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Today's reading: about marmorated stink bugs, defatted cricket powder, and brain heart broth. Flavor chemistry! (well, not that last) #chemsky #chemistswhocook

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Reposted by Michelle Francl

George O'Toole (he/him/his) @geiselbiofilm.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Pls share. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences - Genetics/Genomics at Smith College. apply.interfolio.com/190342

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

as neologisms go, they both have potential :)

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

This chapter on insect diets is has some great snarky prose: "data almost as hard to digest as the chitinous bodies of the insects themselves"

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Synpathizing with @stuartcantrill.com ... I had to resort to the OED while reading today: what is "lacertilian"?!? and why would you call a fire-ant-eating horned toad a "lacertilian yogi"? (Lacertilian means "relating to lizards, which to the best of my limited knowledge, toads are not.)

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I'd be down for teaching either of these classes!

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Does your life depend on science? Mine certainly does. At the start of Trump’s term I wrote this op-ed: share.inquirer.com/Nf1shA Today is the last day to submit comments on the proposed rule changes that will dismantle US science — and have far reaching effects on everyone’s lives. Comment!!

share.inquirer.com

Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

My favorite character in the whole milk controversy is the biologist Dr. Muriel Bristol who (or so the story goes) asserted she could taste the difference. Fisher then designed a statistical protocol to test this, which showed she could.

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

There are definitely two schools of thought. I'm pretty agnostic about it, but then I don't usually add milk to my tea.

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Here's Wikipedia's write-up of the ISO en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103 which summarizes it pretty well. (The ISO itself is behind a paywall.)

en.wikipedia.org

ISO 3103 - Wikipedia

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

There is a standard for tea (ISO 3103), but it isn’t meant for tea to drink but for quality determination. It calls for tea first, milk second…unless you traditionally do it the other way around.

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Not quite as much a flap as the salt, but yeah, people can taste the difference, so chemically there must be a difference. The null hypothesis was developed to test such a claim.

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Quite possibly. Long exposure times!

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

It's grainy but worth the watch I think!

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Reposted by Michelle Francl

Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Hello we are back from a holiday weekend and the Office of Management and Budget is still trying to make sure federal grants can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason. There's still time to stop it. www.theverge.com/science/9576...

theverge.com

The war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it

‘Everyone will be affected, not just scientists. Every community in the country.’

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Jeannette Brown features in this video from the 1980s - talking about careers in chemistry for women: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVMq...

youtube.com

Women in Science Series: Chemistry

YouTube video by UMichDent

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Yeah…there was a whole exchange in CEN in the 70s about the ads featuring women in bikinis.

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

2000?? Ish? If you spot it I’d be eternally grateful. Pretty sure was in a text box. I will have a look tomorrow in my office to see what I can find.

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

There’s a paper in J Chem Ed that counts up the mentions of women versus men in intro texts. It is not a good look

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

So much stuff is lost! That's been the experience of working on this book

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Me, too, and I will not go into that space to look....

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Michelle Francl @michellefrancl.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Hey #chemsky - I am working on a book about women in chemistry and trying to track down an incident about a general chem textbook where the authors made a snarky comment about women in bikinis (and parenthetically called themselves out as sexist). Any hints for me??

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