday with Union of Concerned Scientists. Thanks very much to Reddit – I really appreciate this great opportunity! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfnxfNJRk7g&feature=youtu.be

Hello Reddit! We’re Monica Moya and Elizabeth Wheeler from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and we’re using 3D bioprinting techniques and special “bioink” to manufacture human-compatible tissues vascularized with self-assembling vessels and capillaries. We’ve engineered the printed tissue with human cells so that they grow toward nutrients, harvesting the ability of the human body to respond and develop complex vascular networks. This effort is part of a larger research project aimed at replicating the human body on a miniature scale, what we’re calling iCHIP (in vitro Chip-based Human Investigational Platform). It includes research into recreating the central and peripheral nervous systems, the blood-brain barrier, and the heart. This is seriously a new frontier in biology. If we’re successful, iCHIP could be used to develop new countermeasures against biological agents without having to use human subjects. But in order to get the various systems to work together properly, the “human on a chip” will need adequate plumbing. It’s like a house with all these separate rooms, and we’re the plumbers. We’re really excited about the work, and we’re here to talk about it. Ask us anything! We will be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions. Update, 9:45am PST Hey we are just joining you now! Excited to see other geeking out with us about our science! We will start answering questions shortly! Thanks everyone! Update, 10:05am PST Here’s an article about our work: https://www.llnl.gov/news/researchers-3d-print-living-blood-vessels. It includes an animation that shows how the bioprinted vessels self-assemble vascular networks. Update, 12:15pm PST Thanks everyone for the great questions! Wish we could have answered all 300+ questions but we have to get back to the lab and continue our exciting work! Thanks again! Super exciting that our AMA made it to the front page of Reddit! Monica Moya’s biography: Monica L. Moya is a Research Engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Micro and Nano Technology. She earned a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2009. Her current research centers around using 3D printing to print living vascular structures for neural systems and tissue engineering applications. Select publications: http://www.pubfacts.com/author/Monica+L+Moya. Elizabeth Wheeler’s biography: Elizabeth Wheeler is a chemical engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a principal investigator for iCHIP, the In-vitro based Human Investigational Platform. She has expertise in medical engineering, microfluidics and bioinstrumentation. Select publications: http://www.pubfacts.com/author/Elizabeth+K+Wheeler.

A document by Henry Rzepa. Click on the document to view its contents.

Hi Reddit, I am Dr. Malika Ihle and I am currently a post doctorate researcher at the University of Sheffield in the UK. I conducted my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (MPIO, Germany), under the great supervision of Dr. Wolfgang Forstmeier and Prof Bart Kempenaers, who will both be joining me today! Prof. Bart Kempenaers is the director of the MPIO and head of the Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics; Dr. Wolfgang Forstmeier is a researcher in this department, principal investigator of the evolution of sexual behaviour in zebra finches. We are all researching why and how female birds choose their partner, on what criteria, and also why some females are faithful to their partner while others are not. We recently published an article titled “The fitness benefits of mate choice for compatibility in a socially monogamous species” in PLOS Biology. We wanted to understand why female zebra finches differ in their mating preferences: do they pick compatible partners instead of high-quality ones? We compared the reproductive success of birds that bred with their chosen partner, to the fitness of birds that were forced to pair with the chosen partner of another bird. We found that individuals of chosen pairs had 37 percent more offspring than individuals of assigned pairs, not because they were genetically more compatible but because they were behaviourally more compatible: they were better at rearing chicks together. Individuals of chosen pairs were also more faithful to each other; females were more inclined to mate with their chosen partner, and males were more willing to invest into paternal care. Overall, it seems that each specific bird was, rather idiosyncratically, attracted and stimulated by their specific favourite mate, a phenomenon that some people might more commonly call love. In this case at least, ‘love’ did have fitness consequences. We will be answering your questions at 1pm EST (10am PST, 6pm UTC) – Ask Us Anything! Want to read about all the interesting results in an inspiring literary form? Read the synopsis written by PLOS Biology editor Roland Robert: “The fitness benefits of love”. Want to be able to explain the study to your friends, family or children? Read my PLOSAble article “Benefits of being choosy”.

