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Complete Schedule and Archive of PLOS /r/science AMAs

PLEASE NOTE: This page is now being updated on staging.plos.org: https://www.staging.plos.org/ama-schedule

PLOS Science Wednesday is a weekly science communication series featuring live, direct chats with PLOS authors on redditscience (/r/science), the popular online gathering place for researchers, students and others interested in science which has more than 8 million registered members. The series provides a forum for PLOS authors to communicate their work and interact directly with fellow researchers and the public. If you are a PLOS author who is interested in participating in a PLOS Science Wednesday AMA, please email Sara Kassabian at skassabian@plos.org.

Upcoming PLOS /r/science AMAs by topic/author(s)/paper(s)/PLOS journal:

Archived AMAs:

  • Joel Frohlich (UCLA). A Quantitative Electrophysiological Biomarker of Duplication 15q11.2-q13.1 Syndrome. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Elizabeth Davison (Princeton) and Benjamin Turner (UC Santa Barbara). Individual Differences in Dynamic Functional Brain Connectivity across the Human Lifespan. 1/4 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Computational Biology article.
  • John Cox (University of Tennessee). Polarized Cell Division of Chlamydia trachomatis. 12/21 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Chuck Perou, Marni Blair, Katherine Hoadley (University of North Carolina). Tumor Evolution in Two Patients with Basal-like Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Genomics Study of Multiple Metastases. 12/14 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Medicine article.
  • Hui-Chen Lu, Yousuf Ali, Hunter Allen (Indiana University), Hugo Bellen (Baylor College of Medicine). NMNAT2: HSP90 Complex Mediates Proteostasis in Proteinopathies. 12/7 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Daniel Irimia (Harvard University Medical School). A Worldwide Competition to Compare the Speed and Chemotactic Accuracy of Neutrophil-Like Cells. 11/30 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Anirban Banerjee (Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay). Membrane Vesicles of Group B Streptococcus Disrupt Feto-Maternal Barrier Leading to Preterm Birth. 11/23 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • OpenCon AMA. 11/16 AMA archive.
  • Seena Fazel (Univ of Oxford). Long-Term Outcomes Associated with Traumatic Brain Injury in Childhood and Adolescence: A Nationwide Swedish Cohort Study of a Wide Range of Medical and Social Outcomes. 11/9 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Medicine article.
  • Colin J. Carlson and Eric R. Dougherty (UC Berkeley). An Ecological Assessment of the Pandemic Threat of Zika Virus. 11/2 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDS article.
  • Lenny Teytelman (UC Berkeley) Protocols.io: Virtual Communities for Protocol Development and Discussion. Read the PLOS Biology article. Hilda Bastian (NIH). Read her PLOS Blog, Absolutely Maybe. 10/26 AMA archive.
  • Israel M. Sanchez (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-CSIC). Systematics and Evolution of the Miocene Three-Horned Palaeomerycid Ruminants (Mammalia, Cetartiodactyla). 10/19 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Gert Kema (Wageningen University), Steve Goodwin (USDA) and Igor Grigoriev (US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute). Combating a Global Threat to a Clonal Crop: Banana Black Sigatoka Pathogen Pseudocercospora fijiensis (Synonym Mycosphaerella fijiensis) Genomes Reveal Clues for Disease Control. 10/12 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Genetics article.
  • Alan Garfinkel (UCLA). Electrophysiology of Heart Failure Using a Rabbit Model: From the Failing Myocyte to Ventricular Fibrillation. 10/5 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Computational Biology article.
  • Igor Korolev (Michigan State Univ). Predicting Progression from Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer’s Dementia Using Clinical, MRI, and Plasma Biomarkers via Probabilistic Pattern Classification. 9/28 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Simon Oliver (Bangor Univ). Thresher Sharks Use Tail-Slaps as a Hunting Strategy. 9/21 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Scott Hensley (Univ of Pennsylvania). Antibodies with ‘Original Antigenic Sin’ Properties Are Valuable Components of Secondary Immune Responses to Influenza Viruses. 9/14 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Raina Plowright (Montana State Univ) and Olivier Restiff (Univ of Cambridge). Transmission or Within-Host Dynamics Driving Pulses of Zoonotic Viruses in Reservoir–Host Populations. 9/7 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDs article.
  • Simon (“Niels”) C. Groen (New York University) and John Carr (Univ of Cambridge). Virus Infection of Plants Alters Pollinator Preference: A Payback for Susceptible Hosts? 8/31 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Hunter Underhill (Univ of Utah). Fragment Length of Circulating Tumor DNA. 8/24 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Genetics article.
