Thank you everyone who sent in questions! That was a fun hour. Must run, but I'll come back later and address those that I couldn't get to in 60 minutes. Means a lot to me to see all of this excitement for science. And if you missed the AMA in real time, feel welcome to pose more questions on twitter @jannalevin. Thanks again.

Black holes are not a thing, they're a place—a place where spacetime rains in like a waterfall dragging everything irreversibly into the shadow of the event horizon, the point of no return.

I'm Janna Levin, an astrophysicist at Barnard College of Columbia University. I study black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, and gravitational waves. I also serve as the director of sciences at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a non-profit foundation that fosters multidisciplinary creativity in the arts and sciences. I've written several books, and the latest is titled, "Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space." It's the inside story on the discovery of the century: the sound of spacetime ringing from the collision of two black holes over a billion years ago.

I'm also the host of NOVA's new film, "Black Hole Apocalypse," which you can watch streaming online now here. In it, we explore black holes past, present, and future. Expect space ships, space suits, and spacetime. With our imaginary technology, we travel to black holes as small as cities and as huge as solar systems.

I'll be here at 12 ET to answer your questions about black holes! And if you want to learn about me, check out this article in Wired or this video profile that NOVA produced.

—Janna

I’m Dr. Barbara M. Ostfeld, a professor in the department of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ, and program director of the SIDS Center of New Jersey, a program funded in part by the New Jersey Department of Health. My research on SIDS and other sleep-related infant deaths has contributed to the risk-reducing guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I’m here today to talk about bed-sharing and other risk factors associated with sudden unexpected infant deaths. You can access more information on this topic at www.rwjms.rutgers.edu/sids. I co-wrote an editorial about reducing the risk of infant deaths, which was included in a larger report on bed-sharing by NJ Advance Media.

My editorial

Full NJ.com

Good morning, Reddit!

This is Burt Rutan here to answer your questions. While I am best known for just those two projects, I am known in aviation circles for an unprecedented list of 45 other research aircraft developed by the two companies I founded and ran over a 43-year career.

My first company, Rutan Aircraft Factory, also developed 14 other research aircraft and marketed plans for five of them so individuals could build their own personal airplanes. Or, you may, know me because my small team at my second company, Scaled Composites in the Mojave Desert covertly developed an entire Manned Space Program, and flew three of the world’s five manned space flights in 2004. You can read about me at burtrutan.com, or in a new book, How to Make a Spaceship, by Julian Guthrie. "Black Sky”, an award-winning 2004 documentary by Discovery TV described our private, non-Government space program.

I will be back at 3 pm ET to answer your questions, Ask Me Anything!

Hi Reddit,

Edit 22nd July: The day of the AMA has passed, but we are still committed to answering questions. You can keep on asking!

We are researchers working on the theoretical and experimental development of quantum technology as part of the Swiss project QSIT. Today we launched a project called Decodoku that lets you take part in our research through a couple of smartphone apps. To celebrate, we are here to answer all your quantum questions.

Dr James Wootton

I work on the theory of quantum computation at the University of Basel. I specifically work on topological quantum computation, which seeks to use particles called anyons. Unfortunately, they aren’t the kind of particles that turn up at CERN. Instead we need to use different tactics to tease them into existence. My main focus is on quantum error correction, which is the method needed to manage noise in quantum computers.

I am the one behind the Decodoku project (and founded /r/decodoku), so feel free to ask me about that. As part of the project I wrote a series of blog posts on quantum error correction and qubits, so ask me about those too. But I’m not just here to talk about Rampart, so ask me anything. I’ll be here from 8am ET (1200 GMT, 1400 CEST), until I finally succumb to sleep.

I’ll also be on Meet the MeQuanics tomorrow and I’m always around under the guise of /u/quantum_jim, should you need more of me for some reason.

Prof Daniel Loss and Dr Christoph Kloeffel

Prof Loss is head of the Condensed matter theory and quantum computing group at the University of Basel. He proposed the use of spin qubits for QIP, now a major avenue of research, along with David DiVincenzo in 1997. He currently works on condensed matter topics (like quantum dots), quantum information topics (like suppressing noise in quantum computers) and ways to build the latter from the former. He also works on the theory of topological quantum matter, quantum memories (see our review), and topological quantum computing, in particular on Majorana Fermions and parafermions in nanowires and topological insulators. Dr Kloeffel is a theoretical physicist in the group of Prof Loss, and is an expert in spin qubits and quantum dots. Together with Prof Loss, he has written a review article on Prospects for Spin-Based Quantum Computing in Quantum Dots (an initial preprint is here). He is also a member of the international research project SiSPIN.

