"This year I decided to be more active in twitter, so I started following @icmabCSIC and @NNgroupICMAB among other accounts related to CSIC, nanoscience and nanotechnology. Thanks to that, I realised how much information I can obtain from this social network. Every centre, company or university publish here different activities, conferences, events and scientific papers.

Browsing on twitter, I saw a tweet from @CSICDivulga that announced a contest related to scientific micro-stories #100QSD. They wanted to celebrate the 100^th book of “¿Qué sabemos de?”, a book collection of @CatarataLibros. 

I had never written a micro-story before, but since I like to disclose science, I thought it could be a great opportunity to learn a new way to bring science close to the general public. What was the first step? Look for micro-story’s rules. In only 140 characters, you should explain the whole story (It was my first mistake). In a micro-story there are not the common parts of a story (introduction, core and denouement); you should start directly into the action.

After writing the first draft, I showed it to Natalia Martínez, from the N&N group to know if the micro-story was clear, and she encouraged me to publish it. I summarized the first draft and introduced the title of the book related to the micro-story. I tried to mix two things I really love, my project related to the use of C. elegans as a powerful tool for screening new materials and drugs, and also spreading science.

It was a big surprise to win the contest and I am grateful with the organisers for selecting my micro-story. It was also a surprise that I was not the first one to know about it: thanks Anna May to be aware of all the events and news that happen around ICMAB and give us the information."

Amanda's microstories

Amanda participated with these two microstories. The first one is one of the three winners of the contest:

More information:

Find out who the other winners of the contest are here (CSIC).