Hello reddit! We are… Josh Bongard, an associate professor in Computer Science at the University of Vermont, Mark Wagy, a PhD student working with Josh, and The DotBot, a robot collectively designed by 209 of your fellow redditors! We’re interested in how people and computers can work together to create complex technology, like robots. We just published a paper in which we demonstrate that teams of people can actually design better robots than ‘teams’ of computers, if the humans work together. Here is a summary video of this work. Better yet: try it yourself! Since we wrote that paper, we have also discovered that a combined team can do even better: intuitions from the crowd can be boiled down into models that then guide computers, allowing them to design more robots than people on their own could ever do. Ask us anything! Edit: (5:30pm EST) JB: Signing off for the day. Thanks for all your great comments and your interest in our work! Follow me here to keep abreast of new crowdsourcing results from our group.

Hi, everyone! We are the developers and scientists behind the MilkyWay@home distributed computing project and the LAMOST PLUS group, which collaborates with a Chinese-run spectroscopic survey that has so far produced over five million spectra of stars. Our research focuses on the study of the structure of the Milky Way, primarily in the galactic halo and disk. This includes tracing stellar tidal streams formed in dwarf galaxy merger events, measuring the distribution of dark matter, identifying disk structure, mapping stellar clouds like the Hercules-Aquila clouds, and much more. Our group has discovered new stellar tidal streams, created the most comprehensive characterizations of some of the Galaxy’s largest stellar tidal streams, and most recently discovered an oscillation pattern in the Milky Way disk that is thought to be caused by the interaction with small galaxies in the the halo of our galaxy. This disk-halo interaction could explain how spiral structure is formed and maintained. For more information about our work over the last year please have a look at our newsletter, with links to recent public lectures and news articles. Our group also actively participates in public outreach, most of which includes educating the public about our research. Since we run a crowd sourced distributed supercomputer, MilkyWay@home, we provide our volunteers with an explanation of what they are contributing towards. To this end, we enlist multiple social media outlets, have a brief science page on our website and provide links to all of our publications. Recently, Professor Newberg has been producing videos with her children designed to help young kids understand basic science concepts. These can be found on our YouTube channel. We have several members of the team here to answer your questions: Professor Heidi Newberg: The leader of MilkyWay@home and the LAMOST Plus groups at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Previously worked on the Super Nova Cosmology Project, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Dr. Jeff Carlin: Post-doc working in the LAMOST Plus group. Looks for galactic structure using 3D kinematics of stars and 3D position data. Charles Martin: PhD student working with the LAMOST Plus group. Discovered the Pisces stellar stream and now is focusing on the Hercules-Aquila cloud. Siddhartha Shelton: PhD student working with MilkyWay@home. Currently developing our N-body application and optimization methods. Jake Weiss: PhD student working with MilkyWay@home. Currently improving our stream finding algorithm to allow accurate, simultaneous fitting of many different streams. Paul Amy: PhD student working with MilkyWay@home. Preliminary study of modeling simultaneous Milky Way merger events with N-body simulations. Travis Desell: Former PhD Student who initially developed MilkyWay@Home and the evolutionary algorithms it uses. Now an assistant professor at University of North Dakota. We will begin answering questions as 12pm ET (9am PT). Anyone interested in joining our community of volunteers, or learning more about the MilkyWay@home project should check out our website, twitter, instagram, facebook page, and YouTube channel. Recently, both of these projects lost their National Science Foundation funding as grants becomes increasingly harder to get in astronomy. If you are interested in donating to our group please visit our fundraiser page. Edit: We are starting to answer questions now. We will be answering questions for the next two hours (until 2pm) and will probably pop back in throughout the night to answer more. Thanks for all of the great questions here so far. Edit 2: Hey everyone, thank you for all of the fantastic questions. Please remember to check out our website and follow us on social media to keep current with our work. We are going to take a break from answering questions, but we will be checking back in throughout the day to answer any new questions that might pop up. Sorry if we didn’t get to your question.

Hi, Reddit. I'm Laura Salazar, associate professor of health promotion and behavior at the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. I have developed a web-based training program targeted at college-aged men that has been found to be effective in reducing sexual assaults and increasing the potential for bystanders to intervene and prevent such attacks. I'm also working on a version aimed at college-aged women. I research the factors that lead to sexual violence on campuses and science-based efforts to address this widespread problem. I also research efforts to improve the sexual health of adolescents and adults, who are at heightened risk for sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Here is an article for more information I'm signing off. Thank you all for your questions and comments.