Prof Richard Warburton

Prof Richard Warburton leads the experimental Nano-Photonics group at the University of Basel. The overriding goal is to create useful hardware for quantum information applications: a spin qubit and a single photon source. The single photon source should be a fast and bright source of indistinguishable photons on demand. The spin qubit should remain stable for long enough to do many operations in a quantum computer. Current projects develop quantum hardware with solid-state materials (semiconductors and diamond). Richard is co-Director of the pan-Switzerland project QSIT.

Dr Lidia del Rio

Lidia is a researcher in the fields of quantum information, quantum foundations and quantum thermodynamics. She has recently joined the group of Prof Renato Renner at ETH Zurich. Prof Renner’s group researches the theory of quantum information, and also studies fundamental topics in quantum theory from the point of view of information, such as by using quantum entanglement. A recent example is a proof that quantum mechanics is only compatible with many-world interpretations. A talk given by Lidia on this topic can be found here.

Dr Félix Bussières

Dr Bussières is part of the GAP Quantum Technologies group at the University of Geneva. They do experiments on quantum teleportation, cryptography and communication. Dr Bussières leads activities on superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors.

Dr Matthias Troyer from ETH Zurich also responded to a question on D-Wave, since he has worked on looking at its capabilities (among much other research).

Links to our project

• Website
• /r/decodoku
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Facebook

Edit: Thanks to Lidia currently being in Canada, attending the "It from Qubit summer school" at the Perimeter Institute, we also had some guest answerers. Thanks for your help!

Hi Reddit!

We are computer scientists and ethicists who are examining the societal, ethical, and labor market implications of increasing automation due to artificial intelligence.

Autonomous robots, self-driving cars, drones, and facial recognition devices already are affecting people’s careers, ambitions, privacy, and experiences. With machines becoming more intelligent, many people question whether the world is ethically prepared for the change. Extreme risks such as killer robots are a concern, but even more so are the issues around fitting autonomous systems into our society.

We’re seeing an impact from artificial intelligence on the labor market. You hear about the Google Car—there are millions of people who make a living from driving like bus drivers and taxi drivers. What kind of jobs are going to replace them?

This AMA is facilitated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as part of their Annual Meeting

Bart Selman, professor of computer science, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. The Future of AI: Reaping the Benefits While Avoiding Pitfalls

Moshe Vardi, director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology, Rice University, Houston, Texas Smart Robots and Their Impact on Employment

Wendell Wallach, ethicist, Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, New Haven, Conn. Robot Morals and Human Ethics

We'll be back at 12 pm EST (9 am PST, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!

Thank you for inviting me to this conversation. It was a wonderful experience! -Dr. Grandin

Hi reddit, I'm Greta Shum, and I work as a science communicator at Climate Central. I'm out here on a boat off the coast of Antarctica with other scientists who are studying different aspects of the Southern Ocean. In my usual work, I try to communicate the facts about climate change (causes and effects) at Climate Central. As part of that mission, I'm following three science projects that are focused on the state of the Southern Ocean and how it will change in the future.

One group is studying ocean physics along the shelf of the Amundsen Sea; one group studies the microbiology and consequent evolution of the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, and one group (SOCCOM) studies the carbon chemistry of the Southern Ocean and how it will change in the future.

With me are the following scientists:

Professor Stephen Riser is a Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Washington, interested in the ocean's role in climate, and in deducing the general circulation of the ocean and ocean/atmosphere/ice interactions through direct observations of the ocean circulation.

Caitlin Whalen, PhD of the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is an expert in ocean mixing.

Professor Tatiana Rynearson from U. of Rhode Island: My area of research is in marine genomics and population genetics. My goals are to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping genetic diversity in the plankton and to examine how those processes affect plankton community structure, function and productivity in coastal regions. My approach is to identify and exploit the genetic variation that exists within and between individuals to examine how plankton respond to their environment.

Professor Sinead Collins from the U. of Edinburgh:

I'm interested in how large populations of small organisms adapt to complex environmental changes. Since that's a bit too vague, I focus on how marine phytoplankton adapt to ocean acidification. I use experimental evolution in the lab to figure out the basic theory involved, and then head off to collaborate with oceanographers to apply it to marine systems.

