Hi reddit! I’m Sarah Richardson. I specialize in the design of genomes and the creation of all the technological tools necessary to be able to write this sentence with a straight face. I work on massive scale synthetic biology projects (Sc2.0), the construction of genetic toolkits for non-model organisms (CRISPR for GMOs), and the reconciliation of computational genomics with experimental genomics (bioinformatics is not IT). All of which is to say, I am a germ wrangler who uses DNA to train microbes to do tricks. I’m Hansi Singh. I will soon be joining the Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division at Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) as a Linus Pauling Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow. I research climate variability and change, with a focus on the polar regions. One intriguing open question is why Arctic and Antarctic climates are responding so differently to anthropogenic forcing by greenhouse gases. The tools I use run the gamut from global climate models run on supercomputers, to small heuristic models that can be analyzed with pencil and paper. I am also interested in developing novel mathematical analysis methods for improved understanding of coupling in the climate system and global teleconnections. For more information on my research interests and publications, please visit www.atmos.washington.edu/~hansi I’m Aurora Pribram-Jones, and I tinker with electronic structure theory. I build mathematical tools to investigate how well we describe electrons in metals and molecules. My interests lie in analyzing and developing density functional theory (DFT), one of the most popular computational methods in the world, and how it’s used for thermal ensembles. Day to day, this means I get to interact with shock physicists, planetary modelers, and fusion scientists while imagining pseudo-molecules and drawing pictures. My newest projects look at applications of DFT methods in other complicated systems: materials for hydrogen storage, high entropy alloys, and materials responding to lasers. We’re signing off now, but will continue to answer questions where we can. Keep an eye out here and at /u/TheGermWrangler. Thanks for having us! Aurora, Hansi, and Sarah

Hello Reddit! We are: Yaniv Erlich: Professor of computer science at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center Joe Pickrell: Professor of biology at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center We develop new, fun ways to analyze genetic data, which we use to understand aspects of genetic privacy, infer ancient history, improve medicine, and much more. More importantly, we want these tools to be available to everyone, including you. If you have your personal genome data, you can sign up at DNA.Land to contribute to research and learn more about your DNA. If you don’t have your data, you can sign up to get sequenced by our project Seeq. We’re here from at least 1pm-3pm EDT (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer questions about our studies and about genomics in general! Ask us anything! EDIT: Thanks so much for all the questions, this was a lot of fun! If you’re in NY, come chat more at our free DNA.Land user group meeting next month!

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Hi Reddit, I am Stefano Tonzani, Executive Editor for ACS Omega (http://pubs.acs.org/journal/acsodf ), the new multidisciplinary open access journal from the American Chemical Society. My background is in science, as a chemist/physicist (simulations of electron-molecule interaction phenomena, self-assembly, and nucleic acid dynamics, to be precise). Through my career in publishing I have worn many hats: editor, business development manager, technical sales, you name it. I am clearly having fun, as I have been doing in publishing for 8 years now. My first role was as materials science Editor for Nature magazine; there and in successive gigs I quickly discovered a passion for developing new products, which has traveled with me ever since. Ask me anything about science publishing, what Editors look for in manuscripts, career advice, open access, starting new journals, and of course my latest baby: ACS Omega and what we hope to accomplish with it. Time is over for this session: I hope to talk to you again soon!

