I love science, and I love all things Texas, but I’m not the best at either one. In fact, it’s generous to say I’m pretty lukewarm at both. I once miscalculated the combustion temperature of molten sugar and caught my friend’s oven on fire (sorry Justina!), and (this is where all my fellow Texans judge me) I didn’t learn to Two Step until about two years ago. In spite of these glaring shortcomings, friends, family, and professional acquaintances continue sending me their toughest science and healthcare related questions. This may be partially due to my years of experience in the regenerative medicine world as a jack of all trades (that’s a real professional title) for a startup stem cell company, but I like to think it’s mostly just that they’d rather text me than Google it themselves.

That’s love, y’all.

Or laziness. But I’m gonna call it love. #RelentlessPositivity

So this blog is for all of my people and all the people who have similar questions. I’m not a genius, I’m not a medical doctor, and I’m certainly not the most reliable genre of person in the world, a famous social media star. But I went to school for waaaaaay too long (and educated myself out of the marriage market according to my mom), and I should really use that education for something other than taking over the world Pinky and the Brain style. I’m not saying global domination is completely off the table, but I’d like to use my powers for good. For now at least.

So I hope that this blog will answer some of your science/medicine/healthcare questions. And if the day ever comes that you ask a question like my friend Justina did (“Why is there an inferno in my oven, Katy?”) the answer you’ll find, accompanied by a smattering of details, will always be:

It’s science, y’all!

If you have a question you don’t see answered in the blog, please send it my way, and I’ll do my best to answer it myself or find someone who can.

Subject Matter/General Usefulness Disclaimer: Yes, I do have a BS in Bioengineering and an MS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering, but I am not a jack of all trades scientist. I have, for better or worse, spent the last 16 years studying the cell and tissue side of bioengineering, specializing in clinical regenerative medicine. I say it’s because I really love the living, breathing, messy, hard to predict world of biology and clinical medicine; my PhD supervisor says it’s because I sucked at electrical engineering. There’s no way to know which of us is correct really (because I’m certainly not taking any test involving EE principles), so we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that point.

The take-home message for you the reader is: there are a lot of health/science/wellness topics that I know and understand well enough to provide you with useful, digestible information. But if you want to know how black holes bend light, why shuttle buses always arrive in threes, or the anthropological explanation for Keynesian behavior in social situations, I’m probably not your scientist. But I’m always good for a bad science joke and/or unwanted sarcasm. Oh, and inappropriate use of hashtags in places they don’t belong. #YoureWelcome