Map of the United States with geologic and geomorphic processes highlighted. For instance, the central US landscape was caused by farming, while the Appalachian mountains were caused by continents colliding, while Florida was caused by ongoing disputes between limestone and water, and the southwest was caused by water and time
Xkcd does it again!
m.xkcd.com/3221/
Quite the blast from the past. TIG tips was very handy - one of my extraction protocols published there is still being used in the lab and elsewhere. But, gulp that was 30 years ago!
Collection of old methods papers
Old method paper
Time to throw out old papers and files. Used to love the methds-reagnts newsgroup back in the day. And the tech tips online. Even a protocol here from @profgemmell.bsky.social I’ve just noticed !
While I was down South, this paper was published: MetaZooGene Intercalibration Experiment (MZG-ICE): Metabarcoding Marine Zooplankton Diversity of the Global Ocean. A nice collaboration via SCOR MetaZooGene Working Group - we evaluate #eDNA data comparability among labs. doi.org/10.1111/1755...
🧬🧪
New Zealand has more sunshine than Germany.
But only 1 in 35 homes here has rooftop solar.
Australia? 1 in 3.
Why? I tried to find out - despite some strange secrecy
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
I find myself slightly suprised to be recommending a video from the Norwegian Consumer Council, but it's bloody good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...
And people wonder why NZ’s R&D spend is way lower than the rest of the OECD & our productivity is in the toilet. www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...
Illustration of a person lying on their stomach reading a book, appearing focused and engaged. Text reads: How do you edit Wikipedia? Luckily, there's a handy guide.
Every Wikipedia editor starts somewhere. Luckily, the Help:Directory makes the first step easy: it’s a collection of how-to pages and tutorials to guide volunteers through everything from creating categories to adding references.
🚨 New pre-print! 🚨 In the largest study of its kind to-date, we investigate the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms driving within-patient evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Read here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... , and follow along with this thread, discussing our findings (1/21)
I haven’t been this excited for a bubble to burst since I was a toddler.
The algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects.
I really enjoyed this interview with Mihingarangi Forbes. In 20 minutes we managed to touch on numerous issues relating to how AI is changing society, issues I've been grappling daily in conversations with colleagues here in New Zealand.
Landing in Dunedin Aotearoa in about 90 minutes for the start of a trip that represents the culmination of a dream I’ve had since I was ten years old.
This isn’t immigration policy. It’s a business model.
ICE keeps growing, not because it makes America safer, but because corporations are raking in billions off cages, bodies, and suffering. ICE’s existence is a massive revenue stream.
Our last product of the SCOR WG157 MetaZooGene if out! We run a 10-laboratory intercomparison experiment on for zooplankton metabarcoding. Take home: major patterns hold, but sequencing platform matters, taq matters (a lot), add positive/negative controls...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Oh dear,
When Country Music is Coming out with these lyrics, Republicans better watch out.
A rare white Tui. A medium sized bush bird with a distinctive white throat tuft.
Another photo of a fluffed up white Tui with a 'normal' friend - this one appears black from a distance but has a blue sheen up close, a thin white ruff around its throat and a white throat tuft.
Seeing a white tui would be a birding highlight! www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-dail...
📷Nathan Pye
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
Octopus tentacles emerging from a bush
Octobush was a hit in NZ
As the amount of mis/disinformation and other rubbish content has been allowed on social media #Wikipedia has become an increasingly important resource.
Knowing that plenty of experts in their field contribute or teach others like @adzebill.bsky.social also helps to build confidence in it.
Meanwhile in Canada
youtu.be/S1yYGb1U31o
Jess Wade is amazing, and it's my absolute honour to be one of the more than 2000 women in STEM whose wikipedia page she started: mymodernmet.com/jessica-wade... 🧪🔭👩🔬
Just wow! 🧪🌍🦑🐳🦭
Our latest preprint evaluates sampling strategies for the detection of avian influenza virus from the environment @profgemmell.bsky.social @dwinter.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Image shows a screenshot of the conclusion of the linked Senate inquiry submission. This text can be found on page 10. The text is too long for alt text, but here is the first three quarters of the text: Conclusion Over the past decade, Nous Group’s UniForum data has quietly taken on the status of authoritative benchmark for the quality of a range of professional and academic services performed by public universities in Australia and across the world. This authoritative status is performed through scientific-looking graphs and scientific-sounding jargon designed to imply UniForum data is generated through rigorous methods and backed by expert consensus. This performance of authority is significant: it lends UniForum data an air of credibility and facticity that makes acting upon its results irresistible. When one begins to open the black box and examine how UniForum data is actually produced, however, it becomes difficult to justify the degree to which Australian university executives are relying upon it in their decision-making. My analysis is based on a review of publicly available documents, and it is therefore possible that Nous or its clients would point to things not in the public domain that address some of the conceptual and methodological flaws that I have highlighted in UniForum. But the fact that the underlying UniForum data and methodology is not in the public domain is itself one of the key causes for concerns. When the stakes are so high, it cannot be acceptable for Nous Group and its clients to simply tell university staff and governing councils, ‘trust us, these numbers are based on rigorous methods and analysis.’ The lack of rigor, external scrutiny, and transparency in UniForum’s underlying data and methodology would be a cause for concern in any public institution, but it is especially concerning in the context of universities where rigorous, transparent, and accountable knowledge production is a core part of what we do. ...
Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run.
My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities.
www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor...
A thread
Fake quote from me on "Canada Resists"
Fake quote from me on Dean Blundell substack
Fake quote from me in (allegedly) Haitian website
A large number of articles with fake quotes from me have appeared on "Resist"/Dem accounts. I suspect they were written with AI because they are so formulaic. Other "experts" are cited -- all without links. If you see a quote from me without a link to the source, beware. Examples of fakes:
New: The International Court of Justice’s finding that granting fossil fuel exploration licences could breach international law casts a shadow over the New Zealand Government’s oil and gas plans.
newsroom.co.nz/2025/07/25/w...
Smartphone alerts of preshake warnings for 2.5 billion people in 98 countries countries over the past 3 years
@science.org
science.org/doi/10.1126/...