Purple Tuesdays, words that taste like buttered toast, or experiencing the calendar as a winding line in the space around you - these are all examples of synesthetic experiences. The synesthesia research field is exploding, bringing together psychologists, neurobiologists, and even geneticists to understand this neurological phenomenon. There are dozens of different types, and it’s much more common than people think - about 1 in 25 people experience one form or another although many have no idea that not everyone shares their perceptions. We’ve had an inkling that synesthesia might be (at least partially) genetic for 130 years, but we’re still hunting for the genes involved. Amanda is leading a large scale study to find these genes, and together we’ve recruited over 50% of our 1st goal - 1000 people who experience letters and numbers as having colors. You can read more about our synaesthesia genetics work here, and if you’d like to volunteer you can go straight to the project page at www.mpi.nl/synaesthesia. Synesthesia studies and other good links: Looking for areas of the genome linked to auditory-visual synaesthesia Genetic overlap between absolute pitch and synesthesia Synaesthesia occurs in about 4% of undergraduate students and is not more common in women Synesthesia is more common amongst people with autism University of Sussex’s synaesthesia FAQ The Synesthesia Battery from David Eagleman’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine - Here you can take a variety of synesthesia tests, and participate in research! On Twitter: Amanda - @aktilot Synaesthesia and Sensory Integration lab at the University of Sussex - @SASI_Sussex About us: Duncan (postdoc): Since studying psychology at university, I’ve always been fascinated by human behaviour and how the brain works. My research focuses on the causes of synaesthesia, how it is related to health, and how synaesthesia develops in children. Hopefully our research will help us to find out more about synaesthesia itself and also a little bit more about the brain in general. Amanda (postdoc): I first heard about synesthesia during an introduction to neuroscience course in college. I went on to spend my PhD studying a new mouse model for autism spectrum disorder based on mutations in a gene we usually associate with cancer (PTEN). While I was finishing grad school, I decided that I wanted to stay focused on questions at the intersection of neuroscience and genetics and began looking for a postdoc. I was excited to find that Prof. Simon Fisher was working on the genetics of synesthesia (synaesthesia in British English), and moved from the US to the Netherlands to join his group last July. Send us any and every question you have about synesthesia, and we’ll let you know what the data says! I’ll be back at 11 am EST (8 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! 11am: Hi everyone! Thanks for your amazing questions, we’re now live! 1pm: Thanks to everyone for the really interesting questions! I’m (Duncan) signing off now, but Amanda will keep going for a bit! Thanks to James Hughes and Jennifer Mankin for their help in providing additional answers. 2pm: Amanda here, signing off for now (it’s 8pm in the Netherlands), thank you everyone for the fantastic questions! I know it’s still early on the West Coast, so feel free to add questions and I’ll try to get back to them this weekend. Many thanks also to the terrific moderators for their help in arranging this opportunity to answer your questions and hear your stories!

Hi reddit! I first became interested in facial recognition when one of my patients mistook me for George Michael, of Wham fame. While somewhat flattering and very funny, it also provided an insight into how people with acquired brain injury can struggle to recognise faces. This condition, known as ‘prosopagnosia’ or face-blindness, can prevent otherwise healthy people from recognising the faces of famous people, friends, loved ones, and even themselves. It can either be ‘acquired’ through brain damage or can be a developmental condition that someone has had all their lives. A famous case of the former is ‘The man who mistook his wife for a hat’ documented by Oliver Sacks. Interestingly Oliver Sacks himself then found out that he probably had the developmental variant of the condition! My research into both developmental and acquired prosopagnosia helps us to understand how face-processing works in healthy people. More recently, I’ve been collaborating on a project to identify so-called ‘super-recognisers’ – people on the opposite end of the facial recognition spectrum. Super-recognisers exhibit near super-human facial recognition abilities and can often remember faces that they have only seen fleetingly years before or schoolmates that they haven’t seen since childhood with relative ease. Through this work, I am collaborating with London’s Metropolitan Police using super-recognisers in the force to track down criminals from the most indistinct CCTV images - indeed, the Met are the first police force in the world to use super-recognisers to fight crime! Take the test and find out if you could be a ‘super recogniser’. If you get over 85% you could be at the top end of the facial recognition spectrum. I will be back at 2:30 BST (9:30 am ET)to answer your questions, Ask Me Anything! Here’s proof I’m here. I’ll be answering your questions shortly! OK FOLKS, I’M GOING TO CALL IT A DAY. THANKS SO MUCH FOR TAKING PART IN THIS DISCUSSION. And thanks for all of those who did the test - you really contributed to science because your results will be part of my database which adds to our knowledge. I will reply to everyone who has emailed me but that might take a couple of days. I will look at this thread again and see if there are questions I can answer. Hope you found this useful and thanks again :-)

