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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Introducing...sci-comm prom? Folks in NC, reserve your spot at the SCONCies Awards Gala by Oct 2: www.sconc.org/ourevents/

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Happening next week - great event for anyone interested in telling science stories through broadcast journalism. Folks can attend in person or via Zoom.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Coming up this month: Frank Graff, Emmy award winner and host of PBS North Carolina's SciNC, will take the mic at our September SkunkSpeak. Register here: www.sconc.org/ourevents/

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

FYI to SCONC members : submissions for sci-comm awards for the SCONCies (our annual awards gala) are open now until August 31 - docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

docs.google.com

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

This month! Come hang with science nerds during SCONC After Hours @ Locopops in Durham No need to register! BYOD (buy your own drink) and get ready to chat about sci-fi and funding cuts 🙃 More info here: www.sconc.org/ourevents/

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Calling all freelancers - this month's Skunk Speak will feature Melba Newsome, an award-winning freelance science journalist with more than 20 years of experience. Register: www.sconc.org/ourevents/

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Coming up! This month's After Hours event will be in Hillsborough, NC on June 25 - www.sconc.org/ourevents/

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

On the blog! Read Jillian Daly's reflections on harnessing curiosity as a science communicator. www.sconc.org/2026/05/13/c...

sconc.org

Curiosity, Credibility, and the Creator Economy | SCONC

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

There are three neutrino detectors currently under construction around the world, designed to detect different types of neutrinos: Hyper-K, in Japan; JUNO, in China, and DUNE, in the USA.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

To beat the waiting time in between supernovae, most detectors have a “day job” detecting other types of particles and radiation.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

We were able to detect dozens of neutrinos from a supernova in a nearby galaxy in 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Astrophysicists expect to detect supernovas in the Milky Way about every 30 years, certainly within ones career!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

When a large star collapses during what’s called a Type II Supernova, its core collapse into either a neutron star or a black hole produces a brief (<10s), brilliant burst of neutrinos, the prime time detectors to pick up their signals!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Neutrinos have weak interactions, meaning that they rarely interact with matter (most of them go right through you really fast, so fast you don’t feel them!). This means that in order to detect neutrinos, we need massive detectors, often built underground to filter out heavier particles like muons.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Neutrinos are a type of fundamental particle part of the lepton category of the Standard Model (shown here in cupcake form). Neutrinos have 1/500,000th the mass of an electron and come in three “flavors.” They are extremely abundant, but very little is known about why they’re so tiny!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Hello science lovers! My name is Nik, and I’m one of the interns at SCONC who’ll be covering today’s Science by the Slice talk! Today’s talk will be given by Dr. Kate Scholberg, Arts & Science distinguished Professor of Physics at Duke University, and will be all about neutrinos!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

SkunkSpeak is next Thursday, May 28! Join us in-person or online to hear Marley Parker share her adventures as an ocean explorer and science communicator. Note: Registration is for SCONC members only, but feel free to bring a friend. Sign up here: www.sconc.org/ourevents/

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

That's it for now! A huge thank you to Véronique Koch for being with us this afternoon and for sharing her scicomm peals. Got more questions about her work? Feel free to reach out at the contact below. Thank you all for tuning into May's STBS coverage. Have a wonderful evening and see you in June!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

"Your voice is not competing with misinformation. It is creating oxygen for the undecided." As a creator, focus your energy on creating the better option, not battling against the worse alternative.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

If you're nervous about becoming a science creator, start small. Instwad of exploring a new topic, answer a question you're passionate about. Instead of watching a slew of metrics like a hawk, choose one metric to keep track of as you put out more and more content. Shoot your shot!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Not an expert in the field? You can still defend the scientific method. Koch offers some useful phrases you can use when confronted with accusations of not being transparent. "You do not owe anyone an ongoing debate."

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Just because hypotheses are refined, doesn't mean they were wrong to begin with. Science misinformation often targets moments of revision as evidence of malice, and being aware of common phrases used by this camp of people can help you avoid arriving at a "false balance" between expert & instigator.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Social media is a great way to spread information and education. Communicators may be worried about saying the wrong thing, but that shouldn't become a deterrent. Koch offers a simple rule: "If you wouldn't say it at a conference, don't post it."

