Andrew Kennard @askennard@qoto.org

A cell photographed through a microscope. DNA in the nucleus, the Golgi apparatus, and actin filaments are shown. This is from my colorblast series in which I cycle an image through the spectrum. Our eyes see some colors better than others, so the effect gives the impression of ever-changing perspectives from a still image; and it’s pretty. #cellbiology #sciart

Sarcomeres assembling in an immature heart muscle cell videoed through a microscope. A protein that localizes to “Z lines” and their precursors “Z bodies” is shown. If you look carefully you can see the Z bodies concatenating into Z lines. Unless this GiF does not upload. In that case you will just see Z bodies sitting there and I will continue to work on posting here. #cellbiology

Another design consideration re: Mastodon is that it works well for ephemeral asynchronous communications, but for many reasons should not be counted on as an archival resource. Media attachments are periodically purged and may not be available after a week, or a month, etc. While some servers may try to preserve content forever, this may be costly and unsustainable. Creators, researchers should treat this as an ephemeral resource and make provisions for self-archiving anything important.

I'm very fortunate to be a co-organiser of "Dynamic Cell V", the latest in the Biochemical Society and BSCB meeting series showcasing the activity of living cells from all kingdoms of life. The details are: 17 to the 20 April 2023, Loughborough University (UK). Registration will open at https://biochemistry.org/events/dynamic-cell-v/

print("Hello World!")

Hi there, I just wanted to write an #introduction since today I changed server.

I'm Claudia, from #Italy! I have a background in #Biology and after my undergraduate degree I chose to pursue a MSc in #Bioinformatics. My biggest dream is to study the relationship between genes and cognitive abilities and in particular, I'd like to contribute in the field of Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the future.

My main interests are: #Genetics #Genomics #Bioinformatics #DataScience #Statistics #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders #EvolutionaryBiology #AnimalBehavior. I am passionate about science communication books and I can't wait to share with you some of my favourite readings!

I live my life one struggle at a time thanks to #CrohnsDisease and my lifelong enemy #Dyscalculia. Yes, I'm a formally diagnosed dyscalculic wannabe data scientist, does that surprise you? Well, thanks to programming languages I can cope quite well! I'm learning #R #Python #SQL and #MATLAB

Other than science, I have tons of interests, from weapons and martial arts (#HistoricalFencing, #Iaido, #Kendo and #Archery) to videogames (especially cozy #Nintendo games like Pokémon and Animal Crossing). ⚔️ 🏹

My life is full of "A"s: I'm #Atheist, #Asexual and #Aromantic

I can't wait to find some interesting people to follow so if you are one, ⭐ this post so I can find you!

---
Just to clarify, I consider myself an absolute beginner both in biology and bioinformatics as I have little to no practical experience at the moment, so please don't take my opinions as if they come from an expert. If there is something I know for a fact, is that biology is complex so it takes more than a few years in university to truly understand it, that's why I never feel 100% confident with my knowledge - this is also why I joined qoto, I'm sure that reading discussions and asking experts will enrich my views.

Dividing cells stained microtubules. Expansion microscopy sample prepared and imaged Sujan Ghimire.

#microscopy

If you're worried about gerrymandering, it has a weak point where you could could make a real difference right now. (Thread)

Hi, #ScienceMastodon! It's time for an #introduction. 👋

I'm a PhD candidate in the Tolić lab where I study cell division & aneuploidy using STED, LLS & confocal #microscopy. 🧬🔬

Here's a video of the cell with marked chromosomes and tubulin going through mitosis. Chromosomes are colored for depth.

Arrived at Buxted Park for "Genotype to Phenotype: Bridging Comparative Genomics and Cell Biology" workshop
organised by Gautam Dey & Eelco Tromer
run by the Company of Biologists
#BiologistsWorkshops #genomics #evolution
https://www.biologists.com/workshops/geno-pheno-2022/

Bringing #TinyFish content to Mastodon. I'm a marine scientist who studies the biodiversity and functioning of reefs. My lab at UT Austin works mostly on tiny, bottom-dwelling fishes – these little guys are gorgeous but few of them grow larger than a couple of inches... 🤏 🐠 #Ecology #Biodiversity #TeamFish #Fish

PSA: #blacktwitter folks can sign up at http://blacktwitter.io which is a Black friendly mastodon instance

Let's start with the #FluorescenceFriday @ mstdn.science !!

Here you have "the explosion of life" during #cell division.

#microscopy #scicomm #organelles @cellcommlab

“Maybe you know me from Twitter?”

This looks interesting. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.21.513099v1

First toot! Who's here? You may know me from the bird app as the one who is obsessed with #cilia and #protists. Here is a YouTube vid (several years old) of some psychedelic #Chlamydomonas #cilia to prove it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbpUzfpQNwk

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

The machinery that make #mitochondria the POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL™️ is found on the inner mito membrane. These membranes are folded up into structures called #cristae that increase the surface area of the membrane (to make more ATP).

Where did cristae come from? How common are they in #bacteria?

Here is a beautiful new paper from Victoria Orphan et al. showing that alphas are not the only bacteria that can make cristae. Check out these cristae in #Desulfovibrio (!)

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.01613-22

Because I'm on a German server my trending topics are #keinVergessen and #niemalsVergessen. This is because 9 November is the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

These brass plates in the pavements memorialise Jewish people at what were their addresses. I saw this one in Berlin in the spring. #NeverForget