@RealScientists Recap

During the week of January 14-20, while dealing with a nasty bout of the flu, I took over the @RealScientists Twitter account. If you don't know about RealScientists, it's a rotating account that hosts a different scientist every week to talk about their research with an audience of ~65,000 followers. In a flu-induced haze, and sustained only by many cups of tea, I launched the week by introducing everyone to the study system of my PhD (the rocky intertidal) with a series of threaded tweets, intended to mimic the experience of going out into the intertidal for fieldwork, through narrative, photos and video. The thread was a huge hit, and even became a Twitter Moment (my first ever!). Throughout the week, I did a series of threaded stories, primarily about the rocky intertidal and my PhD research, including:

• A day in the life of an intertidal ecologist
  
• Seaweed ecology and climate change
  
• Ecological experiments & species interactions
  
• Why use mathematical & computational approaches to ecology
• What happens after dark in the intertidal

As well as a long Q&A. I loved sharing my experiences and learning from the RealScientists audience, through their interaction, questions, and discussion. For any scientist considering signing up - I hope you do!