Jeff Dean (the Biochemist) @jeffdean@qoto.org

🎺 Delighted that the paper describing Taxonium is now out in @eLife. It describes the challenges that the influx of millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes posed, and how http://Taxonium.org allows you to explore the connections between them.
http://elifesciences.org/articles/82392

TIL that you can change the visibility on your posts so that, for instance, your replies to someone else's post don't get broadcast to the entire local/federated feed. Useful!

Cribbing from this GitHub issue:

Public: Publicly visible on your profile and in public timelines
Unlisted: Publicly visible on your profile and in your followers' timelines
Followers only: Visible only to people who follow you
Only people I mention: Visible only to people mentioned in this post

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/114

Hope you don't mind if I jump in on the conversation, but have you tried https://fedifinder.glitch.me ? It extracts mastodon accounts from your twitter followers/following who are here and downloads them into a file which you can merge with your account. Worked well for me.

A key thing I've learned about Mastodon: When you find people you know and want to keep up with, don't just follow them — add them to a list!

Merely following is not enough, b/c their posts may not show up in your feed at a time you're logged on. Unlike FB or Twitter, Mastodon has no algorithm to resurface your friends' posts from hours or days ago.

So create a list called "Friends" and check it when you're on. This will ensure that you see what they posted while you were away.

Small #FediTip: if you encounter a message or thread that is in any way useful to you, bookmark it straight away.

Since the fediverse doesn't have full text searches, it will be very difficult to find that particular thing again a few days later. Especially if you cannot remember who posted it or it has no hashtags.

Periodically review your bookmarks to do something with them and you should be set.

So many people are having a bad first experience with Mastodon because they're using the official app which is lacking features, doesn't allow image uploads randomly, has random slowness, and doesn't give you easy access to the two most active feeds where you can find people (Local and Federated).

Please switch to Metatext, Tusky, or Tooot for a better mobile experience (or even use a browser).

Out of the >15k users that joined this week, over 11k are on the official apps.

Hey, did you know you can follow hashtags and have them appear in your Home timeline?

➡️ Click a hashtag > and then at the top of the column, click the "person +" icon.

Did you know it is #SilentSunday here on Mastodon.People are posting beautiful photographs! You can follow along by following the hashtag.

(P.S. Reminder: For hashtags, instead of all lower case, use #CamelCase, it is easier for screen readers to read.)

#MastodonTip #Tip #FediTip #TwitterMigration

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.

Animal models for long Covid, review at #PlosPathogens

"We review SARS-CoV-2 infection and disease manifestations in mice, Syrian hamsters, ferrets, and nonhuman primates (NHPs). Specifically, the virology, pathology, immune responses, and multiorgan involvement are summarized. These models are rationally examined for their use in understanding the complexities of the multiorgan involvement during Long COVID and the potential for their use in screening therapeutics such as anti-inflammatory drugs, which are currently used for treating other diseases. The aim of this review is to highlight Long COVID preclinical animal models that could be used for Long COVID research and to screen for pharmacological interventions."

#Covid19 #LongCovid #Covid #SarsCoV2

https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1010741

Mastodon is developing a critical mass - the people I follow are boosting the people they follow - who I then can also follow - so I'm organically discovering goodness.

Mastodon: What you need to know for your security and privacy

If you’re leaving Twitter for Mastodon, here are some things you should know.

https://grahamcluley.com/mastodon-what-you-need-to-know-for-your-security-and-privacy/

Please reblog/boost if you think this would help folks you know who are new to Mastodon. (Likes are appreciated, but won't help spread the advice)

Hi folks, please share this open rank Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in Marine Aquaculture at Northeastern University! https://jobs.chronicle.com/job/37343374/open-rank-assistantassociateprofessor-sustainable-blue-economies We have a wonderful department and inclusive environment here, on top of that it's a nice place to work. We seek the broad expertise in aquaculture, including but not limited to: fisheries science; sensitivity of marine species to climate change; ECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY GENOMICS; social science, engineering, aquaculture productivity.

#ScienceMastodon ASAPbio are running a survey ahead of their Recognizing #Preprint #PeerReview meeting. Help to inform the discussion by telling them your experience with posting, receiving, and reusing public feedback on preprints. 5 minute survey.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1HZa2A9bSCpcQF_Gkpm6T5nUkLsaCjwvxzIYP8_kkNZ2PBQ/viewform

First toot, but I have no idea what I am doing - so just have some fungi #fungi