Hi reddit! We are the astronomy and physics writers for Science News (https://www.sciencenews.org/), a publication of the Society for Science and the Public (https://www.societyforscience.org/). This November marks the 100-year anniversary of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. To celebrate, we published a special issue of Science News focusing on how researchers are using Einstein’s theory today–from using it to magnify the cosmos to exploring quantum entanglement. About Andrew Grant: I am an award-winning physics writer for Science News. I have a bachelor’s degree in physics from The College of New Jersey and a master’s in journalism from New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. My story (“Entanglement: Gravity’s long-distance connection”: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/entanglement-gravitys-long-distance-connection) examines a big idea to expand the scope of general relativity that involves black holes, wormholes, holograms and a mysterious phenomenon called quantum entanglement. Physicists are exploring whether long-distance quantum connections are responsible for the geometry of space and time in the universe. About Christopher Crockett: I am the astronomy writer for Science News. I received by Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles. After eight years of searching for exoplanets, probing distant galaxies and exploring comets, I realized I enjoyed talking about astronomy a lot more than actually doing it. After being awarded a 2013 AAAS Mass Media Fellowship to write for Scientific American, I left a research career at the U.S. Naval Observatory to pursue a new life writing about anything and everything within the local cosmological horizon. I joined Science News in early 2014. My story (“Using general relativity to magnify the cosmos”: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/using-general-relativity-magnify-cosmos?mode=pick&context=163) explores how scientists exploit phenomena predicted by the general theory of relativity to study the universe. We here to answer your questions about Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and how scientists are using it today! We’ll be back at 2pm ET (11am PT) to answer your questions! Ask us anything! EDIT: Thanks for the awesome questions! We had a blast. We’ll be checking in throughout the day to answer more questions. Until next time!

Hi Reddit, we are Marina Klein and Jean-Pierre Routy Professors in the McGill University Faculty of Medicine, and clinician-scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre where we study the pathology and epidemiology of HIV infection and viral hepatitis co-infection. We’re here on Worlds AIDS Day to answer your questions about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). We’ll be here at 2:30 pm EST (11:30 am PST, 7:30 pm UTC) to answer your questions. Dr. Marina Klein is National Co-Director of the CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network, and is an International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council representative for the North American Region. In addition, Dr. Klein leads one of the largest multi centre cohorts of HIV/Hepatitis C Virus co-infected in the world, including more than 1400 patients across Canada. The primary focus of her research is the study of the epidemiology and clinical aspects of HIV infection, particularly the impacts of HCV co-infection and antiretroviral and HCV therapies on the health of those infected by both viruses. Dr. Jean-Pierre Routy is Co-Director of the Immunotherapy and Vaccine Core group at the CIHR Canadian HIV Trial Network, and Co-Chair of the IAS Clinical Trails Scientific Working Group. Throughout his research career he has studied the pathologies of both cancer and HIV. His study of HIV infection has been concerned with study the interaction between the virus and the immune system, as well as understanding this pathology in the context of antiretroviral therapy, co-infection, and drug resistance. Edit: Moderator message. Drs. Klein and Routy are both in hospital today. Dr. Klein very much enjoyed participating but has now had to return to her duties. We haven’t heard from Dr. Routy, though he did have a very busy schedule this afternoon. If we do hear from him we will updated you. - Surf

