Welcome to Thoughtscapism! This is a blog on science, creativity, environment, health, fiction, and other various landscapes of my thoughts.
My name is Iida Ruishalme. I am a biologist specialising in biomedical research, a science communicator, and a fiction writer. My pieces have been published at Food and Farm Discussion Lab, Genetic Literacy Project, Biofortified, Mothers for Nuclear, Medium publications The Method and Generation Atomic, as well as the cultural journal The Woolf and the Finnish newspaper Aamulehti.
I am a Finn by birth and have a Master’s degree from Sweden. I have work experience from environmental chemistry, diabetes research, pharmaceutical bio-bank labs, and lab robotics. I am a co-author of four scientific papers in the fields of insulin cell signalling and immunology. Nowadays I live in Switzerland with my husband and two little children. My experiences of a lack of good science understanding by the public has sparked an interest in science communication. This blog is where I try to make sense of the world in a way I hope may also be useful to others.
My presentations:
- Do we fear the right things? A talk and a quiz as a representative of The Finnish Ecomodernists at a Finnish debate fair Pori Areena in July 2018.
AtomExpo, Sochi 2019
- Navigating the Risk Landscape with neuroscientist Dr Alison Bernstein at Society for Risk Analysis conference in New Orleans December 2018.
- Why do I care about nuclear power? (video) I was invited to share about my grassroots support of nuclear in connection to Michael Shellenberger’s presentation: Why Humans Need Nuclear Power, at AtomExpo in Sochi April 2019.
- Presentation on green skepticism and applying critical thinking to energy policy at the European Skeptics Congress in Ghent, Belgium, August 2019. My presentation can be viewed here.
- I was invited to participate as a panelist at OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s Radiological Risk Communication Workshop in Paris, September 2019.
- I held a webinar for Society for Risk Analysis on risk communication on social media (available for SRA members) in December 2019 together with Dr Alison Bernstein.
- [Next up: I’ve been invited to give input at an international conference of the radiological regulatory community to critically discuss findings and lessons in Emergency Preparedness, in Switzerland 4-5th of March.] Canceled due to the pandemic.
- I’ve been invited to the Aspen Global Congress on Scientific Thinking and Action in Rome in March 2020. Rescheduled as an online conference March 2021.
Podcast / talk appearances:
- The SciGasm podcast for an episode on glyphosate (aka Roundup), looking past sensationalist headlines, as well as on Talking Biotech on my series 17 Questions About Glyphosate, 2016.
- Atomic Insights podcast for an episode about our experiences at the UN climate meeting, including how we ended up surrounded by hostile activists at an anti-nuclear demonstration: Pro-nuclear voices from COP23 in Bonn. Not a warm welcome, 2017.
- The Science bloggers podcast on GMOs, and the Genetically Modified Cowpea in Nigeria together with Etta Michael Bisong from Nigeria, 2020.
- Online protest against closing Indian Point nuclear plant, responsible for a huge portion of New York’s low-carbon energy. You can find my commentary on risk perceptions, radiation, and nuclear power at Generation Atomic‘s event on youtube: Connect the Dots, 2020.
- The European Skeptics podcast on my presentation at the European Skeptics Congress in Ghent, on our natural errors of risk assessment on the topic of energy and decarbonisation, 2020.
- Decouple podcast, also on youtube, on Hazards, Risks and Science Communication, 2021.
I recently realised how closely I am following in my grandmother’s footsteps. She died when I was little, but left behind a life’s work in diverse areas of journalism, with pioneering contributions to popularisation of medical sciences – more on that in: A Tribute to My Grandmother.
What is this blog about? You can read more about that on my welcome page. Why the name thoughtscapism? What is that supposed to mean? See my first blog post here.
Many of the photos and infographics on this blog are my own. You may use them for noncommercial purposes with attribution to me at Thoughtscapism, according to the licence CC-BY-ND 4.0 (give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made). Thanks!
Caught in the act of Thoughtscaping.
I am active on Facebook over at my page Thoughtscapism, where I post about topics I find interesting, often on a daily or weekly basis. I can also be found on Twitter, I keep a collection of my infographics on Pinterest, and periodically answer science questions on Quora.
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