Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦

@secondnaturemb.bsky.social

23K followers 600 following 8K posts

Naturalist, writer, artist, and educator with a Ph.D. in Ecology. I make interpretive signs, illustrations, murals, and books. Sometimes, I chase polar bears and belugas. #scicomm #sciart http://www.discoversecondnature.ca

www.discoversecondnature.ca

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · Mar 7

Hi Everyone!
I'm Heather. A lot of new people have joined me in the last 24 hours so I thought I'd answer some frequently-asked questions.

1. Where do you live? - I live in Manitoba, Canada in a provincial park on Lake Winnipeg. It is a wild area of the boreal forest, but not remote. 1/

A white woman wearing glasses, a red toque and a scarf with a green parka smiles at the camera. A snowy forest can be seen behind her.

A small cottage sits quietly on a moonlit night in the snowy boreal forest. Smoke rises placidly from the chimney while the windows glow with warm light. It's a cold clear night with lots of snow.

31 37 640

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 10h

There’s a few for sale in Grindstone if you want to be my neighbour 😊 not many though, and I think most of the good ones might be taken. I’ll keep my eye open.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 10h

What a cutey pie! I’m glad everybody got through that encounter safely.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 13h

I know the challenge well. I’ve been doing this for a while. However, it’s always good to get a second set of eyes to catch the stuff I miss on the first few rounds.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 13h

Thanks, Karen. They’ve been through a few reviews, but we’ll keep going over them.

1 1

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 15h

Thanks. I'm glad it made sense to you.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 16h

Not at all. I just feel the need to put it out there from time to time :)

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 16h

I've been working on a fun challenge, my first venture into medical science communication. I was commissioned by a client to help them come up with a new way to explain Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia to their patients. This is what I came up with and I think it works fairly well.

A infographic explaining How is CLL like Chocolate Milk?
It starts with a bottle of normal milk as an analogue to normal blood. Next to it is a blood smear showing the normal amount of lymphocytes to red blood cells.

The second row shows a bottle of milk tinted with a few drops of chocolate syrup. You can't taste it, but it has fundamentally changed the milk in a way that can't go back. This is like Monoclonal B Lymphocytosis (MBL the precursor to Chronic Lymphocytic Leukamia (CLL). The blood smear shows more lymphocytes than before.

The third row shows a bottle of chocolate milk. The amount of syrup added has passed the threshold where you can taste it and it is chocolate milk. CLL happens when the amount of lymphocytes passes a threshold to call it cancer. Like the milk, you can't go backwards.

The last row shows the same milk in a jug instead of a bottle. Just like milk can be in a different container, this cancer can live in the lymph nodes instead of the blood/bone marrow. It's the same cancer, just a different location, so it has a different name - Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma.

4 2 31

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 16h

Thanks, Alex :)

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 16h

Icelanders really love their coffee. I don't know the provenance of this thing, but it's possible it belonged to the store.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 16h

I've never done anything quite like this and would be nervous at first, but I would be interested in being considered.

1 1

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 16h

Thanks, guys. I know I'm very lucky, but I also worked hard to get to this point.

1 1

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 19h

And that’s why we love the stuff you make 😊 I get a lot of bizarre scams, but that’s a new one and so very specific but at the same time not.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 19h

Me three.

1 5

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 19h

I know, right? It makes me laugh every time I see it.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 19h

Icelanders love their coffee, so I’m pretty sure it’s what it was used for.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 21h

When I used to give walking tours of Hecla Village (an Icelandic settlement on Hecla Island in Lake Winnipeg), this was always a source of fascination and humour. I'm not of Icelandic descent, nor a coffee drinker, so I have a hard time seeing the need for a belt-driven coffee grinder. 😁☕

An ornate iron machine with two wheels on either side to attach to an engine belt. On top is a metal funnel for the coffee beans and in the middle is a green box to catch the grounds. It stands inside a repurposed wooded ice house with a collection of other tools and machines.

6 4 55

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 22h

If you want to register for the course, you can find it here: www.mcnallyrobinson.com/classes It's online, just search my name under instructors.

www.mcnallyrobinson.com

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 22h

What a neat photo! You can register here: www.mcnallyrobinson.com/classes if you're interested. Just search my name under instructors.

www.mcnallyrobinson.com

1 1

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 22h

Sorry about that. I'm a bit behind with my updates. You can register here: www.mcnallyrobinson.com/classes Just search my name under instructors.

www.mcnallyrobinson.com

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 22h

Sunrise on the beach from a view that's never been possible before. Lake Winnipeg's levels are very low this fall and the strong south wind we've been having has pushed more water into the north basin, revealing sand bars I've never seen in 40+years.

The pale sun rises over the forested shore of a large lake. Waves are crashing in the distance, but the photographer is standing on a large sand bar that stretches out from the beach into the lake.

2 9 110

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 1d

They are not publicly available. They’re only available to people who register for the class.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 1d

I’m really sorry about that.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 1d

I won’t have videos of the crows. We will have reference photos. The whole class is recorded.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 1d

That should read wildflower, not wildlife.

Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 1d

How are you feeling? I'm getting both tomorrow and am wondering if they're going to knock me out for the afternoon. I usually don't react much.