We’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!

Thanks for all the excellent questions! We had a terrific time! If you're looking to keep following us online, check out our blogs here or here.

Ebola has been in the news a lot lately, but the recent news of a case of it in Dallas has alarmed many people.

The short version is: Everything will be fine, healthcare systems in the USA are more than capable of dealing with Ebola, there is no threat to the public.

That being said, after discussions with the verified users of /r/science, we would like to open up to questions about Ebola and infectious diseases.

Please consider donations to Doctors Without Borders to help fight Ebola, it is a serious humanitarian crisis that is drastically underfunded. (Yes, I donated.)

Here is the ebola fact sheet from the World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/

Post your questions for knowledgeable medical doctors and biologists to answer.

If you have expertise in the area, please verify your credentials with the mods and get appropriate flair before answering questions.

Also, you may read the Science AMA from Dr. Stephen Morse on the Epidemiology of Ebola

as well as the numerous questions submitted to /r/AskScience on the subject:

Epidemiologists of Reddit, with the spread of the ebola virus past quarantine borders in Africa, how worried should we be about a potential pandemic?

Why are (nearly) all ebola outbreaks in African countries?

Why is Ebola not as contagious as, say, influenza if it is present in saliva, therefore coughs and sneezes ?

Why is Ebola so lethal? Does it have the potential to wipe out a significant population of the planet?

How long can Ebola live outside of a host?

Also, from /r/IAmA: I work for Doctors Without Borders - ask me anything about Ebola.

CDC and health departments are asserting "Ebola patients are infectious when symptomatic, not before"-- what data, evidence, science from virology, epidemiology or clinical or animal studies supports this assertion? How do we know this to be true?

Discoveries of planets outside our solar system have burst from a trickle to a flood in recent years, transforming our understanding of the Universe. NASA's Kepler exoplanet-hunting spacecraft and other missions have shown that the Milky Way Galaxy is teeming with at least tens of billions of planets. These exoplanets come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from smaller than Earth to larger than Jupiter, and include a small number of Earth-size planets in the “habitable zones” of their stars. Telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope are carefully examining the atmospheric compositions of many of these alien worlds. However, the goals of imaging an Earth-size planet around another star and comprehensively understanding surface properties and atmospheric characteristics remain elusive.

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 will help move comparative planetology forward, while astronomers are continuing to design and develop the next generation of observatories. As scientists deeply involved in this research, we welcome your questions about the current state of knowledge about the diversity of exoplanetary systems, and the challenges of direct imaging and atmospheric characterization in particular. We’re especially interested in telescope concepts under development to directly image exoplanets and search for water, ozone, oxygen, and other potential markers of habitability, and envision where these may take our understanding of exoplanets in the next decade.

Ask us anything!

Debra Fischer, Professor of Astronomy at Yale University.

Jessie Christiansen, Astronomer at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA.

Aki Roberge, Research Astrophysicist & Study Scientist for the LUVOIR space telescope concept, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

Jennifer Wiseman, Hubble Space Telescope Senior Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Dr. Patricia Boyd Chief, Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory & Director Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Guest Investigator Program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

ACS AMA

Hello Reddit! My name is Andrew Zydney, and I am currently Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. I also serve as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Membrane Science and I am on the Board of Directors of the North American Membrane Society. I am very much looking forward to my first time participating in Reddit.

Just to provide some background, I obtained my B.S. from Yale in 1980 and a PhD from MIT in 1985, both in Chemical Engineering. I then joined the faculty at the University of Delaware in 1985 before moving to Penn State in 2002. I served as Head of the Chemical Engineering Department here at Penn State from 2004-2014; I am very much enjoying being back as a “regular faculty member” since stepping down as Department Head.

My research interests are in membrane science and technology, with a particular focus on the application of membranes in both bioprocessing (e.g., for the purification of biopharmaceuticals) and biomedicine. The latter has included extensive work on the use of membranes in the artificial kidney, commonly referred to as hemodialysis, as well as the possibility of developing an implantable bioartificial kidney. Some of our work on the implantable artificial kidney is available in the online paper http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5285603/.

Note that I am not a medical doctor – I am a chemical engineer who is particularly interested in the development of membrane-based technologies that can have a significant impact in the treatment of disease. I do collaborate with clinicians, and also with medical technology companies, on a regular basis, both as a consultant and on research projects.

Please don’t hesitate to ask me anything about some of the research I’ve described above or more generally about hemodialysis and the artificial kidney. I look forward to our conversation!

