Stories by Katie McKissick

Over at Octopus Chronicles, Katherine Harmon Courage commemorated the eighth day of the eighth month with eight hiding octopuses. Let’s keep the octomonth celebrations going in honor of everyone’s favorite invertebrate.

I did a round of science merit badges earlier this month celebrating people’s understanding and appreciation of evolution, vaccines, and climate change.

I was only in the Girl Scouts for a few years, but I really like the idea of merit badges: you do a task, master a skill, learn something new, and you get a physical token of your achievement to display on a sash.

California is in the throes a serious drought, but driving around Los Angeles, you wouldn’t know it. Lush, green lawns. Sprinklers going off in the middle of the afternoon when much of the water will just evaporate.

I hear it’s called “death acceptance”: I’m not afraid of dying and being forgotten someday. So when I read about a company called Eterni.me in February of this year, I was as creeped out as anyone.

Elective gluten free dieting is all the rage these days–as opposed to people with Celiac disease who have needed to avoid gluten all along to avoid a serious autoimmune reaction.

I do enjoy a good board game night with friends, and if the game we’re playing happens to be science-themed, I’m just about as happy as can be.

I wasn't an early adopter of Facebook. I couldn't possibly have been less interested, but a friend asked that I join so we could keep in touch, so I obliged.

I got to know Carly Tribull’s amazing work when we both contributed to the ant comic anthology, Myrmex. She is a PhD student at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who also draws science comics about insects.

When I was a science teacher, I was always on the lookout for narrative stories that revolve around science. Our brains are wired to learn from stories, after all, so I was always astounded by the scarcity of good science-y stories.

As a former high school science teacher who now draws science comics, I (obviously) think they can be a useful teaching tool. I get frequent messages from teachers who use them in the classrooms to excite their students and maybe (just maybe!) lower their anxiety level about science.

I got the rare opportunity to write a book about science in my silly (perhaps crazy) way: with jokes, bizarre analogies, and drawings! It’s called What’s in Your Genes?

Over at Buzz Hoot Roar, science concepts are explained in 300 words or less with accompanying images from a range of science artists. I did an infocomic for them when they first started about the over-diagnosis of brown recluse spider bites, and I’m back again with a piece written by Roar (Eleanor Spicer Rice) about [...]

Ziggy the guinea pig was not doing well. He wasn’t eating, and we noticed a tinge of blood in his urine. After having him for 3.5 years, it was time to take the little guy to the vet.

As a mammal, I can’t imagine laying eggs in the sand and shimmying away, never to see my hatchlings or know if any survived. But that’s the way it works in sea turtle world.

The solstice is almost here. For us northern hemispherians, it’s the winter solstice–shortest day of the year. For our friends south of the equator, it’s the summeriest, longest day of the year, which is why Australians celebrate Christmas with a day at the beach, and Christmas sweaters are not a thing.

Over at Bird and Moon comics, Rosemary Mosco explores alternative Christmas trees with this hilarious nature-inspired comic. I think I’d go with the palm tree, personally.

Thanksgiving is coming up, which means two things: turkey (or tofurkey, as the case may be) and football. That’s the United States in a nutshell, I suppose.

Are you getting tired of hearing about outbreaks of measles, pertussis, and other vaccine-preventable (vaccinable?) diseases? So am I! It’s so easy to forget about these infections, so I made a handy quick guide for you that covers measles, mumps, and rubella.

I recently bought a house after living in crumby apartments for the last decade. And part of owning a house is that you also own some parts of the ground.

I recently had the pleasure of working with the team at Buzz Hoot Roar, a new graphics-driven blog that shares and/or explains a scientific concept in 300 words or less.

This concludes my very first go at SciArt Blitz! What a crazy month it has been here at Symbiartic. So many great science artists, illustrators, comics, and artisans.

I appreciate anyone who can turn science imagery into wearable pieces, especially when they’re subtle and beautiful. Anatomology is a science-themed Etsy shop sporting caffeine molecule earrings, atomic necklaces, and DNA scarves, among many other pieces.

I fell in love with biology when I first sneaked a peak at a drop of pond water under a microscope. The colors and shapes ensnared my imagination, and I’m not the only one!