Andrew Kennard @askennard@qoto.org

Hello Mastodonts, my name is Otti Croze and I am a lecturer at Newcastle university in the UK. My research is in the physical and mathematical biology of microbes. I have a particular interest in swimming species of microalgae and bacteria (microswimmers) with application to sustainable bio- and agri-tech , and have also worked on algal- bacterial mutualisms between soil species. See my profile for website. #microbes #algae #bacteria #biotech #microswimmers #activematter

On a difficult night, my latest substack piece on the persistence of police violence. A response to Conor Friedersdorf.
“When White America Offloads Its Failures on to Civil Rights Movements”
https://sherrilyn.substack.com/p/a-response-to-conor-friedersdorf

Yellow scales lichen (Xanthoria parietina) on the famine ship memorial stones in Salthill
#lichen #stone #LichenSubscribe #NaturePhotography #Galway

"I build little people out of acorns and sticks, then photograph them in the wild with real animals.
Join me as I share my process of building and photographing.
Learn more and buy prints at www.davidmbird.com."

https://youtube.com/channel/UC6q7I1DD2Jv5Ur9UEIavIrA/

#birds #wildlife #critters

Pressure Mounts for Hospice Reform
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Our recent investigation into the hospice industry pointed out, among many other things, that practically anyone can open a #hospice.

Reporter Ava Kofman came across hospices owned by vacation-rental superhosts, a man convicted of drug distribution & a defense attorney (who once represented a hospice employee convicted of fraud and was later investigated for hospice fraud himself).

#Health #HealthCare #ElderCare #Reform #Fraud

https://www.propublica.org/article/pressure-mounts-for-hospice-reform?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

The lichen obsession is real, this is all the stuff in my pocket now 😮 A few weeks ago all I had was the macro lens. Then i got the ruler to help with lichen id since scale is important. Then started bringing my ancient knife since often the inside and underside color is important. Then bought a UV lamp since sometimes lichen glow under UV. And now dropper bottles with chemicals so I can do spot tests in the field... what will be next...

#Preprint #PeerReview requires verification of identity but maintenance of reviewer anonymity.

A similar system to Apple's new Automatic Verification system to bypass CAPTCHA could be used. Here, a web service that requires a CAPTCHA solve, requests a token from user but this is provided by a 3rd party (Apple) who verify that the user is logged into an Apple ID account. Web service doesn't get Apple ID, and Apple claim not to learn what service the user is visiting.

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Friends, I am thrilled to share our recent #CHIIR2023 paper where we examined how data scientists seek, read, and understand research papers!

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.03774

(sacrilegious) Tweet thread: https://twitter.com/MSheshera/status/1613388613126963203

Our paper grounds our findings in a number of interesting (and sometimes underappreciated!) prior and ongoing work, and speculates on meaningful future work in IR, NLP, HCI, and CSCW! I hope you read our paper and get in touch if you'd like to chat!

how to prepare for and run an accessible conference:

https://500womenscientists.org/inclusive-scientific-meetings

How it started how it's going

One reason I delayed trying #Zotero for so long was that I couldn't figure out how to point a Markdown file to the database, but the Better BibTeX add-on makes it really easy to connect (R) Markdown / #quartopub to Zotero #rstats https://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2023/01/08/bibdesk-to-zotero-pandoc/#example-workflow-with-quarto-r-markdown-pandoc

I am really not convinced at all by the "Papers and patents are becoming less #disruptive over time" paper. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05543-x

The metric used (CD index and CD5) is highly problematic.

If I am not mistaken, 2 examples with Figure 5 (Nobel Prize-winning papers): the #discovery of reverse transcriptase (paper in 1970 baltimore, 1975 Nobel) & mobile element (Paper in 1950 McClintock Nobel 1983) are measured as ......non-disruptive

More criticism of the basic methods of the 'science becoming less disruptive' paper. "Really looks like an analysis of citation behavior to me (with a problematic metric) rather than an analysis of "disruptivity", says Alexis Verger. https://mastodon.social/@AVerger@fediscience.org/109658925389809504

so interesting! the organic chemistry of illicit drugs, by the great Derek Lowe
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/not-such-better-living-through-chemistry

This just in: Dystopian science fiction will no longer be sold or streamed in the San Francisco Bay Area or Silicon Valley due to the high risk of it inspiring new tech startups. #tech #scifi