Andrew Kennard @askennard@qoto.org

I've not been here much lately, but here's a bit more about our paper just out in the Journal of Cell Biology, “Presynapses contain distinct actin nanostructures” (Twitter trained me to come up with short titles 🤏 and long threads 🧵, which are also doable in Mastodon I hope) 1/23
https://rupress.org/jcb/article-abstract/222/10/e202208110/276185/Presynapses-contain-distinct-actin 1/23

Hey academic friends --- are you paying attention to what's going down at WVU? Here's some useful info:

https://community.wvu.edu/~jokatz/Closure/?fbclid=IwAR0FnJdNnOz-hVfu7m1pjVUIKLGq3KnIsU2397cABMqzUpJ6lCFN3rCA9eM

Some very interesting facts about credit card debt and debt collectors, from Cory Doctorow. https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/
1) When you default on credit card debt, it's sold to debt collectors -- who probably buy it for 5 cents on the dollar.
2) You are legally entitled to see the documentation of your debt before you pay it.
3) The collection agency doesn't have the documentation, it would be extremely difficult for the lender to find it because it could be in any of dozens of hard drives from the companies they've bought over the years, and they have no interest in doing so after they sell the debt.
4) Their profit model depends entirely on harassing people who don't know the law, and getting maybe 8% of the debts they paid 5% for.
5) If you know your legal rights, and demand written documentation as required by the law, they will write your debt off and write you off as someone it's not worth the bother of collecting from.

Hi Mastodon community! I am a MRC Investigator and group leader at the MRC Human Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh. Very glad to be here...

A certified '#cellbiology on an organismal scale' fanatic- we believe seeing is believing! We ❤️ hacking ways to 'see' biology happen in real time across scales in health and disease!

Imaging addict. Genome wrangler. Developmental biologist at heart.

#cilia #centrioles #genetics #Science #genomesurgery #raredisease

From @MCDuncanLab

---
Here I propose that rather than possessing “good hands,” an innate and unlearnable aptitude for science, such scientists possess expert learning skills that can be effectively mastered. I share a straightforward approach to gaining and teaching expert learning skills in the research lab environment. I also discuss ongoing efforts by others to develop curricula that teach expert learning skills in laboratory courses.
---

#ScienceEd

https://www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/mbc.E22-11-0517

@brewsterkahle The Dream Was Universal Access To Knowledge. The

From our SEM collection. A nemertean pilidium larva. Image By Juergen Berger.#microscopy #science

My lab studies the evolution and diversity of the eukaryotic endomembrane system. Its earliest origins and how it has evolved and adapted in the many independent transitions from heterotrophy to parasitism are of particular interest. I am a protistologist, cell biologist, and a molecular evolutionist. I also aspire to be an scholar, an ally, a colleague, and a supporter.

#UAlberta #Division of Infectious Diseases #Department of Medicine #Department of Biological sciences

#UCL #CLOE #CAS

Recommended by a great scientist and great person, @jekely, I'm giving this platform a try.

Please follow or connect or whatever we do here :) Say hi!

#SCOTUS rulings for sale: New report reveals the depth of Clarence Thomas' corruption by conservative ultrawealthy billionaires. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court

I'd ordinarily post this on the ex-birdsite (see what I did there) as it's my largest audience, but I am trying to go cold-turkey on it.

At any rate, check out these amazing art of science entries!

https://www.wehi.edu.au/art-of-science/2023/

Our paper on how even experts confuse inferential uncertainty with outcome variability is out today in PNAS! https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2302491120

For a summary, see this amazing thread from @ct_bergstrom https://fediscience.org/@ct_bergstrom/110267907188002904

A special thank-you to all of the faculty who participated in this study.

No, academics do not "forget" to answer emails. They remember and feel bad about them, the guilt slowly building up, until the only way out is to fake their own death and move far, far away under a different identity to build a new life, a better one, with inbox zero and no shame

Anyways, I owe you an email.

This is a great round-up @focalplane_jcs of Advances in Expansion Microscopy by Victoria Alonso. There's so many variations on the method now, I am completely lost (despite the folks in my lab doing one of them!)

https://focalplane.biologists.com/2023/08/04/advances-in-expansion-microscopy/

#Microscopy

Any good recommendations for microscopes for outreach activities? Ideally trinokular and transportable.

Doom is a privilege we can’t afford.

“Some days I think that if we lose the #climate battle, it’ll be due in no small part to this defeatism among the comfortable in the global north, while people in frontline communities continue to fight like hell for survival. Which is why fighting defeatism is also climate work.” - Rebecca Solnit

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/26/we-cant-afford-to-be-climate-doomers?CMP=share_btn_tw

An opioid expert from Texas A&M gave a guest lecture and mentioned that Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick’s policies were costing lives. Within hours, Patrick’s office got her suspended, formally censored, and nearly fired.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-a-m-professor-opioids-dan-patrick/

Instead of just writing the damn program we’re being sold a vision where we will engage a mischievous Djin to do our work for us, and we shall expend our energy desperately trying to spot the ways it has contrived to simultaneously be true our word, and fuck us over.

Sounds exhausting.

The cost of being a non-native English speaker in science

https://phys.org/news/2023-07-non-native-english-speaker-science.html