It’s hardly up there with the discovery of say, radium, but scientists are finding that selfies can really boost their image.

“Scientists posting self-portraits (‘selfies’) to Instagram from the science lab/field were perceived as significantly warmer and more trustworthy, and no less competent, than scientists posting photos of only their work,” concludes a study published this month in the science journal PLOS ONE.

The 1,620 Instagram users surveyed in the study also seemed surprised and pleased to find just how many scientists were women in what’s long been regarded as a traditionally male profession.

Overall, the study found that selfies of male and female scientists in action — either in the lab or out in the wilderness — helped counter their portrayal, in books and other media, as “eccentric, strange and detached from everyday life.”

Lead study author Dr. Paige Jarreau tells Weather.com, “We think this is because people who viewed science images with a scientist’s face in the picture began to see these scientist communicators on Instagram not as belonging to some unfamiliar group of stereotypically socially inept geniuses, but as individuals and even as ‘everyday’ people with ‘normal’ interests.”

The results of the project now have their own Instagram — and on Twitter, the research has grown into the #ScientistsWhoSelfiechallenge, where scientists hashtag and post selfies.