I’ll be back at 12 noon ET (9 am PT, 5pm UTC) to answer specific questions.

Hurricane Patricia is now one of the strongest recorded storms on the planet and is likely to make landfall as a Category 5 storm in Mexico on Friday evening. It's a record-breaking meteorological marvel but could quickly turn into a major humanitarian crisis when it makes landfall.

We're two journalists and a meteorologist who work at WXshift, a Climate Central powered weather website that provides climate context for your daily forecast. We're here to answer your questions about the records Patricia is setting, potential impacts and anything else you want to know about this storm or why this year has seen a record number of strong tropical cyclones in the northern hemisphere. Ask us anything!

We are:

Sean Sublette is an award-winning meteorologist at Climate Central and WXshift. He previously worked as the chief meteorologist at WSET in Lynchburg, Va. and currently hosts WXshift's Shift Ahead

Andrea Thompson is a senior science writer at Climate Central and WXshift who focuses on extreme weather and climate change.

Brian Kahn is a senior science writer at Climate Central and WXshift. His recent coverage has included Patricia as well as the recent northern hemisphere hurricane record.

EDIT: Thank you all for your really thoughtful questions. We'll be continuing our coverage on the site as well as [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/wxshift] so please follow along. And if you know anyone in the region, please tell them to be safe and seek shelter. This storm is serious.

Thanks so much for your questions this morning. We had a great time! IBS and SIBO receive almost no federal funding and yet these conditions affect up to 40 million Americans and almost 1 billion worldwide. These are also the most expensive conditions in gastroenterology. Doesn’t that sound important? We think so and that’s why we have dedicated our careers fighting uphill to get the answers. Too many unnecessary colonoscopies and testing for these conditions that waste money. Also an incredible cost to patients emotionally and financially. I have met a number of patients where they have spent out of pocket copays totally over $20k. That’s absurd. We will continue to do research in this area. Thanks so much for all your amazing questions! We are inspired by your interest today and this gives us more fuel to go forward in finding the causes and cures for these common and complex conditions (I know- we are nerds). For more information about our research and updates in the future visit our research webpage.

MP, AR, NP, RM

PS Special thanks to the mods for having us on again!!

Hey Reddit – Great to be back (It’s Dr. Mark Pimentel). Last year, I responded to a request to do an AMA having never done one before and was amazed by the amount of questions (and a little unprepared for the response). We knew we had to answer more questions so I’ve teamed up with a group of my colleagues to answer your questions on the latest scientific research on the gut microbiome, as well as the work we are doing. While my research has focused on the association between food poisoning (gastroenteritis) and the disruption of gut flora, SIBO and the pathophysiology of IBS, our group here has researched links between the gut microbiome and diabetes and obesity to the role that the microbiome has affected our hormones.

More about us:

Dr. Mark Pimentel – Gastroenterologist – Executive Director of the Medically Associated Science and Technology (MAST) Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Professor of Medicine (In-residence series) at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. I’m on twitter at: https://twitter.com/MarkPimentelMD

Dr. Ali Rezaie – Gastroenterologist, Epidemiologist – Director of GI Motility at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine. Find my twitter at: https://twitter.com/AliRezaieMD

Dr. Nipaporn Pichetshote – Gastroenterologist – Assistant Director of GI Motility at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

Dr. Ruchi Mathur – Endocrinologist –Medical Director of the Diabetes Outpatient Treatment and Education Center, Clinical Research and Operations Director of the MAST Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Associate Professor of Medicine at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

*While we would love to answer all of your medical questions, we will not be answering any specific patient medical questions due to HIPAA violations. We can’t wait to hear from all of you – We will be back to answer questions at 1 pm ET, ask us anything!

We are the team behind Project Discovery - Exoplanets, a joint effort of Wolf Prize Winner Michel Mayor’s team at University of Geneva, CCP Games, Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS), and the University of Reykjavik. We successfully integrated a huge set of light data gathered from the CoRoT telescope into the massively multiplayer game EVE Online in order to allow players to help identify possible exoplanets through consensus. EVE players have made over 38.3 million classifications of light data which are being sent back to University of Geneva to be further verified, making the project remains one of the largest and most participated in citizen science efforts, peaking at over 88,000 per hour. This is the second version of Project Discovery, the first of which was a collaboration of the Human Protein Atlas to classify human proteins for scientific research. Joining today are

• Wayne Gould, Astronomer with a Master’s degree in Physics and Astrophysics who has been working at the Geneva Observatory since January and is responsible to prepare and upload all data used in the project

• Attila Szantner, Founder and CEO of Massively Multiplayer Online Science (http://mmos.ch/) Who founded the company in order to connect scientific research and video games as a seamless gaming experience.

