Katie L. Burke
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klburke.bsky.social
Katie L. Burke
@klburke.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.1K following 340 posts
Science journalist, writer, & editor. Senior contributing editor at American Scientist. Environmental Health Beat Leader at AHCJ. I love intellectual discussion & constructive criticism, but will mute rude people. 🧪 🌎 (Art by Julia Bollinger)
klburke.me
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klburke.bsky.social
The Charité Museum of Medical History in Berlin is wild, and while most exhibits are not open to photography, this gallstone art in the foyer is grotesquely beautiful and fascinating.
#histSTM #history #medicine
A wall of gallstones categorized by size and color, ranging in hue from white to brown to black. Sizes range from quite small to larger than a quarter (ouch!). "Gallstones" by Nivena Widelin
October 24, 2025 at 8:59 AM
klburke.bsky.social
“The life cycle is getting shorter and shorter & shorter, and so the #ticks are more abundant,” Ogden says. When Canada had shorter growing seasons, ticks couldn’t maintain a life cycle there, bc they didn’t survive to become an eight-legged adult tick. 🌎🧪 /16
healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/07...
The 2-year life cycle of a tick, starting with eggs in the spring, then larva feeding on many different animal hosts throughout the summer/fall and overwintering, then developing into nymphs by the next spring, and feeding over the warm months until they develop into an adult (feeding on larger mammals) that overwinters again to lay eggs in the spring.
July 17, 2025 at 5:10 PM
klburke.bsky.social
My latest for @healthjournalism.org: #Lyme disease is changing in a warming world--and so should the news: A 🧵.

#scicomm #publichealth #climatechange #medicine #infectiousdisease #ticks
🧪🌎
A screenshot of a tip sheet for #AHCJ, with an opening image of a black-legged tick and the headline, "Lyme disease is changing in a warming world--and so should the news." The opening paragraph reads, "When biologist Nick Ogden moved to Quebec in 2002, there were two known populations of black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis)--the most important Lyme disease spreader--in Canada, on the north shore of Lake Erie."
July 17, 2025 at 4:33 PM
klburke.bsky.social
While headlines have focused on the ways that #academia protects its worst actors, which is true, it’s harder to talk about the way that its workplace structures impede scholarly communities.

Reflecting on community-building in #science:
buttondown.com/understory/a...