  • Susanne Sokolow (Stanford University) and Michael Hsieh (George Washington University). Global Assessment of Schistosomiasis Control Over the Past Century Shows Targeting the Snail Intermediate Host Works Best. 8/17 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDS article.
  • Jeff Atkins (PLOS Ecology Community Editor) and PLOS Ecology Reporting Fellows: Kelsey Graham (Tufts), Uma Nagendra (Univ Georgia), Daniel Winkler (UC Irvine), Caitlin McDonough (Boston University), Elizabeth Kimbrough (Tulane). Incorporating Anthropogenic Influences into Fire Probability Models: Effects of Human Activity and Climate Change on Fire Activity in California. 8/10 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article. Featured in the PLOS Ecological Impacts of Climate Change Collection (2015-2016 update).
  • Ken Tape (University of Alaska). Range Expansion of Moose in Arctic Alaska Linked to Warming and Increased Shrub Habitat. 8/3 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Nick Wareham, Jenna Panter, Fumiaki Imamura (University of Cambridge), PLOS Medicine Diabetes Prevention Special Issue. 7/27 AMA archive.
  • Jessica Abbate and Christian Althaus (Univ of Bern – Switzerland), Carmen Lia Murall (Max-Planck Institute). Potential Impact of Sexual Transmission on Ebola Virus Epidemiology: Sierra Leone as a Case Study. 7/20 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDS article.
  • Jorge Ahumada (Conservation International) and Lydia Beaudrot (Univ of Michigan). Standardized Assessment of Biodiversity Trends in Tropical Forest Protected Areas: The End Is Not in Sight. 7/13 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Courtney Lane-Donovan and Joachim Herz (Univ of Texas). High-Fat Diet Changes Hippocampal Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) in a Genotype- and Carbohydrate-Dependent Manner in Mice. 7/6 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Roslyn Dakin (Univ of British Columbia), Suzanne Amador Kane (Haverford College). Biomechanics of the Peacock’s Display: How Feather Structure and Resonance Influence Multimodal Signaling. 6/29 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Damien Keating (Flinders University). A Syntenic Cross Species Aneuploidy Genetic Screen Links RCAN1 Expression to β-Cell Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Type 2 Diabetes. 6/22 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Genetics article.
  • Lucy Bell and Mahdad Noursadeghi (University College of London). In Vivo Molecular Dissection of the Effects of HIV-1 in Active Tuberculosis. 6/15 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Emily Bucholz (Boston Children’s Hospital). Underweight, Markers of Cachexia, and Mortality in Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Prospective Cohort Study of Elderly Medicare Beneficiaries. 6/8 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Medicine article.
  • Nik Money (Miami University). Mushrooms as Rainmakers: How Spores Act as Nuclei for Raindrops. 6/1 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Nick W. Ruktanonchai and Corinne W. Ruktanochai (University of Southampton). Identifying Malaria Transmission Foci for Elimination Using Human Mobility Data. 5/25 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Computational Biology article.
  • James D. Brenton and Florian Markowetz (Univ of Cambridge). Spatial and Temporal Heterogeneity in High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer: A Phylogenetic Analysis. 5/18 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Medicine article.
  • Ben Lopman (Center for Disease Control). PLOS Collections: The Global Burden of Norovirus & Prospects for Vaccine Development. 5/11 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Collection.
  • Neelesh Patankar (Northwestern University), Malcolm MacIver (Northwestern University). Convergent Evolution of Mechanically Optimal Locomotion in Aquatic Invertebrates and Vertebrates. 5/4 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Nina Kraus (Northwestern University). Auditory Processing in Noise: A Preschool Biomarker for Literacy. 4/27 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Eric Leuthardt and Joshua Shimony (Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine), David Tran (University of Florida College of Medicine). Hyperthermic Laser Ablation of Recurrent Glioblastoma Leads to Temporary Disruption of the Peritumoral Blood Brain Barrier. 4/20 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Stacey Schultz-Cherry (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital), Christopher Small (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) and Lisa Jones-Engel (Univ of Washington). Non-Human Primates Harbor Diverse Mammalian and Avian Astroviruses Including Those Associated with Human Infections. 4/13 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Gavin Yamey (Duke University), Carlos Morel (DNDi), Peter Hotez (Baylor University), Margaret Kruk (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) Soumya Swaminathan (MOH India). 4/6 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Grand Convergence Collection.
  • Lucie Etienne, Michael Emerman (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center). The Role of the Antiviral APOBEC3 Gene Family in Protecting Chimpanzees against Lentiviruses from Monkeys. 3/30 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Wan Yang (Columbia University). Forecasting Influenza Epidemics in Hong Kong. 3/23 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Computational Biology article.
