Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@social.cleverlibre.org

'Another end-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it crops up in Moths (Angry Robot, £9.99), an invigorating debut by Jane Hennigan. This time the culprit is a hitherto unknown species of moth whose caterpillars spread tiny noxious threads that have an adverse effect on male humans, causing half to die and the rest to go homicidally — and often misogynistically — insane.'

https://www.ft.com/content/8fb6b85d-d499-4bfb-8d4d-54da23969792

AI in breast cancer screening.

"Advancements in A.I. are beginning to deliver breakthroughs in breast cancer screening by detecting the signs that doctors miss. So far, the technology is showing an impressive ability to spot cancer at least as well as human radiologists, according to early results and radiologists, in what is one of the most tangible signs to date of how A.I. can improve public health."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/technology/artificial-intelligence-breast-cancer-detection.html

"Stipends available! Apply for the Chen Science Writer Award or a stipend to attend the FENS–Chen Institute –NeuroLéman #SummerSchool!

#neuroscience

Don’t miss this #training opportunity and apply before the deadline, 13 March."

https://www.fens.org/news-activities/fens-and-societies-calendar/training-event/fens-chen-institute-neuroleman-summer-school-on-motor-control-from-thought-to-action

Maybe it's better to talk about ending silent exploitation.

“Quiet quitting has such a negative connotation; it makes you feel even worse.” Many researchers disdain the term, noting that they’re neither quitting nor being quiet about their desire to create healthier work–life boundaries, prioritize their mental health and reject toxic workplace cultures.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00633-w

"We collected 48 faecal samples from all but one of the 17 bat species breeding in the UK, through an extensive network of bat rehabilitators and conservationists, and screened them for coronaviruses using deep RNA sequencing."

#preprint https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.17.524183v3

“The major advantage of NK cells is they’ve never killed anybody, unlike CAR-T cells,” says Lewis Lanier of the University of California, San Francisco, and the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy, who has pioneered research into the NK cell biology over the past 40 years. For reasons that are not fully understood, cytokine release syndrome, if it occurs during NK cell therapy, tends to be much milder.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-023-01671-5

"An investigation by ProPublica found online pharmacies that sell abortion medication such as mifepristone and misoprostol are sharing sensitive data, including users' web addresses, relative location, and search data, with Google and other third-party sites — which allows the data to be recoverable through law enforcement requests."

https://www.businessinsider.com/police-getting-help-social-media-to-prosecute-people-seeking-abortions-2023-2

'This delicate process—following and developing the master’s path by criticizing the master—has a precise beginning in the history of human thought: the position that Anaximander assumed vis‑à‑vis his master Thales.'

https://lithub.com/when-rebellion-becomes-virtue-how-the-scientific-method-came-to-be/

"However, we find that there is consistently a stronger relationship between mRNA abundance and gene sensitivity than there is between regulatory gene activity and gene sensitivity. This is true both when gene sensitivity is treated as a binary and a quantitative property. Overall, our results suggest that gene sensitivity is better predicted by measured expression than by GRN-inferred activity."

#preprint

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.02.530664v2