#academicsky #highered 🧪🌎
A screenshot of the article, with the headline "Longing for Beloved Scientific Community" and the subheading, "Reflections on why maintaining a robust community of scholars is so hard." Next is the tagline, "Read to the end for a ridiculous emo realtor. Bock bock." Then begins the lede, "Ever since I published the Q&A with Dr. Joseph Graves, I have been thinking about his mentorship strategy--that he talks about power constantly with his mentees--and how my educators didn't do that (at least not very often). I had what people would call a 'good' experience in grad school. My advisor and committee had my back and guided me to the career I ostensibly wanted. Unlike many grad students, I cleared the admittedly low bar of not experiencing harassment, hazing, bullying or worse from my advisor and committee..."
July 8, 2025 at 4:52 PM
klburke.bsky.social
My latest for @healthjournalism.org:
NYT's '50 States, 50 Fixes' exemplifies the climate journalism audiences need.
healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/06...
🧪 🌎 #scicomm #journalism #climate #environment #publichealth
Screenshot of the linked article
June 30, 2025 at 5:30 PM
klburke.bsky.social
Screenshots of the crux:
June 30, 2025 at 2:15 PM
klburke.bsky.social
Glad to see that the 4yos in my kid's care share has figured out how to save us all. Just need to put some more posters on fence posts is all. And note that it's really true. My work here is done. 🧪🌎
The Ice Age is in the past. It was real. Now there might be a Hot Age. It is real. Do not drive your cars so much. Don't pollute. Don't work at factories every day because it sends bad smoke into the world. Scientists know that and we *have* a way to spread the news. Make posters and hang them everywhere on fences so people can read it. We have to write on there that it's true. Really, really true. So people believe it. (Signed by the kids, names covered by a heart)
June 26, 2025 at 12:42 AM
klburke.bsky.social
This week's newsletter: A Q&A w/ Dr. Joseph Graves Jr. about how HBCUs could end African American underrepresentation in the sciences. Plus, @kkoopman.bsky.social's inaugural #speculativefiction column covers #Juneteenth -themed recommendations. Check it out:
buttondown.com/understory/a... 🧪 🌎
June 17, 2025 at 5:44 PM
klburke.bsky.social
Adiós, #HJ25! Had a great time in LA. Here's a photo I took last night from the Griffith Observatory. You can see the Hollywood sign in the moonlight on the hillside on the right. Lovely evening.
A nighttime view of the LA skyline, with the moon in the sky above, and the iconic Hollywood sign on the hillside on the right side.
June 1, 2025 at 8:09 PM
klburke.bsky.social
My latest for @healthjournalism.org: "Some of the most vulnerable people are not taking in information about how science is relevant to them." 🧪
healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/04...
Headline: How science journalists can reach a more bipartisan audience Opening image. The hands of a person with brown skin typing on a PC laptop with data graphics on the screen. First paragraph. Last month, New York Times political writer Ezra Klein posted an interview with top Democratic pollster David Shot, head of data science at Blue Rose Research, whose forecasts have highlighted important political patterns during a time when conventional wisdom has failed. Although Klein's interview angle is about what Democrats can learn from polling data, I found the information relevant for people in science journalism who want to reach bipartisan audiences in a deeply polarized information environment.
April 21, 2025 at 5:53 PM
klburke.bsky.social
Excited to be at Science Talk watching the keynote on community science by @moefeliu.bsky.social.
#scicomm
Slide with the title "Building Community with Science and Solidarity" with abstract art showing hands creating a circle.
April 3, 2025 at 1:38 PM
klburke.bsky.social
I love this quote from Dan Savage's most recent column. Keep dancing, y'all.
January 24, 2025 at 6:38 PM
klburke.bsky.social
Environmental justice researcher Kim Fortun at UC Irvine recommends that #journalists continue to consider other cascading effects of the #LAfires, such as:
healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/01...
🧪🌎
January 20, 2025 at 5:11 PM
klburke.bsky.social
My #MLKday2025 reading today. I saw the author speak in November, and his life of service to science, truth, and equity is an inspiration. This is his autobiography about being the first Black man to receive a PhD in evolutionary biology.
January 20, 2025 at 1:51 PM
klburke.bsky.social
On the flip side, the snow monsters my kid made cover most of my emoji needs.
January 14, 2025 at 8:13 PM
klburke.bsky.social
An Indigenous history lesson and #Thanksgiving reading, especially for North Carolinians like me, from the beginning of the 2024 book On the Swamp, by Ryan Emanuel, a member of the Lumbee Tribe.
November 28, 2024 at 7:50 PM
klburke.bsky.social
I was on here before it was cool: Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #962,638!
#hipstercool
September 17, 2024 at 2:56 PM
klburke.bsky.social
I'm delighted to share that my interview last year with engineer Linsey Marr, discussing how she worked to change WHO and CDC policies on COVID-19 transmission, has won an Apex Award for covering Public Concerns and Trending Topics! Read the piece here: www.americanscientist.org/article/chan...
🧪
July 16, 2024 at 5:05 PM
klburke.bsky.social
So many plant/fungi ID errors on this shirt from Target! Can you catch them? I love the style and soft fabric, but I can't abide carelessness about #NatHist! Pass. 🧪🌎
Plants and mushroom illustrations labelled as poppy, toadstool, amanita, dandelion, shiitake, blue Daze, honey agaric, clematis, fly agaric, and enokitake.
June 11, 2024 at 4:52 PM
klburke.bsky.social
I first reached out to Elizabeth Rasekoala after reading her 2019 article on feminism in #scicomm, linked below. When she wrote to tell me about her new book, I decided to interview her about the creative leaps she has made in #scicomm in the Global South. 🧪
www.americanscientist.org/article/glob...
Elizabeth Rasekoala poses with her book, titled Race and Sociocultural Inclusion in Science Communication.
April 30, 2024 at 4:15 PM
klburke.bsky.social
For more than a century, doctors thought urine was sterile. Now, microbiology breakthroughs are revolutionizing diagnosis and treatment of urinary tract infections. Read "Discovering the Urinary Microbiome":
www.americanscientist.org/article/disc... 🧪
A large background image shows a colored scanning electron micrograph of large numbers of bacteria cultured from urine. An inset below shows two petri dish cultures. The standard urine culture on the left has no growth in the picture. The standard urine culture was designed in the 1950s to detect an E. coli infection in the kidneys and became the conventional diagnostic test for urinary tract infections. However, it misses many uropathogens and even misses some E. coli infections. The expanded quantitative urine culture shown on the right has lots of bacterial cultures in the petri dish. This method was developed by Alan Wolfe and Linda Brubaker. It captures a broader array of uropathogens by sampling more urine and incubating the cultures for longer under a variety of conditions.
April 23, 2024 at 6:20 PM