  • Pedro Afonso (University of Azores, Portugal). Dynamics of Whale Shark Occurrence at Their Fringe Oceanic Habitat. 3/16 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Albert Ko (Yale University School of Public Health), Manoel Sarno (Universidade Federal da Bahia), Hugo Ribeiro. Zika Virus Infection and Stillbirths: A Case of Hydrops Fetalis, Hydranencephaly and Fetal Demise. 3/9 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDs article.
  • Alex Suh (Uppsala University, Sweden). The Dynamics of Incomplete Lineage Sorting across the Ancient Adaptive Radiation of Neoavian Birds. 3/2 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Sanjay Basu (Stanford University). The Health System and Population Health Implications of Large-Scale Diabetes Screening in India and Averting Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes in India through Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxation. 2/24 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Medicine articles here and here.
  • Sarah Myhre [Moffitt] (University of Washington), Kate Davis (University of California Davis). Paleoceanographic Insights on Recent Oxygen Minimum Zone Expansion: Lessons for Modern Oceanography. 2/17 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article
  • Claudia Denkinger (Harvard University), David Dowdy (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health). Do We Need to Detect Isoniazid Resistance in Addition to Rifampicin Resistance in Diagnostic Tests for Tuberculosis? 2/10 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Peter McCormick (University of East Anglia), coauthors TBD. Cognitive Impairment Induced by Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol Occurs through Heteromers between Cannabinoid CB1 and Serotonin 5-HT2A Receptors. 2/3 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Rolnei R. Daros, Mariana von Keyserlingk, and Daniel Weary (University of British Columbia), Maria Hotzel (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina), Heather Neave. Separation from the Dam Causes Negative Judgement Bias in Dairy Calves. 1/27 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Nick Heintz (University of Vermont). Disabling Mitochondrial Peroxide Metabolism via Combinatorial Targeting of Peroxiredoxin 3 as an Effective Therapeutic Approach for Malignant Mesothelioma. 1/20 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Malcolm R. Macleod (University of Edinburgh), David Howells (Univ of Tasmania). Risk of Bias in Reports of In Vivo Research: A Focus for Improvement. 1/13 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Christine Johnson and Tierra Smiley Evans (UC Davis). Optimization of a Novel Non-invasive Oral Sampling Technique for Zoonotic Pathogen Surveillance in Nonhuman Primates. 1/6 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDS article.
  • Jack Conrad (American Museum of Natural History); A New Eocene Casquehead Lizard (Reptilia, Corytophanidae) from North America. 12/30 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Nancy Krieger (Harvard University School of Public Health). Police Killings and Police Deaths Are Public Health Data and Can Be Counted. 12/17 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Medicine article.
  • Peter Dodds and Andy Reagan (University of Vermont), Bill Gottesman (Precision Sundials). Collective Philanthropy: Describing and Modeling the Ecology of Giving. 12/16 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Lara Aknin, Kiley Hamlin, and Elizabeth Dunn (University of British Columbia). Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children. 12/9 AMA archive. Read the PLOS One article.
  • Malika Ihle and Wolfgang Forstmeier (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany). Fitness Benefits of Mate Choice for Compatibility in a Socially Monogamous Species. 12/2 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Elizabeth Mziray (World Bank) and Tisha Wheeler (USAID) and Richard Steen. Focus on Delivery and Scale: Achieving HIV Impact with Sex Workers. 11/25 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Collection here.
  • Lee de Mora, Robert Brewin and Thomas Jackson (Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK). On the Potential of Surfers to Monitor Environmental Indicators in the Coastal Zone. 11/18 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Albert Ko and Federico Costa (Yale School of Public Health). Global Morbidity and Mortality of Leptospirosis: A Systematic Review. 11/11 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDS article.
  • Jean-Michel Drezen & Elisabeth Huguet, both from University of Tours, France & Salvador Herrero (University of Valencia, Spain). Recurrent Domestication by Lepidoptera of Genes from Their Parasites Mediated by Bracoviruses. 11/4 AMA transcript. Read the PLOS Genetics article.
  • Oliver Cumming (LSHTM),  Pinaki Panigrahi (University of Nebraska) & Yael Velleman (WaterAid);  PLOS Medicine articles: Risk of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes among Women Practicing Poor Sanitation in Rural India: A Population-Based Prospective Cohort Study & From Joint Thinking to Joint Action: A Call to Action on Improving Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for Maternal and Newborn Health. 10/28 AMA archive.