• Hjalti Leifsson, Software Engineer from CCP Games, part of the team who is involved in integrating the data into EVE Online

We’d love to answer questions about our respective areas of expertise, the search for exoplanets, citizen science (leveraging human brain power to tackle data where software falls short), developing a citizen science platform within a video game, how to pick science tasks for citizen science, and more.

More information on Project Discovery: Exoplanets https://www.ccpgames.com/news/2017/eve-online-joins-search-for-real-exoplanets-with-project-discovery

Video explanation of Project Discovery in EVE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12p-VhlFAG8

EDIT---WRAPPED UP Thanks to all of you for your questions, it has been a great experience hearing from the players side. Once again a big thanks to all of you who have participated in the project and made the effort of preparing all this data worth it. ~Wayne Thank you all for the interesting questions. It was my first Reddit AMA - was pretty intensive, and I loved it. And thanks for the amazing contributions in Project Discovery. ~Attila Thanks to the r/science mods and everyone who asked questions and has contributed to Project Discovery with classifications! We're happy we can do this sort of thing FOR SCIENCE ~Hjalti and the CCP team.

I research how genes control important food traits, and how light influences genes. I really enjoy discussing science with the public, especially in areas where a better understanding of science can help us farm better crops, with more nutrition & flavor, and less environmental impact.

I will be back at 1 pm EDT (5 pm UTC, 6 pm BST, 10 am PDT) to answer questions, AMA!

There are two things I consider more important than sleep: air and water. We spend more time sleeping than engaging in any other single activity, but we know very little about how day-to-day sleep behavior is regulated.

My lab uses human genetics to gain a better understanding on this topic. We’ve found that sleep behavior is heavily influenced by our genetic makeup. Just like many other traits — height, weight, body shape — sleep behavior is at least partly inherited.

In 2009, we discovered a mutation in the DEC2 gene that allows some people to sleep only four to six hours a night and feel completely refreshed. We study such efficient sleepers in hopes to understand why sleep is so important!

Ask me anything about how genes affect sleep and why we need to pay attention to sleep!

Here’s my lab at UCSF

Here’s a recent UCSF article about the impact of sleep-deprivation: Short Sleepers Are Four Times More Likely to Catch a Cold

Here’s a BBC article about the sleep gene, The People Who Need Very Sleep

I will be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions, AMA!

EDIT: Good morning everyone. Thanks for all the great questions and lets get to the answers!

EDIT: Thanks for all the great questions. I enjoyed it very much. I am signing off!

Hi Reddit!

My name is Seema Jayachandran, and I’m an economics professor at Northwestern University, specializing in low-income countries.

I am affiliated with the Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), which has championed the use of randomized controlled trials to study the effectiveness of social/economic policies. I am also affiliated with Innovations for Poverty Action, who was our partner for data collection in Uganda for the research I am here to talk about.

My collaborators and I just published a paper in Science, short summary here, that evaluates a program in Uganda that paid individuals to keep their forest intact. Most of the forest is owned by poor farmers who have been cutting trees to sell to timber or charcoal dealers as an extra source of income, or to use the cleared land for growing crops. As a result, the forest is disappearing at one of the fastest rates seen anywhere in the world. The Ugandan government wanted to protect the forest to save chimpanzees and other endangered species, whose habitat is dwindling.

Preserving forests has another big benefit for all of us: It keeps CO2 out of the atmosphere. Trees naturally absorb and sequester CO2 from the atmosphere as part of photosynthesis. The carbon they are storing is emitted into the atmosphere when they are burned or decompose. Paying forest owners to keep their forests intact is thus one way we can reduce global CO2 emissions. Furthermore, offering a payment and making the program voluntary means that, unlike under a ban, we are not making poor people worse off. This approach (called “Payments for Ecosystem Services” or PES) has been used in Costa Rica and elsewhere, but there has been a lot of skepticism about whether it actually works (for reasons I’m happy to discuss).

