OnceMagicBrainEel @OnceMagicBrainEel@qoto.org

Hoping to find other people passionate about #wildlife, #photography and #conservation. Please give me a follow if you'd like to connect! #introduction

Hi #ScienceMastodon!

My name is Meike and I am a postdoc studying cerebellar development and its role in neurodevelopmental movement and affective disorders.

Looking forward to meeting you and learning about your cool work!

Follow me for stories about and pretty pictures of the cerebellum.

#Science #Introduction #Cerebellum #womeninstem

So it seems joinmastodon removed QOTO from their directory without cause, without contacting us, and without any discussion or due diligence.

Since this is the only way to actually find QOTO for new users if it isnt reversed soon it could mean the end for our wonderful community.

If you care about this place remaining fair, respectful, and inclusive environment I highly suggest everyone reach out to them annd voice your objecttion and your disapointment and having no procedure to keep this fair and inclusive.

If you want to see QOTO stick around you can email your objecttion here:

hello@joinmastodon.org

Feel free to CC me here: jeffrey.freeman@qoto.org

Please be respectful, we want to show them we are the good guys and not give them any reason to object.

@Gargron @trinsec @khird

Time for an #introduction?

The world is an uncertain place. My lab and I study how our brains deal with this uncertainty – building models of ourselves and the world arounds us to guide perception, action and belief.

https://psyc.bbk.ac.uk/uncertainty/

Looking forward to finding others interested in how the mind works. And curious to see what kind of discussions Mastodon will create!

An Incredible Day In Internet History

It started with the Twitter lockout. 10,000 new users per hour. A QUARTER MILLION people migrated to Mastodon in one day. The servers struggled. Remarkably, admins all over the world built up capacity in real time. New users were patient. The system held.

It's running better now. There will be more hard days ahead, but people powered social media has arrived.

#twittermigration #NewUsers #Welcome

I've been here since 2018, but it's time for an #introduction to all new people on the #fediverse!

I'm an Associate Professor at CEU, Austria. I work on #networkscience, in particular with problems related to network data analysis, including community detection and network reconstruction.

My works relies a lot on #Bayesian statistical inference, information theory, and statistical #physics.

I'm the author of the @graph_tool #python package for efficient network analysis, and the @netzschleuder network repository.

Here's a network data preview card for your viewing pleasure:

https://networks.skewed.de/net/trec_web

Not a wasp, but beautiful nonetheless! Memoirs of a summer by the sea.

Scarce swallowtail butterfly (Iphiclides podalirius) on a saltwater-sprinkled bush, Croatia. http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/131250299

#iNaturalist #entomology #lepidoptera #insects #butterfly

#introduction My name is Albert Chen and I am an Associate Professor of #neuroscience at the Scintillon Institute in San Diego. Research in our lab aims to define the molecular, anatomical, and functional distinctions of neuronal subpopulations in the #cerebellum important for coordination and refinement of movement and complex motivated behaviors using genetic and viral circuit tracing, neural manipulations/monitoring and quantitative behavioral analysis in mice. We are #hiring postdocs!

Checking out Mastodon like all of the rest of you. I'll be sharing some photography and looking to connect with others! #wildlife

Red-backed Fairywren (Malurus melanocephalus) Fairly common bird of our area in South-East Queensland. This male is in breeding attire showing-off his red-back.
#birding #naturephotography #birds #wildlifephotography #australia
#birdseenin2022 #naturephotography #birds #australia #australianwildlife #visitqueensland #bird #birds #wildlife #birdwatching #animal #birdphotography #birding #naturelover #birdlover #birdlovers #pocket_birds #australianwildlife #BirdsofMastodon

A pūkeko (Australasian swamphen) chick expectantly waiting for mum or dad to find a tasty morsel for its next snack.

#bird #birds #BirdPhoto #wildlife #photography

Maybe you all know this already but twitter allowed academics who are otherwise marginalised by white, male hieracrchies to enjoy reach and visibility. (Yes, I count myself as a beneficiary here).

