Andrew Kennard @askennard@social.cleverlibre.org

“Graduate student mentorship as a target for diversifying biology.”

Girish Kale and Reinier Prosee cover a recent preprint from researchers #UCBerkeley. Particularly excited to note the positive impact of informal mentorship & being part of interdisciplinary groups that the students report as part of this study. #preLightsPeerSupport

#preLight 👉 https://prelights.biologists.com/highlights/mentoring-practices-predictive-of-doctoral-student-outcomes-in-a-biological-sciences-cohort-v2/

#challenges #diversity #mentoring #practices #STEM

12/ #31nightsofhalloween #microscreepy
I got to play with a very cool microscope today!
purple: actin
orange: mitotic spindle

New blog post just dropped!

"Assembly theory is cool... but doesn't quite do what its inventors say it does."

http://www.johannesjaeger.eu/blog/assembly-theory-is-cool

reviewing this recent Nature paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9

news & views here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03061-y

#evolution #complexityscience #innovation #possibilityspace

8/#31NightsOfHalloween #MicrosCreepy
A twirling flagellate

I wanted to consolidate a few thoughts on google, misinformation, large language models, enshittification, and the fate of the web as we know it.

It started when Carl Zimmer shared this remarkable example of Google being fooled by machine-generated bullshit online.

It's #MicrosCreepy season!
Here's an experiment that went horribly wrong

7/ #31nightsofhalloween #microscreepy

Gummy worms!

... or the tracks of cells before (green) vs after (orange) being squashed to a 5 micron ceiling. They tend to crawl faster when squished. Circles are the pillars holding up the ceiling.

Bungee Beetle Escape!

My son has been learning to code so that he can write his own game, and here, after many many weekends of effort, it is! It's fun!

I had to get him to add 'easy mode' (AKA mum mode) to give me a chance of getting beyond level one. Level three remains, for me, a place only heard tell of in legend.

If you give it a go then feedback is welcome - it is a work in progress.

https://mixian.noodlefactory.co.uk/~tom/bungee-beetle/

@askennard @JoseEdGomes

The moderator is really important.

If a talk is really bad, it's usually only the PIs who can come up with a cogent question.

I think a good moderator should know the seminar was a stinker and if so just let the PIs ask questions. If it was a fantastic talk, that is when to pause before picking a PI question or cajole students to ask questions.

Having the moderator choose the questioner is ideal, because the speaker usually has tunnel vision.

@askennard I agree this is an issue and that students need time to process. some people may never ask a question for very good reasons, e.g. because of neurodivergent or mental health condition which means they are unable to speak up. I agree with the other comments that good moderation is key and that zoom taught good lessons. It's not beyond the realm of current tech to poll comments via an app and then get the moderator to ask the question on the students' behalf.

@askennard When seminars went online during UK COVID lockdowns I noticed a much greater range of people asking questions than in person.
At least in part this was due to being able to type and edit a question - which helps with formulating the question more clearly - and having that extra thinking time in a space where people aren't looking at you.

Even when people were then called to read out their questions by the chair there was still an increase in students asking questions

@askennard some of the improvement was through the tech, so there might be ways to build on that in person, still.

Perhaps one option is to use something like Mentimeter during the seminar, so that the host can see questions coming in from everyone.

Some of the improvement was from the change in the culture that came from seeing this model bed in and be supported by the chairs, speakers and attendees.

Plans to increase participation need continuing input and support week after week

@kofanchen @MarkHanson @askennard @JoseEdGomes based on data from https://diversityinacademia.mystrikingly.com/#infographic-academic-seminars (go down to infographic academic seminars on side bar)