A leading political advocate for the Tibetan freedom struggle, a successful populariser of Tibetan Buddhism, a polariser of opinion and significant influence in the field of American and Western Buddhist studies, Robert A. F. Thurman was once named as one of the 25 Most Influential Americans by Time Magazine. He has for over 30 years both divided opinions and inspired ‘right action’ for positive social change. Some argue that Thurman’s voice for Tibet, through his body of written work, has been at times misleading in that he idealizes Tibetan culture and history as “highly-spiritual” and without fault, despite evidence to the contrary. It is claimed that Thurman glosses over certain realities, continuing a tradition of not only the “Shangri-la-izing” of Tibet but also the idealization of India and China by the European Romantics and Enlightenment philosophes respectively. Seen as the possessing the cure for our Western ills of rampant materialism and excessive rationalism, the Eastern “Other” has maintained a fascination since at least the time of Alexander the Great. In this thesis we aim to critically examine the work of Robert Thurman and to find a place for his contribution to Buddhist studies and what Michael Valpy calls Buddhism’s “third wave” in America. Central to this endeavour is the attempt to seek out and examine the source of the criticisms directed toward aspects of Thurman’s work. In doing so we will separate Thurman’s work into positivist Buddhist studies and comparative philosophy, Buddhist theology, traditional Buddhist scholasticism, popular Buddhist literature and political activism. In doing so we will also examine the validity of descriptions of Thurman’s work as “tantric eschatology” and explore the idea that Thurman’s “distortions” could in fact be examples of the use of the traditional Buddhist upāya or “skilful means” employed to liberate sentient beings from the “burning house” of saṃsāra.

Hi Reddit, we’re Tisha Wheeler and Elizabeth Mziray, and we work at global health agencies that are leading the global response for key populations in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. My name is Tisha Wheeler, and I am a senior HIV/AIDS advisor for key populations at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where I lead policy making, design, implementation, and evaluation of key populations HIV/AIDS programs. I am joined by Elizabeth Mziray, an operations officer with the World Bank, where she supports countries in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their HIV programs. She is the task team leader for the Bank’s technical support program in West and Central Africa that includes support for improving the scale, quality, targeting and coverage of HIV services for sex workers and their clients through integrated technical assistance and a capacity building program. We are here to discuss a special PLOS Collection titled “Focus on Delivery & Scale: Achieving HIV Impact with Sex Workers”. In our collections overview published in PLOS ONE we highlight the evidence that shows protecting sex workers from HIV/STI transmission is both necessary and feasible for controlling the epidemic. The eighteen papers published in this collection demonstrate the importance and scalability of existing interventions through four key themes: 1) epidemiology, data needs and modelling of sex work in generalized epidemics; 2) implementation science addressing practical aspects of intervention scale-up; 3) community mobilization and 4) the treatment cascade for sex workers living with HIV. We will be answering your questions on Wednesday November 25 at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6 pm UTC) – Ask Us Anything! NOTE: Richard Steen, first author on the PLOS Collection Overview, has joined the AMA from his medical mission in Tanzania.

Hi Reddit! I am a James Bryant Conant Award recipient in Teaching Chemistry and a nationally recognized leader in STEM education. I am certified to teach chemistry, biology, physics, general science, mathematics, college level forensics and general chemistry, but have a passion for food chemistry. I recently presented at the national conference of the American Chemical Society (ACS) on the Chemistry of Cooking: A look at Solution Chemistry. I am usually in Syracuse, New York—I have a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry and chemical education from Syracuse University. Right now, I am in Washington, D.C. at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science on a year-long Albert Einstein Fellowship. I love food chemistry and cooking, so I’m excited to be here on the week of Thanksgiving. Ask me anything about kitchen and cooking chemistry tricks for Thanksgiving – especially for desserts, my favorite. Some stuff I love talking about: how to temper an egg for home-made chocolate crème pie, how to prevent your gravy from being too oily or too clumpy, when to use baking soda versus when to baking powder (it expires!), what can you use to substitute for ingredients you realize you’re missing on Thanksgiving morning, how to speed up that turkey defrosting, how to tweak the recipe for a boxed cake mix to make a much better homemade cake just by using some kitchen hacks, the timing of making mashed potatoes, and more. But of course, I’m here for your questions, so ask away. I’ll be back at Noon Tuesday ET (9 am PT, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions! EDIT: I worked on many questions tonight but there are so many more coming in as I type. I will continue answering questions tomorrow and hopefully you will get responses from me or other redditors.