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Hi Reddit! We are Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner — together we run the Data Stories Podcast. This is a side project next to our regular jobs as Assistant Professor at NYU (Enrico) and Independent Truth & Beauty Operator (Moritz). We started in 2012, and learned podcasting as went along — we just felt it would be great to have a regular conversation and share thoughts on the role data plays in our lives with people whose opinion we value! 3 years later we have a listenership in the thousands, over 60 episodes and many many more we want to record. Some important topics we touched upon include: How to learn data visualization with Andy Kirk Big data skepticism with Kate Crawford Disinformation visualization Scientific communication The challenge of teaching visualization On the show we had a quite a few of really amazing people, just to name a few: Jeff Heer Mike Bostock Alberto Cairo Ben Shneiderman Giorgia Lupi Amanda Cox Nicholas Felton Jer Thorp Tamara Munzner As podcasting is fundamentally a broadcast medium (oldschool, we know ;) this is also a great way for us to get in touch with our mysterious listenership. Here is proof that it’s us. Ask us anything and let us know how we can improve the show or what/who you would like to hear. We are super curious for your thoughts and questions! Other things you can ask us about: Freelancing, working from home Beekeeping Balancing family and work Design vs. academia Podcasting … Anything, really! We will be back at 1 PM ET to answer all of your questions. We are here — answering your questions! Keep’em coming! OK, we are outta here, for now — that was fun. Thanks!!

Greetings! I am Todd M. Przybycien, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. I am the instructor for the short course “Chemical Engineering for Chemists” for the American Chemical Society. I’ve taught the course since 2007, delivering it 25+ times both as part of the ACS U.S. short course circuit and on-site at multiple companies across the country. I really enjoy teaching this course – it’s given me the opportunity to meet a large number of interesting people and I enjoy talking about chemical engineering. As background, I received undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis and Masters and a PhD degree in chemical engineering with a minor in biology from Caltech. I started my professional career with Monsanto Agricultural Company in St. Louis in 1989. I then re-joined academia in 1991 as a faculty member in chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. In 1998, I moved to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA where I joined the chemical engineering faculty and later became the Founding Head of the Biomedical Engineering Department. I’ve taught a wide variety of courses at the university level including introductory courses in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering as well as advanced courses in thermodynamics, transport phenomena, kinetics and reactor design and biotechnology. I currently teach BioProcess Design and Biomedical Engineering Systems modeling and Analysis. My primary research interest is in the area of downstream process development for the production of bioparmaceuticals. Additional research interests include surfactant-enhanced pulmonary drug delivery and biosensor development for early detection of pressure ulcers (bedsores). Feel free to ask me about my short course, Chemical Engineering for Chemists, my teaching, my research, or the best runs off chair 23 at Mammoth Mountain or the front four at Stowe…. I’ll be back at 3 pm EST (12 pm PST, 8 pm UTC) to answer your questions! Wow - did an early check this morning (8 am PST) - lots of good questions and commentary already. I will pick my way down through these a bit before the live session and keep my ears on afterwards too. Ok, its a couple minutes ahead of 12 noon PST, I’ll have my ears on here live until 1 pm PST So, we’ve reached 1 pm PST and I’m going to return to my conference (we’re on lunch break). I will stop back to this site over the next coupla days to see if I can get a few more responses in. Thank you for participating in the AMA! If it’s of interest and as a thank you we’d like to extend a discount to you for any of my courses through ACS. Register between now and December 3, 2015 using the code ACSREDDIT20OFF to receive 20% off of your registration fee.

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) is hosting the 36th North America annual meeting this week and has asked experts from across academia, government and industry to answer questions on a wide array of environmental issues. We will have experts across a wide range of environmental science topics, including neonicotinoids (pesticides) and bees (pollinators), risk assessment, microplastics, nanotechnology, personal care products and pharmaceuticals (in the environment), endocrine disruptors, metals in the environment, environmental disasters (such as oil spills), and many more. If you have questions about chemicals or toxicants in the environment – we’ll try to get you the best possible answers according to the latest science. 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 begin at 1PM EST (6 PM UTC, 10 AM PST) and continue throughout the day until 9 PM EST (1AM UTC, 5 PM PST), with a few breaks.

I studied both biomedicine and engineering at MIT, including coursework at Harvard Medical School, and spent my career inventing novel biotechnology projects by combining molecular and cellular biology tools with a systems engineering approach. In 1997 I joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the MIT Center for Cancer Research and invented the CANARY biosensor, which uses genetically engineered lymphocytes to identify pathogens within seconds with very high accuracy and sensitivity. I engineered and demonstrated the first CANARY cell lines, as reported in my widely publicized 2003 Science paper. I invented the DRACO antiviral approach, designed the therapeutics and experiments, personally conducted many of the in vitro and in vivo experiments, and recruited and supervised a team in carrying out the rest. My DRACO research has been called “visionary” by the White House (National Bioeconomy Blueprint, April 2012, p. 9), named one of the best inventions of the year by Time magazine (November 28, 2011, pp. 58, 78), and featured on the BBC Horizons TV program (2013). DRACOs work to target the dsRNA that virtually all viruses make and initiate apoptosis (cell suicide). For more information on the science and the results of previous DRACO experiments, see the article published in PLOS ONE: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0022572 I will be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PT, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! UPDATE: This AMA is now closed. Thank you for your questions. I will continue to check this page intermittently and respond to any questions.