  • Robert Kaplan (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) & John Ioannidis (Stanford University); See Kaplan’s PLOS ONE article: Likelihood of Null Effects of Large NHLBI Clinical Trials Has Increased over Time & Ioannidis’ PLOS Medicine article: How to Make More Published Research True. 10/21 AMA archive.
  • Benjamin Inglis (UC Berkeley) & Jean-Baptiste Poline (UC Berkeley); Orthogonalization of Regressors in fMRI Models. 10/14 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Laser-Stimulated Fluorescence in Paleontology; Thomas Kaye (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture); 10/7 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Post-transcriptional Regulation of Keratinocyte Progenitor Cell Expansion, Differentiation and Hair Follicle Regression by miR-22. Zhengquan Yu (China Agricultural University) and Maksim Plinkus (University of California Irvine). 9/30 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Genetics article.
  • Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina. David Frayer (University of Kansas); 9/23 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Mosquitoes Can Carry, and Deliver, a Double Dose of Malaria. Laura Pollitt (University of Edinburgh); 9/16 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Pathogens article.
  • Whole-Genome Sequencing of the World’s Oldest People. Stuart K. Kim (Stanford University); 9/9 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Model Community-Directed Onchocerciasis (River Blindness) Interventions. Caitlin Dunn (Carter Center, Emory University) and Kelly Callahan (Carter Center); 9/2 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDs article.
  • Modifying Aesop’s Fable Paradigm Change Crow Performances. Corina Logan (University of Cambridge, UK); 8/26 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Climate Change Shortens Growing Seasons; Potential Human and Biotic Vulnerability. Camilo Mora, Iain Caldwell (University of Hawaii); 8/19 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”. James Hansen & colleagues (Columbia University); 8/12 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Patterns of Mass Mortality among Invertebrates on NE Pacific Coastline. Laura Jurgens (UC Davis); 8/5 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • The Physician “Brain Drain” from Sub-Saharan Africa to the U.S.  Sten H. Vermund and A. B.S. Tankwanchi; 7/29 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Programmed Evolution – The Use of Microbes for Metabolic Engineering; Todd T. Eckdahl (Missouri Western State University);  7/22 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • How birds assemble meaningful calls from individual phonemes (as humans do); Sabrina Engesser, Andy Russell (University of Exeter), James Savage (Wageningen University, the Netherlands), Simon Townsend (University of Zurich). 7/15 AMA archive. Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Threatened Preterm Labor and Spontaneous Preterm Birth: Gene Expression Profile; Yujing Jan Heng (Harvard Med School)  7/8 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Riverboats, Mosquitoes and the Spread of Dengue in the Peruvian Amazon; Sarah Anne Guagliardo (Emory University) and Amy Morrison (UC Davis);  7/1 AMA archive. Read the PLOS NTDs article.
  • Reversing Antibiotic Resistance. Miriam Barlow and Juan C. Meza (UC Merced Life Sciences); 6/24 AMA archive. Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • Rationale and Prospects for a Global R&D Fund to fight Ebola, Antibiotic Resistance & Neglected Diseases; Manica Balasegaram (Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign) and Bernard Pécoul (Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative) 6/17 AMA archive; PLOS Medicine article.
  • Color As a Signal for Entraining the Mammalian Circadian Clock; Tim Brown (University of Manchester); 6/10/15 AMA archive; Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Assessing Measles Transmission in the United States Following a Large Outbreak in California; Seth Blumberg (physician/scientist at UCSF) and Jennifer Zipprich (CA state epidemiologist); 6/3 AMA archive; Read the PLOS Currents Outbreaks article.
  • Why Publishing Everything Is More Effective than Selective Publishing of Statistically Significant Results; Jelte M. Wicherts; 5/27 AMA archive; Read the PLOS ONE article.
  • The Extent and Consequences of P-Hacking in Science; Megan Head; 5/20 AMA archive; Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Creating Computational Brain Models for Artificial Intelligence; Jeff Clune, Kai Olav Ellefsen, Jean-Baptiste Mouret; 5/13 AMA archive; Read the PLOS Computational Biology article; video summary.
  • Aquilops, the Smallest, Oldest Horned Dinosaur; Andrew Farke; 5/6 AMA archive; Read the PLOS ONE article; author’s introductory PLOS Blogs post and the team story behind this paper.
  • Open Labware: 3-D Printing Your Own Lab Equipment; Tom Baden and Andre Maia Chagas; 4/29 AMA archive; Read the PLOS Biology article.
  • Open Data Exchange Between Cancer Researchers; Andrew Beck; 4/22 AMA archive; Read the PLOS Medicine article.