For many who have 'odd' names that don't get cited as much, or people who cannot travel to present talks easily, or are not invited as often or speak in unfamiliar accents, it was a chance to let their work and message speak for itself.

We'll need to reclaim that possibility for everyone. #Academic

My gingerbread creations from the past two years. Any ideas for what I should try this year?

#science #astronomy #space #baking #art #scicomm #nasa #NASAWebb

First #FluorescenceFriday toot. Here's some content I'm not ready to put on the bird site for a wide audience, but here's a gif of a single z-stack of #microglia in a living adult (3 month old) #zebrafish brain. It's the new work I've been cooking up since I joined Morgridge Institute! There are a lot of challenges to imaging in the live brain that I'm still working through, but I'm excited to keep refining things!

I mentioned this in a private message to someone recently about why a small handful of servers block qoto. I wanted to reiterate it here for the new comers on QOTO who dont know the history:

So there are some servers out there that demand every server int he network block every instance they do, and if a server doesnt block an instance they block then they block you in rettatliation.

Their reason for this is quite flawed but it goes like this.. If we federate with a bad actor instance and we boost one of their posts then their users will see it and defeat the purpose of the block. The problem is, this isnt how it actually works. If they block a server and we boost it, they wont see the boost, thats how blocks work.

The issue becomes even more complicated when you consider the fact that these servers, by virtue of their policy, have huge block lists where they block tons of major servers. So in order to satisfy them we too would have to block a huge number of servers.

This means you have a choice, you either join a server that isnt blocked, but has a huge block list themselves, or, you join a server that doesnt block and be blocked by a small handful of servers. Obviously that means on QOTO you will have bigger view of the world than you would on any of these others servers. In fact QOTO has onne of the largest federation footprints of any server in the network.

I want to also explain why we choose the decision we did. Years ago when this controversy started and servers across the fediverse started blocking there was a divide of people taking sides. WOTO was one of the few servers that didnt take sides and allowed people read content from any server (but with strict hate speech rules). This caused a huge influx of people,s pecifically from the LGBTQ community, onto our server. It turns out many people relied on us not-blocking for their physical safety. There were big name biggots (like milo yanappolus) who were on the network. They used their accounts here to watch his account for doxing so they could warn themselves and their community and protect themselves accordingly. In fact we added a feature just for them called subscriptions which allowed them to monitor accounts without following them so they could do so anonymously.

In tthe end for the safety of the LGBTQ community here we refused to engage in mass server blocking and instead encouraged our users to block servers on an individual basis and provided access to block lists for them to do so. But some really misguided servers blocked us anyway.

Thankfully the servers blocking us are few and far between and are limited to only the most excessive and aggressive block lists. As I said, QOTO has one of the largest federation footprints on the fediverse,

#mastoadmin

#Introduction Part 2:
My lab invented the open-source software CellProfiler and the imaging assay Cell Painting and we now focus on using our machine learning and deep learning skills for image-based profiling, to accelerate drug discovery and functional genomics. Our research led to the founding of Recursion, a clinical-stage techbio powered largely by the information in cell images.

#CellProfiler #DrugDiscovery #TechBio #RXRX #MachineLearning #DeepLearning

This map always helps me to appreciate the Gulf Stream.

#Climate

#WomenInScience are recommended to 'not apologize a lot'.

A lot of issues would resolve themselves if #MenInScience apologized for their mistakes more.

Recognizing that you made a mistake, or that you don't know something, or behaved in a poor fashion and apologizing is not a problem. It tells me that you have the critical capability to introspect and understand what impact you have on others. It tells me that you care about doing #science right, that you want to learn.

#AI #ML

Another one is The B Lane Swimmer (HT @KaraLMarshall@twitter.com): https://holly.witteman.ca/the-b-lane-swimmer/

A reminder for anyone new to mastodon who might not be happy with some of the racist and bad actors out there on other servers... Just import the fediblock list to your personal blocks and you will be safe from the vast majority of bad actors.