By Sharanya Gopinathan
Real Scientists is a “rotational Twitter account featuring real scientists, science writers, communicators and policy makers talking about their lives and their work”. These weekly Twitter takeovers give you a really fun insight into the actual thoughts and work of scientists beyond the weird stereotypes people have about what scientists must do locked up in the labs.
This week’s curator is Nancy Miorelli, an entomologist living and working in the Cloud Forest of Ecuador in the Maquipucuna Reserve, which looks even dreamier than it sounds. And so far, her Twitter takeover has been amazing, if also a bit unnerving, but I think that’s kind of the point.
In addition to sharing photos, snippets and videos of her work studying insects and bugs, she’s also been encouraging people to share pictures with the amazing hashtag #FaceBug, where they post pictures of themselves with bugs (she specifies non-poisonous only) on their faces. It’s pretty cool to see pictures of women with huge-ass bugs on their faces, but the point is to show you that bugs aren’t really scary. I don’t know if it does exactly that, because the photos personally give me the fun kind of creeps, it is worth checking out.