Julien Delpierre @JulienDelpierre@qoto.org

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

Really important thing you need to know about Mastodon: You don't need to use the official app!

There are some good third party apps listed on Mastodon's own site:

➡️ https://joinmastodon.org/apps

The third party apps have more features and had way more development time.

Android users might want to start with Tusky and Fedilab

iPhone/iPad users might want to read this: https://transponderings.blog/2022/05/21/eight-mastodon-apps-for-iphone/

Mastodon is an open platform, so third party apps can use its features fully.

Hello, this is my #introduction toot!
I'm Gal, a staff scientist at Weizmann Institute of Science.
Our lab studies mRNA localization in yeast & in mammalian cells.
My main project (for the past 10 yrs) was to study mRNA transfer through tunneling nanotubes - long thin cellular protrusions which connect cells.
I have a blog called "Green Fluorescent blog": https://greenfluorescentblog.wordpress.com

I will toot mostly science stuff, i'm prone to do live-tooting of conferences and, you know, life.

bioRxiv/medRxiv, Hypothesis, DocMaps, PreReview & eLife receive new grants to support and extend preprints https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/970604
https://docmaps.knowledgefutures.org/pub/eyp3ckeo/release/1
https://elifesciences.org/for-the-press/35695590/prereview-and-elife-welcome-chan-zuckerberg-initiative-s-support-to-boost-community-engagement-in-public-preprint-review

#MedMastodon and #MedEd folks, I need your help: What journal do you see a dual research/advocacy paper like the one below being published?

I have a bunch of medical students and mentors who quantified (lack of) #LGBTQIA representation in preclerkship medical education curricula and also 3 ongoing years of IRB-approved incoming student surveys about gender identity, sexual orientation, attitudes, career choices, and knowledge about LGBTQIA+ health topics. Along with recorded advocacy efforts and a whole booklet of inclusion suggestions made to block directors.

The overall intent of this paper is to make it easier for other students to follow and repeat at their institutions and track over time how increased inclusion may alter student knowledge after they finish preclerkship and move on to clinical years.

Where should this live? Would it be better of as 2 papers (student surveys separate from curriculum)?

Please RT: #TenureTrack faculty position in #Genetics at University of San Francisco.

They are seeking "candidates with research programs utilizing experimental and/or molecular approaches to understand the genetics of model organisms (or emerging model organisms), including microbes, plants, or animals."

https://jobs.chronicle.com/job/37323111/assistant-professor-tenure-track-genetics-department-of-biology/

#introduction

Hello Science Mastodon I am an experimental physics PhD in the field of #activematter and #biophysics using #fluiddynamics #softmatter #StatMech and #microscopy.

Topics:
* Organelle transport in plant cells, slimemolds and algae
* swimming and propulsion in complexfluids
* mechanosensing of bioluminescent algae
* glass transition in living systems

I love exploring 'weird' organisms and their dynamics.

Let's make #ScienceMastodon a new home!
#openscience

How does the genome orchestrate the development of mulicellular organisms? Which mutations are causing disease?

#introduction

I'm a scientist at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. To answer such questions we develop tools for #CRISPR genome engineering. Our main system is the fruit fly #Drosophila.

While we mostly focus on inactivating genes, we sometimes also 'tag' genes to make their products visible. Such as in the pic below.

Hello science mastodon!

I'm Elise Cutts, a science #journalist covering mostly #geology #biology and #space science thanks to my past life as a geomicrobiologist at #MIT

Besides #scicomm folks, I'd love to connect with others who share my nerdy loves of #language and #medieval stuff. Currently based in Graz, #Austria and would love to connect more to the #German speaking scicomm community too.

See you around! #introduction

Deadline tomorrow! We are hiring postdocs for two projects. One seeks to reveal how neural activity is structured in brainwide patterns to support diverse behaviors in mice. The other aims to relate the activity of a single neuron with that of thousands of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons across the mouse cortex (w Alipasha Vaziri and Federico Rossi). We are interested in people with diverse backgrounds, not only those with specific experience. https://tinyurl.com/CortexlabPostdoc. #neuroscience

#Postdoc position is open https://www.ee.iee.unibe.ch with the incredible Katie Peichel, studying phenotypic evolution in nine whole lake experimental #evolution populations of #stickleback

Something more lively! No video embedding here so let's go for a GIF. Mmmh OK there are some strange rules, less than 10 MB, no 1920x1080... Here's a living neuron expressing tagged actin with tickling dendritic spines:

Let's start with a pic from one of our microscopes! Neuron expressing tagged actin (orange) and stained for map2 (blue), spinning disk confocal image 🔬

How to migrate from one Mastodon server to another without losing followers:

1. Sign up on new server
2. On NEW server: Go to Account -> Moving FROM another account
3. Enter old account's handle
4. On OLD server: Go to Account -> Moving TO another account
5. Enter new account's handle and submit

#YoMigroaMastodon

#introduction
Hi! I'm the Director of Communications at ORCID. If you're in research, you may know of us: we uniquely identify & connect researchers & innovators to their affiliations and contributions across disciplines, borders, and time.

I have a long history in #SciComms. When I'm not doing that, I'm working on my first novel or planning my next concert adventure.

I love ORCID's values of Openness, Trust, and Inclusivity. I'm also keen on kindness & collegiality which is why I'm here. 😀

Introduction time! ☺️
My name is Florian and I’m a computer scientist and a fully fledged nerd. 🤓

Life pushed me towards the life sciences and now I ❤️ to help others to better analyze their data. 🔬

All we do is #opensource. #CARE #Noise2Void #cryoCARE #FijiSc #napari #AI4Life bioimage.io et al.

I’m so proud of my amazing and amazingly colorful team of #RSEs, and #BioimageAnalysts.

Guess I should also mention: I love #running 🏃‍♂️ and pottery 🥣.

#introduction

Hello #ecoevo world!! I'm a philosopher of biology who collaborates with scientists on conceptual work for interdisciplinary and public-facing projects in #evodevo & #ecoevodevo.

My project areas include #nicheconstruction, host-microbiome immunological interactions #holobionts, & the extended evolutionary synthesis #EES. I'm currently working on the proto-cognitive role of the gut complex & a #scicomm proj on inheritance #Mendel200. Also work comms for #KLIAustria :)

My students often struggle with selection bias and measurement error bias in linear regression models. So I have made a couple of Shiny apps to help visualize these concepts.
Selection bias: https://apps.biostat.au.dk/stefan/selection/
Measurement error: https://apps.biostat.au.dk/stefan/measurementerror/

Feel free to use them in your teaching #rstats #datascience #stats

Code is available at my GitHub.

First post here, so be nice

Did you know that if you capitalize each word in a multi-word hashtag, #ScreenReaders can read them as words, but if you leave them lowercase, they can't? Well, now you know! So, for #accessibility, please capitalize words when there's more than one in a hashtag.

The Department of Genetics (my department) at UNC is hiring an Assistant Professor. https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/241596
Search is pretty broad, genetics/genomics/mammals. Wet-lab space on my floor, come be our neighbor! happy to answer any questions #TTjobs #Genetics #jobs