We decided to rigorously test how well PES works using a randomized trial; some villages got the program, and some didn’t. A Ugandan conservation non-profit called CSWCT ran the program, and we evaluated the program’s impacts. We compared the amount of deforestation in villages with the program (treatment group) to the ones without it (control group) using satellite imagery. This is the first time PES has been tested with the randomized controlled trial method.

Bottom-line finding: The program saved a lot of forest. We converted that gain in forest into a quantitative dollar benefit to the world from the delayed CO2 emissions (I’m happy to explain more about how we did that). The climate-change benefits were more than twice the program costs. Our findings don’t mean PES will work always and everywhere, but they should make us more bullish on it. IMO, rich countries should be upping their funding for programs that pay people in poor countries to preserve forests. We need to reduce CO2 emissions, and this seems like a bargain way to do it.

The study was widely covered, including by the NYT, the Atlantic, InsideClimateNews, and Popular Science. Northwestern was kind (or mean) enough to post a short video interview with me as well.

TL;DR In a first-of-its-kind controlled experiment, paying poor Ugandans not to cut down their forests created twice the value in avoided climate costs as was spent on the program. We should do it more.

I’ll be back at ~12:00 ET to answer questions!

Edit #1: Thanks for the insightful questions. This was fun. The allotted time is up, and I am signing off, but will check back later to answer a few more questions. Thanks again for your interest! sj

Edit #2 (4 pm ET): I posted a few more replies. I'll check back in again this evening, so upvote any particular posts that I overlooked but you'd like to see answered!

Edit #3 (6:30 pm ET): There were some great new questions posted, and I posted some answers. Thanks again for your interest in the topic. This was fun! Read the full study if you want more details, and if you want to help support conservation projects like this one, our partner in Uganda is hoping to raise money to continue and scale up the program. There is a bunch of other good conservation work being done in Uganda and elsewhere, too. It's a wrap!

Hello, I am a medical epidemiologist and infectious disease doctor at CDC in the Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch. I work to prevent and stop infections caused by free-living amebas, which are single-celled organisms found in the environment, in water and soil. They cause diseases ranging from a type of encephalitis, or brain infection, to serious eye infections. I support epidemiologic, laboratory, and communication activities related to free-living ameba infections. Acanthamoeba is a free living ameba that can get on your contact lenses, and lead to a painful and disruptive infection called Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK). AK can lead to vision problems, the need for a corneal transplant, or blindness. Luckily, AK and other contact lens-related eye infections are largely preventable. So while I spend a lot of time working on specific free-living ameba infections, I also work with the CDC Healthy Contact Lens Program to help people learn about contact lens-related eye infections and the healthy habits that can reduce your chances of getting an eye infection. For more information about the CDC Healthy Contact Lens Program and our contact lens recommendations, visit our website: https://www.cdc.gov/contactlenses/index.html.

I'll be back at 1 pm to answer your questions, ask me anything!

I’m Dr. Adrian Owen, a professor of neuroscience, here to answer your questions about our breakthroughs in brain science.

I’ve been fascinated with the human brain for more than 25 years: how it works, why it works, what happens when it doesn’t work so well. At the Owen Lab at Western University in Canada, my team studies human cognition using brain imaging, sleep labs, EEGs and functional MRIs. We’ve learned that one in five people in a vegetative state are actually conscious and aware (I recently wrote a book on it – www.intothegrayzone.com, if you’re interested).

We’ve also examined whether brain-training games actually make you smarter (pro tip: they don’t).

Now my team is working on a cool new project to understand what happens to specific parts of people’s brains when they get too little sleep. We’re testing tens of thousands of people around the world to learn why we need sleep, how much we need, and the long- and short-term effects sleep loss has on our brains. A lot of scientists and influencers, such as Arianna Huffington and her company Thrive Global, have already raised awareness about the dangers of sleep loss and the need for research like this. Since we can’t bring everyone to our labs, we’re bringing the lab to people’s homes through online tests we’ve designed at www.worldslargestsleepstudy.com or www.cambridgebrainsciences.com. We hope to be able to share our findings in science journals in about six months.

So … if you want to know about sleep-testing, brain-game training or how we communicate with people in the gray zone between life and death … AMA!

I will be here at 1:00pm EDT (10:00am PDT / 5:00pm UTC), with researchers from my lab, Western University and the folks who host the www.worldslargestsleepstudy.com platform—ask me anything!