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

The goal of platforms is to keep people watching, even if it's a small audience. Replies, captions, and authentic scripts will beat over-production any day, and viewers are bound to share genuine content.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Authenticity is the way to go. You do not need fancy equipment to send out a message. As long as you keep in mind "The Big 6" rules of effective video communication, you have the potential to gather an audience and make your words stick.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

When it comes to video communication, it helps to think about your goal as being a helpful communicator. With everyone having a platform to share their views, it's important to be a trustworthy source in this sea of information.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Hello, science enthusiasts! My name is Daniela Danilova and I'm delighted to be with you all once again as one of SCONC's interns for this month's Science By the Slice. We're joined by Véronique Koch, Senior Multimedia Producer at Duke University and 3x Emmy Award–winning science communicator.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Visualizations that are more dense, functional, and novel, are useful for scientific/academic presentations, while more redundant, light, and familiar visualizations are useful for public/non-academic presentations.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

There’s a common myth that there’s a neutral way of presenting data. Data is collected and analyzed with human intention, which helps build an argument. Our human emotions play a role in the way we show our data, which is important to acknowledge.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Legibility (whether you can read something) is important to data visualizations, but readability (whether you WANT to read something) is even more important. We’re constantly reading images and viewing text. How can we make our text pleasing to the eye?

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Whether to make visualizations functional vs. decorated is one of the more controversial debates of the data vis community. While many prominent scholars advocate for a minimalist design, newer research in cognitive psychology suggests that certain image decorations can be useful for memory.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Alberto Cairo’s tension wheel is a critical resource in constructing visualizations. Cairo theorizes that strong visualizations stem from balancing tensions across various axes, such as dimensionality, abstractness, and originality. These visual decisions are dependent on their intended audience.

Alberto Cairo’s tension wheel, from “The Functional Art”

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Dr. Littlejohn hopes that participants of this talk takeaway that data visualization issues are often issues of visual communication. As our brains are much more adept at processing visual information than spoken or written, it is imperative that visualization decisions are handled with intention.

Takeaways image, written in yellow and white text against a faded background of a conference room.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Hey everyone! My name is Nik Narain, and I’m one of the SCONC Interns here to cover our April Science by the Slice talk by Dr. Deborah Littlejohn titled “Visualizing Science with Audience in Mind.” Dr. Littlejohn is a Professor of Graphic and Experience Design at NC State University.

design.ncsu.edu

Deborah Littlejohn

We teach students to design for life.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

A big thank you for joining us for this month's Science by the Slice coverage. To learn more about SWOT and Dr. Pavelsky's innovative work, check out the links below: uncglobalhydrology.org swot.jpl.nasa.gov See you all in March!

uncglobalhydrology.org

Home - UNC’s Global Hydrology Lab

Homepage for the UNC Global Hydrology Lab, led by Prof. Tamlin Pavelsky

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

SWOT has already impressed scientists all over the world, and it's just getting started. The mission's publicly available data continues to inspire new questions about everything from the behavior of ocean eddies to the vegetation of Florida's Everglades.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

The thousands of lakes captured in this image used to be invisible to satellites. SWOT's ability to detect and gather elevation data for every single one has opened many doors in hydrology and climate science.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

This NASA press release compared SWOT's data to previously available images. Not only did it beat out the alternative, SWOT was around 10 times more accurate than expected. Oceanographers were ecstatic.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Since 2004, the SWOT mission has brought Dr. Pavelsky to incredible places. Watching the satellite take off from California's Vandenburg Space Force Base is one experience he surely won't forget.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

By measuring changes in intensity as the satellite's light bounces off the Earth's surface, the KaRIn can capture the intricate ripples spreading across a lake. Viewing the data over time gives insights into weather patterns, water depth, and more...

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

The SWOT team had another idea. In the world of radar imaging, the wavelength of light limits the precision of visible features. The Ka Band Radar Interferometer, or KaRIn, allows them to "see" and gather data points on the order of a centimeter, a great improvement compared to previous methods.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Gathering data, however, presents some challenges. How does one find out what's going on in the middle of the ocean if tide gauges are on the coasts? Some are well monitored; others haven't collected data in decades.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Although an ocean's horizon may look flat, the body of water certainly isn't. Ocean water is constantly mixing, left and right, up and down. Understanding this movement is critical to understanding changing climate patterns worldwide.

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Good afternoon! My name is Daniela and I'm one of SCONC's new interns. For today's Science by the Slice, we're delighted to welcome UNC's Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky for his talk, "The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission: NASA's Eye in the Sky for Earth's Water" Stay tuned for more!

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

That’s it for today’s talk! To learn more about Matt Bertone, you can do so here: cals.ncsu.edu/entomology-a...

cals.ncsu.edu

Matthew Bertone

Entomology and Plant Pathology

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SCONC- Science Communicators of North Carolina @sconc.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Being a diagnostician can sometimes mean having to analyze samples from wacky locations. Here’s a beetle added to the lab’s collection that was found in a child’s hair!

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