Bonnie O'Malley

New graphic dropping 🥁🥁🥁: Requesting your perspective on taboos in women’s and gender-diverse people’s health ⚧️
participant.groupwisdom.tech/invite/proje...

It's nice to hear your reflections as someone with real life experiences! Definitely something we need more of in science. I don't think COVID did us any good, but i guess we'll need more research to pinpoint which problems come from what, and start finding solutions from there on ❤️

I'm not disagreeing that there are more disabilities. I'm wondering whether the reason is COVID infection, or the pandemic social isolation. Babies learn a lot from looking at faces (without masks), at kindergarten and with other family members and close friends. So maybe this is partially relevant.

Why assume when you can just read the paper? Unfortunately the control group were not contactable so there is no control reported.

There was no control participants making that difficult to fully support. There is also a secondary aspect that the mother was likely isolated. Large bodies of research show social isolation suppresses immune function. Important results - I hold hope that it is less extreme post COVID context

Yes but the cognitive and developmental delays weren't fetuses, but 24 month olds who underwent moderate-severe social isolation 🤗

Really important research! I see this study was carried out during/just after the height of the pandemic, and wonder if some of the developmental delays can be attributed to the reduced social contact and support systems available at that time?

The Gender Equality Plan @mpicbs.bsky.social is finally presented! It was a pleasure and empowering team effort to draft it with Anahit Babayan, @ndherzog.bsky.social and @braincox.bsky.social. Thanks also to current EO Officer Karina Naethe (shorturl.at/VbNda) for sharing the stage with me! 🔥💜
1/3

The monthly rhythm of the brain-heart connection Integrating the menstrual cycle into heart-brain research is a crucial step toward advancing sex-specific medicine and improving outcomes for female brain and body health.

Integrating the menstrual cycle into heart-brain research is a crucial step toward advancing sex-specific medicine and improving outcomes for female brain and body health, argues a new #ScienceAdvances Focus. #WomensHealth scim.ag/4bG8Lso

It's Brain awareness week!! Make sure you spread the word: BRAINS 🧠 ARE 🧠REAL🧠DON'T🧠BELIEVE🧠PEOPLE🧠WHO🧠SAY 🧠THEY🧠DON'T🧠EXIST🧠

Extremely pleased to announce our analysis out today with @ederzavala.bsky.social and other members of #ULTRADIAN
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....
Bottom line: be VERY careful with cortisol measurements taken only after waking...
#CAR #cortisol #circadian

Wow! How did no-one think of this before?! I wonder if it works almost as a counter-mechanism to sleep pressure, i.e. cortisol pressure builds to make waking up inevitable-> why those with blunted cortisol may oversleep. Rly anticipating follow up studies that can come from this - congrats!

British Science Festival 2025 | Get involved | British Science Festival Want to be involved with the British Science Festival? We’d love to hear from you.

One week left to submit a proposal for the British Science Festival (@britsciassoc.bsky.social). Events, activities and installations.
The festival takes place in Liverpool 10-14th September.
Deadline: Mon 20th January.
#SciComm

Please could I join? Part of my research looks at mindfulness and interoceptive processes <3 Thanks!

Thank you! Oh wow, it looks like you're doing some really exciting stuff, would love to connect! I really miss the UK and its vibrant scicomm scene! Things are only really getting started here in Germany, but trying to ride the wave ;)

Thanks 4 reading! Feel free to hit me up with questions & shameless plug: As a passionate science communicator I’ve done (well, attempted) most of the above. I have also given scicomm beginner workshops to master’s and PhD students. Am happy to receive invites to guest lecture / workshop scicomm <3

In all the above: THE PRESS OFFICE ARE YOUR FRIENDS. I am so grateful to my press office (specifically Bettina @mpicbs.bsky.social) for all their support and pointing me in the right direction and I hope everyone has people as passionate working at theirs. They likely have even more ideas!!

Museums/Schools: Find your local museums/schools and get talking. They may already have a day organized for local scientists to get involved. If not, you can straight up offer a workshop and see what they say (Yes, obviously)

Artists/Musicians: You can honestly get creative and see what your friends are up to and decide to collaborate. Last week I met up with my friend who makes noise music & now I’m making a scientific contribution to their zine lol

Blogging: Writing is a wonderful form of science communication. You could start your own blog, or if you don’t want to commit to something so big, volunteer to guest write on someone else’s. Your institute will likely have a blog, or know a local blog to contribute to

Podcasts: Again, V labour intensive. However, if you’re lucky you may be able to get a lot of technical, sound and grafik support for postproduction. Alternatively, rather than adding to an already saturated market, find a podcast to be a guest on (e.g. there may already be one at your uni)

Clubs: The party scene is surprisingly receptive to science? I put on a night in a small DIY club in Leipzig, alternating science talks and bands/DJs. The promotor from a big Leipzig techno club happened to be there & was like ‘I want this night but bigger and better in my club’ so we did it lol

Create your own event: Most institutions will have some sort of funding allocated to scicomm. Make friends with your press office, they will likely know more. I wrote several convincing enough proposals to MPI, and got funding for 2 festivals, we really got our science out there it was mad fun

Soapboxberlin: Ongoing series of events that specifically gives a platform to women in research. This is usually in the form of a short talk to other scientists and the public, great for networking and meeting new people

Other festivals: If you already have a bit of experience in scicomm, it’s worth writing to festivals that have dedicated space for talks and workshops. Write them a line about what you do and what you could offer. This is especially relevant for smaller festivals with a DIY feel

Science festivals: There’s a tonne! Some of these require formal application way ahead of time. Others might be worth writing to. Small list: Green man (UK), Blue dot (UK), Cheltenham science festival (UK), Silbersalz (Germany), Berlin science week (Germany) Entanglement (my fest hehe)

PintofScience: Festival in May in cities worldwide where researchers bring their science to pubs and cafés to interact with the public. It’s mainly run by volunteers, and you can get directly involved and bring it to your city.

Social media 2: You might be able to organize a ‘takeover’ of your institute/department/university social media channel. Either 1) get direct experience in running the channel, or 2) write a series of fun tweets/posts

Social media: Starting an Instagram/tiktok account is a great way to get your research out to the public. It’s quite labour intensive, requiring a lot of work to curate your ideas and reach your target audience. However, it can be very rewarding, even on a small scale.

Other science slam: There are a ton of other science slam events which aren’t competition based. Some even offer free scicomm workshops! Get googling