In April, RealScientists welcomed entomologist, science journalist and Bug Dork™ Gwen Pearson (@bug_gwen).
Hello Everyone! I'm Gwen, and I'm a Bug Dork.
FYI: expect insect and (occasional) spider photos this week as I talk about my buggy life.— realscientists (@realscientists) April 10, 2016
Gwen’s wondrous tweets included a video of a lizard bathing!
I highly recommend everyone have an office lizard. Although he can be messy when bathing/shedding: pic.twitter.com/BLOi56Aj1p
— realscientists (@realscientists) April 10, 2016
And on a related but not actually that related note, bee plumbing!
https://twitter.com/realscientists/status/719253442489937920
Gwen also covered regulation of exotic animals as pets, working as a scientist with a disability, and tweeted during #BugBowl2016 at Purdue Univeristy. And thank goodnes Gwen explained the sport of cricket spitting to us because, well, uh… it’s a little bit strange.
Once the cricket is expectorated, the Judging team scurries into action and carefully measures. pic.twitter.com/Zn85g5G1Np
— realscientists (@realscientists) April 13, 2016
We put our post-curation interview questions to Gwen, and she responded thusly.
In general terms, how did you find your week as a curator?
Fun! I just wish I had had more energy to say more of the things I wanted to discuss. I talked about disability…and then demonstrated how that disability limits me by making me faceplant into bed at the end of a busy day. I need another week
It can be a shock talking to so many. Did you find the sudden rush of interactions (good and bad) daunting?
No, the comments were great for the most part.
What were the highlights? Were there any lowlights?
I got a lot of really nice feedback on my open discussion about disability and learning to live within my limits, and the joy of doing outreach.
I was very sad that so many people can’t tolerate even photos or discussion of spiders. You really are within 6 feet of a spider at any time. Deal with it.
Is there anything you wanted to get out of / do on the RS account that you didn’t manage to fit in?
I wanted to show more of Bug Bowl, but I was so busy running from place to place it didn’t quite happen.
Did you have a plan? If so, did you stick to it?
I used the P.I.D.O.M.A method:
Pull it directly out of my Arse
Do you have any tips or advice for future RS curators?
Not really. But I really think you need to rethink the spider ban
What other people or accounts should people follow if they enjoyed your tweets this week?
Thanks once again Gwen from all of us here at RealScientists HQ. If you missed anything from her week, the tweets are all collated at the following link.