Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@social.cleverlibre.org

@Interesting
Human gene identified that prevents most bird flu viruses moving to people
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jun/28/human-gene-identified-prevents-most-bird-flu-viruses-moving-to-people?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

“Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.”

— Carl Sagan

#quote #CarlSagan

Faculty job alert! CSHL is hiring a faculty position in computational neuroscience, broadly defined. Deadline to apply is Sept 1, 2023 (the earlier the better).

https://cshl.edu/about-us/careers/faculty-positions/

Yes, I snapped this view today, a 1 min walk from your new office!

My lab (http://devsuccesslab.com/ ) has a new pilot survey open about developers' work experiences & how they see AI tooling in dev work.

This is a different kind of dev survey. We're not interested in tallying who's using what brands for some trends report. We're interested in how developers are DOING. This is also a pilot test of new measures, so the more folks take it, the more we learn how to design deep research on this! Please share widely. #softwaredevelopment

http://bit.ly/3OLmIul

'In total, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2.2 billion people have impaired vision and, for at least 1 billion of these, it could be prevented or treated. In Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest province, only one public hospital offers the routine operation.'

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/28/many-patients-are-dying-blind-south-africas-struggle-to-save-eyesight

'The vessel is inscribed, telling us who Sedatus was: a Roman citizen (because of his triple name) and the presiding ritualist who summoned the spirits. Beneath this statement is a long list of spirit names, almost all of which are unknown to archaeologists. But one stands out: ‘Dru’. If we are right in assuming this is an abbreviation of ‘Druid’ (and what else could it be?) then it is the only direct archaeological evidence for the existence of the Druids.'

https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-archaeology-tell-us-about-the-druids-dark-arts

'The study found, for example, that almost none of the journals analysed state that they will not reject manuscripts solely on the basis of the quality of English-language writing. Such a lack of support can have serious repercussions for scientists’ careers.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02529-1

when the law gets involved in academic disputes, the only winners are the lawyers https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23841742/francesca-gino-data-colada-lawsuit-gofundme-science-culture-transparency-academic-fraud-dishonesty
#DataColada #fraud #crowdfunding

This is just such a bad idea— a short feed

'For some researchers, the fragmented scientific outcomes of the HBP stem from a lack of focus. “A project that lasts over ten years, I would expect it to produce a conceptual breakthrough,” says Fred Wolf, a theoretical neurophysicist at the University of Göttingen, Germany, who left the HBP after signing the open letter. But that wasn’t the case for the HBP, he says.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02600-x?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=nature&utm_source=Twitter&s=09#Echobox=1692967976

45 climate scientists were asked what we thought of this years' climate disasters. Here are the highlights.

We all pretty much agree that "despite it certainly feeling as if events had taken a frightening turn, global heating to date is entirely in line with 3 decades of scientific predictions. But being proved right is cold comfort, as our warnings had so far been largely in vain."

"Climate science’s projections are pretty robust over the last decades. Unfortunately, humanity’s stubbornness to spew out ever higher amounts of greenhouse gases has also been pretty robust." @meinshausen

"What we are seeing this year is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of what we expect to happen,” says Natalie Mahowald, and "this will become the average summer in 10 years’ time unless the world cooperates and puts climate action top of the agenda" adds Piers Forster.

As Gavin Schmidt said previously, we are not surprised, but we are shocked. Krishna AchutaRao agrees, adding that "the impacts are frighteningly more impactful than I – and many climate scientists I know – expected.”

As a result, psychological distance is decreasing. “I do think we are hitting a tipping point in global consciousness,” I said. “Nearly everyone can now point to someone or somewhere they love that is being affected by wildfire smoke, heat extremes, flooding, and more.”

And we all agree about what needs to be done. “We need to stop burning fossil fuels,” says Fredi Otto. “Now."

* By "we," we mean starting with the biggest emitters. As Paola Arias says, "We need a just + equitable transition. A very small % of the population is responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions.” [specifically, Oxfam finds that the richest 1% produce 2x the carbon of the poorest 50%]

Read:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/28/crazy-off-the-charts-records-has-humanity-finally-broken-the-climate?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

"We have continued to see a dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 positive employees over the past two weeks, which has led to exposures of both fellow caregivers and patients," a memo sent to staff on Thursday stated. "In response to this, as a protective measure for our staff and patients, effective immediately we are requiring mandatory caregiver masking for all patient encounters in all licensed clinical areas."

#covid

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/umass-memorial-mask-mandate-staff-covid/

Some interesting reflections on #generativeAI from https://marketoonist.com/2023/08/generative-ai-adoption.html

I like this comparison:

'This early hype and experimentation stage with generative AI will eventually mature.

I like this insight from Eric Vandevelde, the AI practice chair at Gibson Dunn:

“It was foreign for boards 15 years ago to think about privacy and have chief privacy officers at the design level of products and services. The same thing is going to happen with AI.”'

Why doesn't @who give each & every #Covid variant a Greek letter? Why are seasonal flus named H1N1, H3N2--so boring & informative 🥱-- when the headlines could be terrifying us about viruses named for monsters from Scandanavian folklore? I spoke to Elizabeth Hlavinka from Salon(dot) com👇 https://www.salon.com/2023/08/28/the-names-for-variants-are-a-confusing-alphabet-soup-heres-why-it-got-so-muddled/