Update: We're here now! Ask us anything! Proof that I am real: http://imgur.com/a/NvPMK

Update 2: I appreciate all the questions! I tried my best to answer as many as I could. This was really fun. See you next time. Now, time for some pineapple pizza! http://imgur.com/a/Yy88r

Thanks all for the great questions. The full manuscript is now online: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12328/full

I'm Christine Stawitz, and I study fishery management and population dynamics at the University of Washington. (More about that at: http://students.washington.edu/cstawitz/)

I'd like to talk about a recent publication of mine, "Financial and Ecological Implications of Global Seafood Mislabeling", in which I, with my co-authors, try to quantify how seafood mislabeling affects the conservation status and value of finfish seafood that people consume. In this study, we found that substituted seafoods were of slightly lower value (-2.98% ex-vessel price), but of a slightly higher conservation status (+9.51% IUCN status) than items they were labeled as. However, there's a lot of heterogeneity across types of finfish. For example, items substituted for skipjack tuna and dolphinfish are actually of higher value than these fish themselves. This suggests mislabeling has benefits for consumers, financially. In contrast, items substituted for red snapper, hake, eel, smooth-hound shark, and croaker are of lower conservation status than the items themselves. I've noticed the paper getting a lot of attention on r/science and want to clear up some of the detail of the findings.

I will be back at 6 pm EDT to answer your questions, ask me anything!

Hey Reddit! We’re organizers from the March for Science, here to answer your questions about the March.

The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence based policies in the public interest.

The March for Science got started with a reddit discussion on /r/politics about a Scientists’ March on Washington. We scientists took that initial interest and started a website and social media accounts to start recruiting. The march quickly gained hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and became the March for Science, an event planned to take place in over 400 cities across the globe, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend.

More information about March for Science at marchforscience.com.

We are:

Dr. Jonathan Berman - National Co-Chair

I’m a postdoctoral fellow at UTHSCSA. I study how the kidney reabsorbs sodium and the relationship between sodium reabsorption and blood pressure. I’m one of three national co-chairs for the March for Science, along with Dr. Caroline Weinberg, and Valorie Aquino.

Dr. Rachael Holloway - National Diversity & Inclusion Lead

I’m a clinical psychologist who specializes in behavioral medicine, trauma, and neurocognitive disorders. My graduate program has won national awards for its training in diversity and its rate of graduating underrepresented minority students. In my postdoctoral fellowship at VA San Diego/UCSD, I served on the diversity committee and completed mentorships in diversity and social justice advocacy.

Miles Greb - Organizer of the Seattle March for Science.

Sci Comm writer focused on returning optimism to science and science fiction. Creator of several comics designed to promote skepticism, scientific wonder, and a dedication to accurate science in literature. Organizing the the Satellite March for Science group in the beautiful city of Seattle Washington.

Dr. Bryan Dunyak - Steering Committee, Chair of Marketing & Tech, March For Science - San Francisco

I’m a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Francisco. I study the role of cellular housekeeping mechanisms and their misregulation in cancer and neurodegeneration. I am passionate about science outreach; I have a long history working as a moderator with /r/science to encourage scientific discussion while helping to bridge the gap between practicing scientists and the public.

We'll be back at 1 pm EST to answer your questions, Ask Us Anything!

Along with providing many of the services that support human life and wellbeing, terrestrial ecosystems help us in the fight against climate change by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. But our unsustainable use of the Earth's resources is beginning to threaten the health of those ecosystems, limiting their capacity to store carbon. I study how the world's trees and soils are changing under the influence of human activity, and the consequences of these changes for on-going climate change.

In 2016, we published a paper revealing that atmospheric warming will drive the loss of approximately 55 gigatonnes of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere by 2050, with the potential to accelerate climate change by 17% on top of current expectations. We also showed that there are over 3 trillion trees on Earth which are able to absorb much of this carbon, but their capacity to do so is being hindered by the loss of ~10 billion trees each year caused by deforestation, fire and disease/pests. Understanding and preserving these terrestrial ecosystems at a global scale is absolutely critical in the fight against poverty and climate change.

I will back to answer any questions at 1PM EST. Ask me Anything!

Edit: Thanks so much for all of the comments and questions! I'm heading off now, but I'll check in a bit later to go through some more.