Hello Reddit! We are excited to be here to share our expertise in the field of fabrication and testing of mirrors and other optical surfaces. Joining me (Dae Wook) in answering questions are my students Logan Graves and Isaac Trumper, who specialize in developing these types of measurement tools. We specialize in making very large telescopes of world renowned quality. We can do this only through understanding exactly how to make, and then test, the mirrored surfaces. You may have heard of one of our current projects, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), but we like to call it a giant camera! This telescope is designed to investigate events just after the Big Bang, such as how galaxies formed. It will do an amazing job at collecting light in order to view very faint objects in the sky. We also work on other exciting projects such as a giant microscope (DKIST), and a giant action-cam (LSST). Please take a look at our group’s website to get an idea of the other types of projects we work on: http://www.loft.optics.arizona.edu/projects/. To enable these amazing telescopes, we develop fabrication and testing methods such as using silly putty to polish, or a TV and camera to display fun patterns to measure nanometer sized surface defects. We even use really hot wires to generate infrared radiation, which enables a whole different type of surface testing. Want to learn how you can make your own mirrors? Interested in amateur astronomy? Want to understand how optics and light works more? Well then come on and ask us anything! We will be back at 6 pm ET to answer your questions, ask us anything! Edit: Hello Reddit, we are live! Edit: Hello Reddit, we are leaving for now and will come back later for some follow-ups if there are any more questions/comments. We enjoyed it! Thank you.

Hi Reddit! Stigma is a Greek term, denoting a literal mark or brand burned into the skin of members of groups deemed unfit for society. In modern times most stigma is psychological, referring to the subtler but still devastating “mark” of being part of an unfit group. Throughout history and across cultures, many characteristics have been stigmatized, from physical disability or minority status to sexual orientation and mental illness. Some of these characteristics are overt and visible, but others are potentially concealable. These kinds of hidden stigmas can be especially troublesome, because the individuals in question may constantly wonder whether their characteristics are “leaking,” adding layers of tension and uncertainty to every social encounter. Research has demonstrated that self-stigmatization predicts never getting engaged in treatment for people with mental disorders—or dropping out prematurely if treatment has begun. As cultures evolve, a number of formerly stigmatized traits or attributes can become far more acceptable (left-handedness was once considered disgraceful). Yet mental illness and intellectual disability have received extremely harsh stigma throughout history and across nearly all cultures. Theories abound as to the persisting stigma of mental illness: •Encountering people who are unpredictable threatens the observer’s own stability •In hierarchical societies, we tend to blame those ‘below’ us for their own problems, justifying our own, ‘higher’ position •The sheer conditioning related to common media portrayals of aggression and incompetence becomes deeply entrenched •From an evolutionary perspective, signs of disease, low social capital, and major cultural difference may trigger automatic “exclusion modules.” Indeed, mental illness is in many respects the last frontier for human rights. I’m eager to discuss it. Here is a link to a UCSF story about mental illness and stigma: http://tiny.ucsf.edu/rt4P77 Here is a link to my lab and more of my research: http://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/stephen-hinshaw Thanks for the questions, it’s 1:00 Eastern, and I’ll now start in answering. It’s 3:00 Eastern, thanks for the remarkable questions…sorry I couldn’t get to them all, I’m signing off for today!

Hi Reddit! Ask me anything about the chemistry of disinfecting water for swimming pools or other treatment needs!* I’m Susan D. Richardson, Ph.D., the Arthur Sease Williams Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. Prior to coming to USC in January 2014, I was a research chemist for several years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Exposure Research Laboratory in Athens, GA. For the last several years, I’ve been conducting research in drinking water and in swimming pool water—specifically in the study of toxicologically important disinfection by-products (DBPs). These are the unintended consequence of trying to kill harmful microorganisms in drinking water and in pools. The disinfectants kill bacteria and contaminants that can cause deadly illnesses such as cholera, but they can interact with natural organic matter formed from decaying leaves and plants in rivers. Disinfectants like chlorine will react with that natural organic matter to form DBPs, that can in turn cause detrimental human health effects in drinking water, including bladder cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects. Pool DBPs have also been implicated in cases of asthma and bladder cancer. I work on identifying new DBPs or other unknown chemicals in the environment, drinking water, and pools using mass spectrometry. I also study wastewater treatment plants and the effects of disinfectants on river water. Most recently, I’ve started to investigate the impact of hydrofracking on DBPs in water. You can read about some of my newest research on DBPs in swimming pool and spa water in this Editor’s Choice open access article in Environmental Science & Technology and my work is also covered in a recent article from Chemical & Engineering News. My B.S. in chemistry and mathematics is from Georgia College & State University and my Ph.D. in chemistry is from Emory University. I also have an honorary doctorate from Cape Breton University in Canada and was recently named an ACS Fellow. I serve as an Associate Editor for Water Research, on the Editorial Advisory Board for Environmental Science & Technology, and write on emerging contaminants in water/environmental analysis for Analytical Chemistry. I’ll be on at 1pm EDT. I’m live now! I look forward to answering your questions! -sr