Hello folks, I’m with a team from the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and RPM Nautical Foundation. Last month we conducted an underwater survey around the Fourni archipelago in the eastern Aegean Sea and located 22 ancient shipwrecks. These islands are situated along ancient trade routes dating as early as the Neolithic (Stone Age) and used through the Bronze Age, Classical Period, and into modern times. The massive volume of trade means there are lots of wrecks. It also made Fourni an infamous pirate den for centuries. Besides searching for evidence of ancient trade and piracy, we were looking for indicators of sea level change to reconstruct the region’s ancient environment and understand future changes. We’ll be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions about underwater research! Edit: Thanks everyone! It is midnight here in the UK, so it is stopping time. I’ll answer the questions that are left tomorrow, but if you have any underwater archaeology questions in the future you can always find me at /u/maritimearchaeology or on Twitter @peterbcampbell. Everyone in the US: Enjoy Halloween and make smart costume decisions- it is cold out there.

Science Verified User Program /r/science has a a system of verifying accounts for commenting enabling trained scientists, doctors and engineers to make credible comments in /r/science . The intent of this program is to enable the general public to distinguish between an educated opinion and a random comment without a background related to the topic. What flair is available? All of the standard science disciplines would be represented, matching those in the sidebar. However, to better inform the public, the level of education is displayed in the flair too. For example, a Professor of biology is tagged as such (Professor | Biology), while a graduate student of biology is tagged as “Grad Student | Biology.” Nurses would be tagged differently than doctors, etc… The general format is: Level of education|Field|Speciality or Subfield (optional) When applying for a flair, please inform us on what you want it to say. How does one obtain flair? First, have a bachelor’s degree or higher in a field that has flair available. Then send proof to the mods of /r/science . This can be provided several ways: 1) Message the mods with information that establishes your claim, this can be a photo of your diploma or course registration, a business card, a verifiable email address, or some other identification. All submissions will be kept in confidence and not released to the public under any circumstances. You can submit an imgur link and then delete it after verification. Remember, that within the proof, you must tie your account name to the information in the picture. 2) Send an email with your information to [email protected] after messaging the mods to inform them of this option. Your email will then be deleted after verification, leaving no record. This is convenient if you want to take a photo of your identification and email from a smart phone, for example. What is expected of a verified account? We expect a higher level of conduct than a non-verified account, if another user makes inappropriate comments they should report them to the mods who will take appropriate action

Hello, reddit! I’m Samuel Myers, a senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and I’m here to talk about Planetary Health. As part of my Planetary Health research, I lead five multidisciplinary research teams investigating 1) the global nutritional impacts of rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere; 2) the health impacts of land management decisions in SE Asia associated with forest fires and particulate air pollution; 3) the nutritional impacts of reduced access to wildlife (bushmeat) in the diet in Madagascar; 4) the local (in Madagascar) and global consequences of fisheries decline for human nutrition and health; and 5) the impact of animal pollinator declines on human nutrition at a global scale. Planetary health is a growing field focused on understanding the many ways that human transformation of all of Earth’s natural systems—the climate, oceans, land use, freshwater systems, and other ecosystems—impacts human health. I recently authored two studies in The Lancet that showed changing environmental conditions around the globe caused by human activity could negatively impact the health of millions of people by altering the amount and quality of key crops. One study found that decreasing numbers of food pollinators such as bees—falling in part due to pesticide use and destruction of habitats—could lead to declines in nutrient-rich crops that have been linked with staving off disease. A second study found that increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) could lead to lower levels of zinc in food and thus to greatly expanded zinc deficiency. You can read an article about both of these studies here. If you are interested, you can find some of my research articles, radio interviews (Living on Earth, Morning Edition, Quirks and Quarks) and talks here. I’ll be here at 1:00 p.m. EST to answer your questions; ask me anything! Edit 2:45 p.m.: Unfortunately, I have to sign off now. Thank you so much for your questions! I enjoyed chatting with you about this important topic. You can always visit my website to stay up to date on the latest research from me and my team.

Hi Reddit, A paper of ours has received a lot of interest from reddit, and we would like to answer any question you might have about it. Here is a direct link to the paper entitled When self-perceptions of expertise increase closed-minded cognition: The earned dogmatism effect I’m Erika Price, a PhD in Social Psychology from Loyola University Chicago, completing a Post-Doctoral Associateship studying Intellectual Humility at Loyola under a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. My research involves the trait- and state-based sources of variation in Open-Mindedness, Intellectual Humility, and Political Tolerance. My collaborator Chase Wilson, MA is a graduate student at Loyola studying social psychology. He has been following the thread and all of the press this article in particular has been getting, and is happy to answer questions as well. Ask us anything about our study!