Katie Cottingham

Freelance science writer and editor looking for cool science. All views = my own.

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

omg...!

[Andrew Steele @statto]

Chocolate chemists really need to work on their acronyms

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

@statto Oh dear!

[National Park Service @NatlParkService]

When you’re finally feeling good about yourself and someone says, “You look tired.”

What the elk, Terry?

[Katie MacGillivray @KAMacGillivray]

Holding a séance to contact my dead bacteria and ask what killed them

[National Park Service @NatlParkService]

In the spirit of the season, we offer this year’s most popular park-inspired costume ideas. (Non-scientific analysis.)

Has a national park ever inspired your costume?

[Brian Wagner @DrummerBoy2112]

A #Halloween-themed #FluorescenceFriday photo - four colourful glowing, grinning skulls. (Skull-shaped glass bottles filled with solutions of fluorescent compounds under a UV light). #RealTimeChem #HappyHalloween

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

Vegas is overwhelming, gaudy and totally absorbing. There's always something else to discover!

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

Take the time to look up once in a while. As I took this pic at Caesar’s in Vegas a few weeks ago, people walking by saw my phone tilted up, stopped, looked up themselves and gasped.

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

@PRisUs Link works, but I realize now that I requested to join a week or so ago but haven't been approved yet to join. I just put out my freelance shingle again after many years working full-time at a science nonprofit.

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

My latest for EpiGenie:
Kacme: A New Histone Modification Couples Methylation and Acetylation to Mark Active Transcription
"Some couples seem unlikely, yet somehow, they work (a recent pop star-football player pair comes to mind)..."

https://t.co/1VtUzMNIvv

[National Park Service @NatlParkService]

Get ahead of the ‘carve’ by creating a gourd-geous park pumpkin this fall and give ‘em pumpkin to talk about. We have a variety of templates to help get you into the spirit! 🎃

View and download templates at: https://t.co/CwWVosY4PH

[Bryce Canyon National Park @BryceCanyonNPS]

We’ve been eclipsed!

In 1923, Bryce Canyon experienced a partial eclipse during a total solar eclipse that passed along the Pacific coast. For our centennial year we’ve now come “full circle” with today’s “Ring of Fire” eclipse.

NPS Photo/Peter Densmore
(pd)

[Adi @IDdocAdi]

Standing by your poster at conference

[News from Science @NewsfromScience]

This #Caturday, learn how cats may produce their contented purrs. ⬇️ https://t.co/p3DrCCn5bJ

[Katie Cottingham @medbiochem]

Good resources! I left academia long ago and became a science writer and editor, despite a lot of negativity surrounding "alternative careers." You can do it and have an amazing life!

[Academic Exit @academic_exit]

PhDs seeking to leave academia: you have a *number* of amazing resources available to you for making this leap here on Twitter. Here are just a few:

[National Park Service @NatlParkService]

Tis the season…

#FridayThe13th

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

A cat co-authored a scientific paper in 1975, when his owner, a physicist named Jack H. Hetherington, decided to add him as a second author to avoid changing the plural pronouns in his manuscript. The cat’s name was Chester, and he was given the pen name F.D.C. Willard, which stood for Felix Domesticus, Chester. Willard was also the name of Chester’s father. The paper was about atomic behavior at different temperatures, and it was published in Physical Review Letters, a prestigious physics journal.

Chester’s co-authorship was revealed when Hetherington sent some signed copies of the paper to his friends and colleagues, and included the cat’s paw prints as his signature. The story became widely known and amused many people in the scientific community. Chester even published another paper as the sole author in 1980, in a French popular science magazine. He died in 1982, but he is still remembered as the first and only cat to have authored a published scientific paper.

[C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) @cenmag]

Chemist Josh Smalley is competing in The Great British Bake Off this year. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leicester, where he cooks up small-molecule probes and proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs). Read more: https://t.co/g7mb7NQ8Xw