Thanks so much for all the great questions! It is clear that IBS is so important. We will keep working on this disease. Sorry I could not get to all of you. Hopefully we can do this again soon. I have to go for now…patients to see and research to do….Thanks again! - Dr P Hello Redditors! I’m Dr. Mark Pimentel and I’m here to talk about the bugs in your body! More specifically, I’ll focus on my research on the association between food poisoning (gastroenteritis) and disruption of gut flora, impairment of GI tract motility, and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in the pathophysiology of irritable bowel syndrome – something I’ve been fascinated by and dedicated to studying over the last 20 years. Did you know that around 40 million people suffer from IBS? Despite low federal funding for motility research, there have still been many scientific advancements in this field. My research team has established the concept of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth as a potential cause of irritable bowel syndrome and discovered that methane-producing bacteria in the gut can cause constipation. More about me: I am the Director of the GI Motility Program and Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Professor of Medicine (In-residence series) at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. I am also the author of a (needing-to-be-revised when there is more time) book called A New IBS Solution: Bacteria-The Missing Link in Treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome. For more background on myself or my research lab, see here. I have been trying out new ways to disseminate information to patients and the public so I’m very excited to be on Reddit doing this AMA today! You can also find me on twitter, facebook, or for more in-depth information at our Global Outreach Symposium on IBS and SIBO in November. While I would love to answer all your questions, I will not be answering any specific patient medical questions due to HIPAA violations. I’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, let’s get to it – AMA!

Hi Reddit, My name is Ken Tape and I am a Research Scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. My research focuses on the effects of climate change on the landscape, including its soils, vegetation, and wildlife. I recently published a study in PLOS ONE titled “Range Expansion of Moose in Arctic Alaska Linked to Warming and Increased Shrub Habitat”. The goal of our study was to examine the factors contributing to moose’s range expansion across the Alaskan Arctic during the 20th century. We accomplished this largely by estimating available moose habitat – tall shrubs along rivers and streams – during the late 1800s. We showed that moose habitat was greatly reduced during the 1800s, when moose were absent from the region. We think that warming increased moose habitat and caused its range expansion into the tundra. I will be discussing the study and answering questions at 1pm ET. I look forward to your questions!

Hi Reddit! I’m Dr. Wilfredo Colon. Call me Freddy. I’m a Professor and the Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (http://rpi.edu) in Troy, NY. I research the biological and pathological roles of protein hyperstability in protein function, misfolding and amyloid formation. Proteins in our bodies are marginally stable, allowing us to repair and replace older proteins with new identical ones. As we age, our bodies become less efficient at this degradation process, and proteins can misfold and aggregate, leading to problems associated with aging (e.g., Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancers). Hyperstable protein aggregates are too stable to degrade, interfering with cellular function and are thought to contribute to complications with aging and disease. A long-term goal of my research is to understand the role of protein hyperstability in biological adaptation, aging, and diseases. To that end, I’ve developed methods for discovering and analyzing protein hyperstability in biological fluids or tissue. I am a first-generation Hispanic college student who went into science in academia. I’ve had various roles over the years including a National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov) program director, a director of education and outreach programs, and my current role as a professor. I got a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (www.uprm.edu/ ) and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Texas A&M University (www.tamu.edu). I am an ACS Expert, an AAAS Fellow, and I’ve been honored to receive a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering. **Hi everyone. This hour went by too fast. Thank you for your questions and interest on this topic. I had a great time and wish I had been able to answer more of your questions. I apologize if I did not get to your question. Perhaps I could come back in the near future for another session. -acs affiliation correction and style edits