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

Interested in getting a #PhD in #biology? check out #LehighUniversity!

We offer concentrations in #cell and #molecular biology, #biochemistry, #evolution and #behavior, and #neuroscience. We have a wonderful diverse group of scientists doing exciting and well-respected research. The department takes #GraduateEducation very seriously!

Apps are due Jan 1st. I'm happy to answer any questions about the program!

Boosts appreciated!

#JobOffer, @jobsecoevo

Did you know that *every one* of the millions of #iNaturalist observations gets looked at by a volunteer identifier before it can reach "research grade", and get shared with the international biodiversity database #GBIF? Here's a new science paper listing some of the many important reasons why it's good for everyone with some taxonomic expertise, including scientists, to be identifiers on #iNaturalist. (I'm one of the many authors.) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001843 #biodiversity #taxonomy #CitizenScience

For #FernFriday here is Elaphoglossum peltatum growing around the base of an Alsophila tree fern in the forest on Cerro Punta in Puerto Rico. This is from a field site for an Alsophila hybrid zone that Dave Conant and students studied. #ferns #PuertoRico #botany

Lovers of #symbiosis, #pathogens, and #microbes!

Please take a look at this #EMBO | EMBL Symposium that I am co-organizing with Tom Richards and Toby Kiers in Heidelberg from 8 - 11 Mar 2023.

It's called "The Cellular Mechanics of Symbiosis"

We have an amazing list of invited speakers, and will be selecting lots of abstracts for talks.

Please spread the word, and register if you are so inclined!

https://www.embl.org/about/info/course-and-conference-office/events/ees23-01/

For Twitter folks who are brand new to Mastodon

Few pointers from a veteran of <checks notes> 2 weeks:

1️⃣ BOOST generously: If you see a Toot you like & want others to see it, boost (RT) it. Unlike Twitter, liking it does nothing for visibility

2️⃣ HASHTAGS are important, use liberally. They're the only way to make content discoverable by search

3️⃣ Use alt-text for images/gifs for accessibility

4️⃣ Err towards content warnings - not just for obv triggering content; helps keep feeds uncluttered

People from the Other Place.

This tool will find the Mast accounts of your Other Place followers/followees. The other one I've seen only finds people who cross post, this finds them ALL

https://fedifinder-backup.glitch.me

Okay, here's my Mastodon #introduction --
* Spent 10 years as an environmental policy reporter in DC.
* Last 14 years as a science writer for a university. Wrote a book on #scicomm for research institutions: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo18768107.html
* Freelance writer and editor on everything from health to tech to food.
* I periodically write about random stuff on Medium. Such as this: https://medium.com/@shiplives/how-hank-williams-and-robert-johnson-tricked-me-into-thinking-trains-are-from-the-south-e35f21e443f3

Time for a #slimemould
Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa, common name is Coral slime

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

Since there seem to be a lot of new folks on Mastodon today, here's an update to my long-running 🧵 of neat folks to follow. #FF

@RoyMeijer Good resource for keeping up with #SciComm in the EU. Dutch. Mensch.

@kimkelly #Journalist on the #Labor beat. Will opine on #Metal (bands, not materials).

@thepacketrat Ex-journo. Good follow for those interested in #InfoSec. Has a very low tolerance for bullshit, bless him.

Hello new people! 👋

If you need help getting started on here, have a look at:

➡️ https://fedi.tips

It's written in non-technical language, it's a beginner's guide.

If you can't find the answers you want on the site, @ me or message me.

Shoutout to all the Mastodon servers bouta get slammed. Don’t forget to tip your admins, Mastodon doesn’t have ads

🚨Job Alert🚨I'm looking for a Postdoctoral Associate to join my lab at Purdue in early 2023! For further details and to apply, please visit: https://careers.purdue.edu/job-invite/22792/
To learn more about our research, see: http://ecsolab.com/ecsolab
Please share and retoot!🙏

We're hiring for six positions on the editorial side of Scientific American right now: opinion editor, health editor, science reporter, copy editor, multimedia editor and engagement editor. The first five are listed and the sixth should be posted soon. You can see those openings plus some business and engineering jobs here. Thanks for considering these jobs yourself or recommending them to others! https://careers.springernature.com/search/?createNewAlert=false&q=&optionsFacetsDD_country=US&optionsFacetsDD_location=&optionsFacetsDD_customfield1=Scientific+American&optionsFacetsDD_customfield2=&optionsFacetsDD_customfield3=

https://shellsharks.com/mastodon

@mttaggart told me not to, but here it is anyways! Dropping my “take” inline here. Click through the link for all the other resources and deep links.

