I took the poll and stated I left X for Mastodon. Share the poll and let's get Mastodon into Nature's followup article.
Has Bluesky replaced X for scientists? Take Nature’s poll: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00037-y
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This whole #FreeOurFeeds initiative seems fishy to me. If one wanted to wrest control of social media away from "profit-driven incentives, venture capital pressure, and politically-motivated censorship", then why not invest in #ActivityPub? This initiative seems more about Bluesky profiting than about its underlying #ATProtocol.
https://www.usermag.co/p/freeourfeeds-a-30m-plan-to-take-back-social-media-from-billionaires
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Recently I noticed there is a #Mastodon setting/feature where one can choose hashtags to feature on their profile. Not every Mastodon user interface shows the hashtags though. But for those that do use them, I find it's a great way of quickly getting to know a user by viewing their posts by hashtag topic.
Anyone else using this feature? It's making me want to use hashtags in all my posts from here on out.
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Anyone know if there is a way in mastodon to collapse threads into something like one post? I'm trying to avoid these 1000-post threads that dominate the timeline. Thanks for any pointers.
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First fatal H5N1 infection in North America:
https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/06/bird-flu-louisiana-fatal-case/
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"A victim of mirror cells would harbor a vast supply of the microbes, which could spread to other people and start a pandemic. And it would be one that medicine would be unlikely to stop."
"Even if a mirror cell only escaped into a river or the soil, it could wreak ecological havoc. Viruses would be unable to infect it. Amoebae and other predators would find it indigestible. Unchecked, mirror cells could come to dominate entire ecosystems. “The impact on the food chain would be devastating”.
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Fascinating.
"A ‘Second Tree of Life’ Could Wreak Havoc, Scientists Warn": https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/science/mirror-life-microbes-research.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g04.-gel.tXVAGQfASRFs
"There wouldn’t be many organic molecules inside a human body for a mirror cell to feed on. But Dr. Cooper and his colleagues suspect that it might find enough to grow slowly. And if the immune system did not detect the growing infection, it could spread without limit."
[#]Mirror_Life
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"South Dakota outbreak reveals potential H5N1 adaptation in domestic cats": https://phys.org/news/2024-12-south-dakota-outbreak-reveals-potential.html
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Rainy Night at Maekawa, 1932
Hasui Kawase
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I’m really enjoying looking at everyone’s #AdventOfCode. The most interesting part for me is how each language can more easily/naturally solve different aspects of the daily problems. I’m curious to hear from others what they think the strengths/facilities of their chosen language lends to that day’s problem.
[#]Julialang #Java #R #Python #Rustlang #Golang #Elixir
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I was reading Elena Rossini’s blog post and her statement captures this perspective:
"It is flagrantly obvious that the #Fediverse with its independence and lack of algorithmic feeds is possibly the only safe and ethical online social media space one could be in right now."
Perhaps she is right and the “future will be #federated”.
https://elenarossini.com/2024/11/the-rebellion-will-be-federated/
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There's been much brouhaha over other platforms’ promotion of hateful rhetoric and toxic posts, especially on X. #Mastodon’s lack of any algorithmic-based feeds are a step in the right direction, at least certainly worth exploring at scale. This is not to say that there won’t be bad actors posting, but their lies and #disinformation will not be promoted by an #algorithm. That’s crucial in an era where so many people have been deeply misguided.
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Canadian teen’s bird flu infection is not the version found in cows
The unidentified individual is in critical condition, authorities say:
https://www.statnews.com/2024/11/13/bird-flu-canada-teenager-infected-different-strain-than-dairy-cattle/
Curious to know if there is wastewater surveillance of #H5N1 in that area of British Columbia.
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I think this feature of #Mastodon of decentralized moderation policies is something the wider public does not know about. When deciding which platform to migrate to, a lot of people seem to be worried that it'll turn toxic again. Recent reports of disinformation and toxicity on Threads is forcing #Meta to reconsider their moderation policy that applies to every single user.
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Conversely, if you want to be on an instance where the moderation policy is "anything goes", then you can find that or start your own #Mastodon instance. You may be cut off from some other instances if too many posts on your instance are toxic, but you'll have your own corner of the #Fediverse of like-minded instances that have looser restrictions.
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I've been reading comments on news articles about alternative platforms to X like #Threads and #Bluesky. I notice that many people are concerned about top-down policies especially those that concern moderation (it's what turned X toxic). I think one of the key strengths of #Mastodon is that each server/instance has its own moderation policy and is decentralized. So if you see posts coming in from a toxic instance, that server can be blocked without losing access to the rest of the #Fediverse.
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I think Clarivate puts more faith in peer review than they maybe should. If I read two papers, one published with all the peer reviews public for me to consider versus another paper where the peer review is private but the paper has "passed" the journal's peer review process (whatever that is), I'm no more likely to trust the paper that "passed".
Open-access journal #eLife will lose its ‘impact factor’ over controversial publishing model: https://www.science.org/content/article/web-science-index-plans-end-elife-s-journal-impact-factor
[#]Academia #PeerReview
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What do you all think needs to change on #Mastodon to be a more attractive option than #Bluesky?
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/11/24293920/bluesky-700000-new-users-week-x-threads
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I'm one lucky bear to have been surrounded by good friends tonight as we conversed and drank the night away. These were the kinds of meaningful conversations that cut through the noise of our moment. Theirs is a vision of the future I can rally around. These are the real power centers.
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I've devoted my entire life to using research and science to help ameliorate the human condition. To think that someone like RFK, an anti-science evangelist, can now remake the likes of the NIH and CDC to his vision makes me sick to my core and chills my bones. Fighting against outright lies and disinformation is evermore important. This will only invigorate my lifelong mission.
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