Val 🏳️⚧️
@microvalevolent.bsky.social
I paint with watercolors on microscope slides and call it stained glass panels, find my art on instagram @microvalevolent
Research Director, Center on Contemporary Art Seattle @cocaseattle.bsky.social
Nonbinary human
Research Director, Center on Contemporary Art Seattle @cocaseattle.bsky.social
Nonbinary human
Pinned
Val 🏳️⚧️
@microvalevolent.bsky.social
· Dec 10
@cartamonir.com This is only a beginning, but I had to show you the first three. I want to show my appreciation, my worship of those who have taught me so much. Carta, you have saved me. Thank you.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
For World AIDS Day 2025: the stigma of HIV & AIDS was so strong that many avoided talking about their diagnosis until their final days.
In other cases, the families kept the secret for decades after.
Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, Gia Carangi, Anthony Perkins... and Isaac Asimov.
In other cases, the families kept the secret for decades after.
Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, Gia Carangi, Anthony Perkins... and Isaac Asimov.
In 1983, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had triple bypass surgery at NYU Medical Center, during which he contracted HIV from transfusions.
His doctors advised him not to disclose his status because of anti-AIDS sentiment.
He died 1992 from AIDS-related complications.
His doctors advised him not to disclose his status because of anti-AIDS sentiment.
He died 1992 from AIDS-related complications.
December 1, 2025 at 6:56 PM
For World AIDS Day 2025: the stigma of HIV & AIDS was so strong that many avoided talking about their diagnosis until their final days.
In other cases, the families kept the secret for decades after.
Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, Gia Carangi, Anthony Perkins... and Isaac Asimov.
In other cases, the families kept the secret for decades after.
Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, Gia Carangi, Anthony Perkins... and Isaac Asimov.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Katie Sandwina or Brumbach (1884 – 1952) was an Austrian American circus strongwoman.
In 1902 she defeated the famous strongman Eugen Sandow in a weightlifting contest in New York City.
In 1902 she defeated the famous strongman Eugen Sandow in a weightlifting contest in New York City.
August 22, 2024 at 6:59 PM
Katie Sandwina or Brumbach (1884 – 1952) was an Austrian American circus strongwoman.
In 1902 she defeated the famous strongman Eugen Sandow in a weightlifting contest in New York City.
In 1902 she defeated the famous strongman Eugen Sandow in a weightlifting contest in New York City.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
One of the tragedies of growing up is it's apparently no longer "socially acceptable" to carry around a cool rock & show it to people you meet.
So I have to respect the Chinese, Korean & Japanese for having a tradition of finding cool rocks & displaying them.
Let's talk about scholar's stones.
So I have to respect the Chinese, Korean & Japanese for having a tradition of finding cool rocks & displaying them.
Let's talk about scholar's stones.
November 20, 2025 at 2:12 PM
One of the tragedies of growing up is it's apparently no longer "socially acceptable" to carry around a cool rock & show it to people you meet.
So I have to respect the Chinese, Korean & Japanese for having a tradition of finding cool rocks & displaying them.
Let's talk about scholar's stones.
So I have to respect the Chinese, Korean & Japanese for having a tradition of finding cool rocks & displaying them.
Let's talk about scholar's stones.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Scientists should graduate ready to share what they know, effectively. Even the top science programs in our country do not require science communication and public engagement for their graduates. This is dangerous. Let's change the future. Sign the petition to make a difference: bit.ly/3LbnfHB
November 13, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Scientists should graduate ready to share what they know, effectively. Even the top science programs in our country do not require science communication and public engagement for their graduates. This is dangerous. Let's change the future. Sign the petition to make a difference: bit.ly/3LbnfHB
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Scientists should be good story-tellers, but we don't include enough training on how to tell stories that people can understand.
What I love to see: 'lightning talks' / '5 minute seminars' for the general public as outreach efforts.
Those skills translate to industry, too.
What I love to see: 'lightning talks' / '5 minute seminars' for the general public as outreach efforts.
Those skills translate to industry, too.
Scientists should graduate ready to share what they know, effectively. Even the top science programs in our country do not require science communication and public engagement for their graduates. This is dangerous. Let's change the future. Sign the petition to make a difference: bit.ly/3LbnfHB
November 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Scientists should be good story-tellers, but we don't include enough training on how to tell stories that people can understand.
What I love to see: 'lightning talks' / '5 minute seminars' for the general public as outreach efforts.
Those skills translate to industry, too.
What I love to see: 'lightning talks' / '5 minute seminars' for the general public as outreach efforts.
Those skills translate to industry, too.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history.
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
November 13, 2025 at 11:33 AM
As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history.
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
#Fungi, #Feathers, and #Insects Spring from Carol Long’s #Art Nouveau Vessels
Link for more: www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/09/caro...
Link for more: www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/09/caro...
November 10, 2025 at 11:24 PM
#Fungi, #Feathers, and #Insects Spring from Carol Long’s #Art Nouveau Vessels
Link for more: www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/09/caro...
Link for more: www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/09/caro...
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
we're following closely... 👏👏👏
glad to see an "update" to > smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
glad to see an "update" to > smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
November 8, 2025 at 1:36 PM
we're following closely... 👏👏👏
glad to see an "update" to > smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
glad to see an "update" to > smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
My ask of any science enthusiasts who tell the story of Rosalind Franklin:
Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author.
Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.
Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author.
Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.
Her sister wrote my favorite essay about her. She points out that RF would have been famous even if she'd never looked at DNA
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Remembering my sister Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 aged 37 years. Sympathy and feminism
have combined to give us her familiar image as a downtrodden woman scientist, brilliant
but neglected, a heroine t...
www.thelancet.com
November 8, 2025 at 2:17 AM
My ask of any science enthusiasts who tell the story of Rosalind Franklin:
Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author.
Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.
Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author.
Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Swashing: a propulsion-independent form of bacterial surface migration journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs
November 4, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
I am so upset.
Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/
Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/
To be asked to write about racism only to be racially aggressed in the editing process is a new level unlocked I have to say.
November 3, 2025 at 9:35 PM
I am so upset.
Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/
Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
I think everyone should read this communication before trying to defend the Foundation.
Wikipedia is, and has been for a long time, complicit in genocide.
The damage is done, systemic, and no amount of good-faith editors will fix it without institutional accountability.
ifex.org/concerns-rai...
Wikipedia is, and has been for a long time, complicit in genocide.
The damage is done, systemic, and no amount of good-faith editors will fix it without institutional accountability.
ifex.org/concerns-rai...
November 3, 2025 at 9:31 PM
I think everyone should read this communication before trying to defend the Foundation.
Wikipedia is, and has been for a long time, complicit in genocide.
The damage is done, systemic, and no amount of good-faith editors will fix it without institutional accountability.
ifex.org/concerns-rai...
Wikipedia is, and has been for a long time, complicit in genocide.
The damage is done, systemic, and no amount of good-faith editors will fix it without institutional accountability.
ifex.org/concerns-rai...
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Amazing work #sciart
Art and Data Team Up Against Climate Change
www.nytimes.com
November 2, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Amazing work #sciart
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Our diatom paper walks in the footsteps of giants :) Meet the mother paper also out today from the @dudinlab.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social @gautamdey.bsky.social in @cellpress.bsky.social on a full catalogue of 200 microeuks... 3/n
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Charting the landscape of cytoskeletal diversity in microbial eukaryotes
An imaging resource of over 200 microbial eukaryotic species provides a glimpse into
the remarkable universe of cytoskeletal diversity.
www.cell.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
The @chicago.suntimes.com photographer who risked their personal health and safety to take this photograph is Anthony Vazquez. Please credit photographers and media outlets. In this age of misinformation, a photo with no context could be anything at all.
Please remind us who the domestic terrorists are again.
October 15, 2025 at 12:16 AM
The @chicago.suntimes.com photographer who risked their personal health and safety to take this photograph is Anthony Vazquez. Please credit photographers and media outlets. In this age of misinformation, a photo with no context could be anything at all.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.
October 12, 2025 at 4:12 PM
This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Holy moly
Direct single-molecule detection and super-resolution imaging with a low-cost portable smartphone-based microscope www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs
Direct single-molecule detection and super-resolution imaging with a low-cost portable smartphone-based microscope - Nature Communications
Loretan and colleagues present a low-cost smartphone-based microscope capable of detecting single-molecule fluorescence. This approach opens doors to personalised and widely distributed applications in diagnostics, biosensing, and science education.
www.nature.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Holy moly
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
For the first time, microbes are part of global conservation efforts. 🌍🧫
The IUCN’s new Microbial Conservation Specialist Group— including @symbionticism.bsky.social —aims to protect the unseen majority of life on Earth.
Read more:
www.psu.edu/news/eberly-...
The IUCN’s new Microbial Conservation Specialist Group— including @symbionticism.bsky.social —aims to protect the unseen majority of life on Earth.
Read more:
www.psu.edu/news/eberly-...
New microorganism survival commission aims to fill critical conservation gap | Penn State University
For the first time, the International Union for Conservation of Nature is formally including all microbial life in its framework by establishing a Microbial Conservation Specialist Group, which includ...
www.psu.edu
October 6, 2025 at 2:04 PM
For the first time, microbes are part of global conservation efforts. 🌍🧫
The IUCN’s new Microbial Conservation Specialist Group— including @symbionticism.bsky.social —aims to protect the unseen majority of life on Earth.
Read more:
www.psu.edu/news/eberly-...
The IUCN’s new Microbial Conservation Specialist Group— including @symbionticism.bsky.social —aims to protect the unseen majority of life on Earth.
Read more:
www.psu.edu/news/eberly-...
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Monte Dolack, 1995
September 26, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Monte Dolack, 1995
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Positive Microbiology in the Movies - Sánchez‐Angulo - 2025 - Microbial Biotechnology - Wiley Online Library enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#MicroSky
#MicroSky
Positive Microbiology in the Movies
How ‘Positive Microbiology’ is portrayed in commercial movies and its potential as a tool for education and engaging general audiences to counteract germaphobia. Image done with freepik.
enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Positive Microbiology in the Movies - Sánchez‐Angulo - 2025 - Microbial Biotechnology - Wiley Online Library enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#MicroSky
#MicroSky
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
September 24, 2025 at 8:30 PM
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Two Democratic politicians in Minnesota were shot and killed in June and Trump said calling the state’s Democratic governor to give his condolences were a “waste of time.”
September 10, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Two Democratic politicians in Minnesota were shot and killed in June and Trump said calling the state’s Democratic governor to give his condolences were a “waste of time.”
Reposted by Val 🏳️⚧️
Did you know tiny algae can "skate" within Arctic sea ice? ⛸️ Our new study in @pnas.org reveals the secret life of ice diatoms: they are actively gliding to navigate the ice! This adds a new dimension to the sea ice ecosystem, revealing an active, dynamic ecological niche. @prakashlab.bsky.social
September 10, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Did you know tiny algae can "skate" within Arctic sea ice? ⛸️ Our new study in @pnas.org reveals the secret life of ice diatoms: they are actively gliding to navigate the ice! This adds a new dimension to the sea ice ecosystem, revealing an active, dynamic ecological niche. @prakashlab.bsky.social