Switzerland's entire emergency healthcare system can't generate invoices until "sometime in May" due to a national tariff change. Therefore it's impossible to make an insurance claim. UK GHIC also worthless there, meaning you have to front £1000s in deposits that take months get back. Bonkers.
Maintenance represents almost every set of skills that *isn't* code production. As such, the empowerment isn't well founded. I'm empowered by my car to drive at 90mph in a school zone, yet this has dangerous ramifications, especially the more I do it. Tailscale's CEO: apenwarr.ca/log/20260316
A quick rant on people vibe-translating our Rust libraries to other languages
That's the second time in a week that I see new bioinformatics tools with a vibe-coded translation of our Rust libraries to C/C++.
I have two major issues with that:
That all actual scientific evidence to date supports the notion that the COVID pandemic was caused by at least 2 zoonotic jumps at the Huanan market 👀🌶️
Teaching DNA sequencing
RAMPART real-time sequencing run monitoring
Sequencing with ONT MinION in a lift
Phylogenetic analysis of a mock outbreak
With lab work done, sequencing and bioinformatics made up the final days of the @artic.network workshop in Ghana
The Viral Sequencing and Bioinformatics workshop in Accra, Ghana is underway! @artic.network
Host read removal sounds simple. It's not. 🧫
Ep. 151 of #microbinfie: we talk with @bede.im about Deacon — why alignment-based approaches fall short, the sensitivity/specificity tradeoff, and what it takes to remove host reads at scale. Part 1 of 2.
#metagenomics
on.soundcloud.com/gEm7QyaTauvd...
This appears to have struck a nerve
Helicase: Vectorized parsing and bitpacking of genomic sequences www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
Also presta valves have fiddly removable valve cores. Even if not bent these will leak if loose. Can tighten with pliers if careful. PTFE tape on threads can help too. A drop of water will reveal a leak here.
"Makes no sense for any road users". What about the owners of these six bicycles locked up on Thursday evening @maryoxford.bsky.social ? Are they not road users? Popular already and in spite of damage.
Super Bloom: Fast and precise filter for streaming k-mer queries www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
Only took a week for a driver to smash into new bike racks opposite White Hart. Clearly popular though. Bigger bollard needed?
It's metallic and weighs at least 30kg
This – I precariously locked up to nearby lampposts for years before learning of the hidden spaces behind the graveyard.
I did my PhD on bacterial meningitis, finding whether there are genetic factors which make meningitis more likely.
Wrote down some initial thoughts on the current outbreak in Kent: johnlees.me/posts/menb-o...
I tried to think of factors and their likelihood to explain why this is happening now
Oops, so obvious 😅. "Unknown driver" made me think hit and run
Don't suppose you spotted any CCTV nearby? It would be nice if the driver's insurance company paid for the damage.
🦟 " #Dengue virus detected in pool of #Aedes #mosquitoes north of Alps (in Basel/ #Switzerland 🇨🇭) for the first time." via SWI Swissinfo
www.swissinfo.ch/eng/various/...
"One dataset… contained hospital diagnoses and associated diagnosis dates for about 413,000 participants, along with their sex and month and year of birth."
www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
In addition to the issues with homogenization of writing overall, it is a bit sad to see certain kinds of objectively bad writing from academics fade as they get AI help. I see less dense, weird stuff from people with idiosyncratic approaches to writing that were nevertheless full of meaning
It's a good day when the first item in your feed is your own work :)
@rickbitloo.bsky.social was annoyed that scanning reads for all 96 rapid kit barcodes is bottleneck in Barbell, so he made Sassy2: 13x (150bp) to 4.6x (8kbp) faster than v1 by batch-searching patterns, and >100Gbp/s on 16 threads!
Was it deemed to fall short of 'new results'? The (inconsistently applied) unwritten rule for software manuscripts on biorxiv seems to be that they include at least one vaguely relevant results table or quantitative figure.
A screenshot of the new Pathoplexus homepage showing all viruses now supported, including Dengue and Yellow Fever, which are circled in red
1/ 🦟 Big news: #Pathoplexus now supports Dengue virus & Yellow Fever virus - two arboviruses responsible for over 400 million infections and up to 94,000 deaths per year.
Here's what’s new in our latest update 👇🏻
Read the full update: pathoplexus.org/news/2026-03... 📰
ARTIC are hiring! Postdoctoral opportunity in metagenomics at the University of Birmingham
edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
A back insect with yellow markings rests on top of a container of water. It is casting a shadow with a thin body and rounded markings where its legs are.
Above and below #AlphabetChallenge
#WeekJforJuxtaposition #Wasp
#InsectThursday #FlyDay
#LightAndShadow #ECK #Photography #VT
Remarkably swift response from @anneliesedoddsmp.bsky.social and team – thank you
Interesting, this was a few hours before that apparently caught fire. Given that EE isn't usable in half of the streets between Cowley and Iffley, I'm not too surprised that the 999 coverage is also poor.
Saw two guys stealing a bike on Bullingdon Rd yesterday and dialled 999 but couldn't get through (call failed). Dialled 999 again from Iffley Rd a minute later and connected, only to be cut off after 10s. Dangerous lack of mobile reception in East Oxford. cc @anneliesedoddsmp.bsky.social