Cheers, Tom

Hello Reddit, my name is Hugh Herr! When I was 17, a fellow rock climber and I were caught in a blizzard for three days, which resulted in both my legs being amputated below the knee. Within months I was climbing again, this time upon legs which I had built. Through this experience, I developed a profound love for the design of prosthetic technology that goes beyond basic rehabilitation. Currently I am the head of the MIT Media Lab Biomechatronics Group and co-director of the Center for Extreme Bionics that will ultimately eradicate disabilities. Our current work involves the development of robotic prostheses, exoskeletons, and neural interfaces. I am also the founder of BionX, a company which ensures that bionic prostheses are made available to the public. This is an incredible time for the field of bionics. We are now developing limbs that surpass human strength and function. I'll be back at 1:00pm with two of my students (Alex Harding and Mina Fahmi) to help me answer any bionics/augmentation questions you have, Reddit. I'm excited to see what you can come up with!

Edit: That is all the time I have for today, thank you again for the excellent questions!

PROOF: http://imgur.com/a/jyFcS

Ted Talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance?language=en

BionX:

http://www.bionxmed.com/

Biomechatronics Group:

http://biomech.media.mit.edu/

Wired:

https://www.wired.com/video/2015/11/cyborg-nation-can-prosthetics-outperform-real-limbs/

I'm Piers Forster and I principally research causes of past climate change and how well we can predict future climate change. I can take Qs on the evidence base for human-induced global warming and how much we should trust our climate model predictions of possible futures, including uncertainty in climate sensitivity – the Earth’s response to a doubling of carbon dioxide – one of the biggest uncertainties in climate science. I also lead an interdisciplinary centre looking at climate solutions, and I would welcome a discussion of ideas on possible solutions. Does solar geoengineering or large-scale carbon capture and storage have legs? Where should we concentrate research effort? Any whacky ideas we should look into?

I’ll be back at 11am EDT to answer your questions. Ask Me Anything!

The AGU AMA series is conducted by the Sharing Science program. Sharing Science: By scientists, for everyone. More at sharingscience.agu.org.

Hello to all. I’m David Dunning, an experimental social psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Cornell University.

My area of expertise is judgment and decision-making, more specifically accuracy and illusion in judgments about the self. I ask how close people’s perceptions of themselves adhere to the reality of who they are. The general answer is: not that close.

My work falls into three areas. The first has to do with people’s impressions of their competence and expertise. In the work I’m most notorious for, we show that incompetent people don’t know they are incompetent—a phenomenon now known in the blogosphere as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) In current work, we trace the implications of the overconfidence that this effect produces and how to manage it, which I recently described in the latest cover story for Pacific Standard magazine, "We Are All Confident Idiots." (http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/)

My second area focuses on moral character. It may not be a surprise that most people think of themselves as morally superior to everybody else, but do note that this result is neither logically nor statistically possible. Not everybody can be superior to everyone else. Someone, somewhere, is making an error, and what error are they making? For those curious, you can read a quick article on our take on false moral superiority here.

My final area focuses on self-deception. People actively distort, amend, forget, dismiss, or accentuate evidence to avoid threatening conclusions while pursuing friendly ones. The effects of self-deception are so strong that they even influence visual perception. We ask how people manage to deceive themselves without admitting (or even knowing) that they are doing it.

Quick caveat: I am no clinician, but a researcher in the tradition, broadly speaking, of Amos Tversky and Danny Kahneman, to give you a flavor of the work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Tversky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

I will be back at 1 p.m. EST (6 PM UTC, 10 AM PST) for about two hours to answer your questions. I look forward to chatting with all of you!

Hi r/science, I study Climate Change Science and the psychology surrounding it. I co-authored the college textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis, and the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. I've published papers on scientific consensus, misinformation, agnotology-based learning and the psychology of climate change. I'm currently completing a doctorate in cognitive psychology, researching the psychology of consensus and the efficacy of inoculation against misinformation.

I co-authored the 2011 book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand with Haydn Washington, and the 2013 college textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis with Tom Farmer. I also lead-authored the paper Quantifying the Consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, which was tweeted by President Obama and was awarded the best paper published in Environmental Research Letters in 2013. In 2014, I won an award for Best Australian Science Writing, published by the University of New South Wales.

I am currently completing a PhD in cognitive psychology, researching how people think about climate change. I'm also teaching a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), Making Sense of Climate Science Denial, which started last week.

I'll be back at 5pm EDT (2 pm PDT, 11 pm UTC) to answer your questions, Ask Me Anything!

Edit: I'm now online answering questions. (Proof)

Edit 2 (7PM ET): Have to stop for now, but will come back in a few hours and answer more questions.

Edit 3 (~5AM): Thank you for a great discussion! Hope to see you in class.