Ask Science Dude is mostly a podcast. On this website, you can find audio files of the podcasts, plus (sometimes) a little something I’ve written to go along with them. You can also send questions to Science Dude, which I will do my very best to cover in a podcast, or answer here.

And who, may you ask, is “Science Dude”? My name is Sinead Collins, and I’m a biologist. Here is my professional web page. Specifically, I’m an evolutionary biologist, and I do experiments with microbes. I do basic research about how very large populations of very small things respond to complicated environmental changes over hundreds or thousands of generations. This kind of stuff is relevant in the real world if you care about things such as how microbes might respond to climate change (this is the application that I focus on), or for understanding how environmental antibiotic resistance evolves. Or, if you just look at all the weird stuff out there and wonder how it got that way. Or, if you, like me, have a certain fondness for pond scum and seashore slime.

You might have noticed that Science Dude isn’t exactly apolitical. In addition to being a big nerd, I’m also a feminist, a vegan, and queer…and those are just the polite versions of some of the names people have shouted at me. I check and double-check the actual science for the shows, but I also state my particular stance on things like sexism in science (and everywhere else), the use of animals in research (and everywhere else), and the stupidity of consumer culture and greenwashing (free the peppers!). Needless to say, these bits are my opinions, and don’t reflect those of my employer or funding agency or friends or parents, or anyone who has the dubious pleasure of working with me. Nope. Get informed, think it through, and make your own damn (informed) opinions.

Like Rob over at the Angry Hippie, I think that we all need to get off our asses and think for ourselves, and then use that understanding to change things for the better. Not only that, but I find that the more I understand the world around me, the more I enjoy and value the beauty in it. I want you to get mad over the idiocy and misinformation out there, but I also want you to get fascinated. Science isn’t hard. It isn’t complicated. It isn’t top secret. It does take a lot of specialized training to actually do research, but anyone who is willing to spend a tiny bit of time and brainpower on it can understand the basics. Anyone who can play cards can understand statistics well enough to follow the assumptions made in how a zombie apocalypse would proceed, or alternately, how a flu pandemic happens. Most science is the same: easy to understand if you try, and really really cool, (though you can’t always apply it to the zombie apocalypse). Our world is utterly fascinating, if only we take the time to actually look at it. Science is a lens to look at the natural world through.

So here’s your official invitation: Have a look.

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