How It Works

Questions may be posted ahead of and during the AMA and the authors answer on Wed 1–2pm ET. Archives are available for later reading, re-mixing or reuse. Please use the hashtag #PLOSredditAMA when discussing this series on Twitter. You can also download and use the reddit AMA app.

Future PLOS Science Wednesday AMAs will be posted to this page and announced on Twitter. Featured authors are selected by PLOS editors; PLOS authors or Academic Editors may nominate a PLOS article for this series by emailing plosreddit@plos.org with the article URL, author(s) and a lay summary (50-100 words) of the research.

Why is PLOS doing redditscience AMAs?

PLOS sees these author AMAs as enhancements to the journal articles on which they are based. They also function as in-depth archived community discussions on important and timely science topics, which are available in perpetuity on the redditscience subthread for all to read and re-purpose. On PLOS journal sites, each PLOS Science Wednesday AMA transcript is linked to the “Related Content” tabs at the top of their respective PLOS articles. We encourage other health and science communicators to take and reuse this content in whatever ways may assist your purposes.

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2etoq0zjwxicokm1woge_biggerAs a nonprofit, Open Access publisher with a mission to lead a transformation in scientific communication, PLOS continuously seeks innovative ways to disseminate research and advance science. Initiatives such as PLOS Science Wednesday on redditscience reflect our commitment to expand the impact of research beyond publication, and enable broader community inclusion for commenting and review.

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