There is a lot about Mastodon (and the Fediverse) that I have yet to learn, but what I do know is that it has (pretty much) already surpassed what Twitter was to me in both personal and professional contexts. I had a Twitter account for years, and try as I might, I never felt quite comfortable being anything more than a passive consumer - a lurker of those in the #infosectwitter community who had big followings. Though there was of course a decent amount of discussion/engagement within the infosec Twitter world, it often seemed to me very clique-ey, reserved only to those with big followerships or with well-known personas and established circles. I also always had the sense that trying to cultivate a following on Twitter was, sorta cringey. People there seemed more interested in boosting their follower counts or their follower-to-following ratio than expanding their true community. This feeling was ever-perpetuated by the constant deluge of tweets sounding off about how many followers they had, or how close they were to a certain follower threshold, etc…

Look, I get it - I have a blog, a podcast, I understand why people crave followers. It’s the engagement I am after though, not so much just having my tweets/toots/posts/stuff show up in a lot of people’s timelines. I genuinely enjoy sharing my thoughts/ideas, and even moreso hearing/learning from others. Naturally, a good way to create this engagement is to network, follow a lot of people and of course, have others “follow” me. I never had a big following on Twitter (~190ish as of the last time I looked), and I never got much engagement there (partially because I rarely posted). I’ve been on Mastodon for nearly 2 weeks and already I’ve seen much better engagement (and I am not alone). Maybe it’s the novelty factor, or maybe it’s because it hasn’t had time to turn into a toxic stew, it could be because I am more actively engaging. I’m not really sure yet, but what I do know is the vibe is different. That sense of community is definitely there and I am looking to make the most of it.

Alright, so I have a few other thoughts/takes on my Mastodon experience so far, and as I am want to do, I will share via a list!

- As others have pointed out, two reasons why Twitter always felt a bit, icky, was because of forced ads in your timeline and the bedeviling algorithm which fed not what YOU wanted into your timeline, but what Twitter thought would yield maximum engagement, which typically meant trying to fill you with rage. Mastodon is a breath of fresh air in comparison.

- I joined the infosec.exchange instance, which is relatively quite large (~24k and growing) and have followed nearly 400 people so far. What I’ve seen across my home feed and the local timeline has been really great! No ads, literally just what I’ve signed up for. I’ve been consuming/scrolling most of it so far and have encountered a lot of new people and genuinely look forward to (most) of what they have to share.

- Mastodon is a series of unique, networked instances. When folks from other instances are boosted into my timeline, there is a sense of excitement, of exploration. For example, if I see someone with the handle @hax@supercyber.pizza, I think “wow! I’m happy to have discovered this indvidual in the wide Fediverse, and look forward to what they post/boost into my timeline”. That hunger to follow, to connect moreso than “get followers” is really great. I have this desire to collect as many cool instances and awesome people as I can into my following list.

- If you want people to follow you, or engage with you, I highly recommend spending some time to tell people what you’re all about in your account profile. Also, toss a picture of some kind in there. Anything will do.

- Each instance will likely have its own culture, traditions and of course rules. Spend some time trying to figure out what those are, and leverage the content warning (CW) feature to try and be a little less offensive. It’s not hard to do!

- Being on an instance which has a population that best shares your personal/professional interests will give you a local timeline that will help you find people to follow and consume your posts. This is true. But! With a little effort, you can, regardless of what instance you are on, curate a following of people across instances, building a home timeline that is perfect for you, void of ads or algorithmic influences. This feed/timeline will continue to grow and mature thanks to the boosts and discussions of those you follow and engage with. So spend less time trying to find the perfect instance, and more time building that list.

If there is any drawback to Mastodon so far that I have seen, it is the lack of full-text search (for privacy reasons). This makes some of the intel-gathering I used to do on Twitter a bit more difficult (I’m not the only one with this sentiment). One frequent use-case was to search for info on CVEs (e.g. PoCs, research, etc…). To address this concern, the infosec community on Mastodon has been putting their heads together on how best to use hashtags to make intel-gathering possible on Mastodon.

#infosec #meta #mastodonthoughts

I’m boldly going where I haven’t gone before, which is right here at this site. Apparently this is a “toot.” I would appreciate a follow!

Postdoctoral Position in Biophysics of Transcription Factor Dynamics @arpcomplex

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Single Molecule Imaging of Chromatin and Transcription Factor Dynamics at the Upadhyaya Lab at UMD

https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-maryland-college-park-27778-postdoctoral-position-in-biophysics-of-transcription-factor-dynamics/?feed_id=29444
#Scienc...
https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-maryland-college-park-27778-postdoctoral-position-in-biophysics-of-transcription-factor-dynamics/?feed_id=29444

I have started a pop-up newsletter about #Mastodon. It’s called #HowToMastodon. I will publish in the mornings usually, but give the first issue a look over this way: https://midrange.tedium.co/issues/mastodon-onboarding-tips/