Just done a tour of Xwitter, and reminded myself forcibly why I don’t use it regularly any more. Rampant crypto ads, unhinged idiots swamping posts by respected folk…time to delete, I think.
Semi-retired biotechnologist and virologist, interested in making vaccines, lover of 70s rock and hard SF. And good red wine. Posts are both personal and professional, and may include music and/or strong opinions. And possibly zombies.
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Just done a tour of Xwitter, and reminded myself forcibly why I don’t use it regularly any more. Rampant crypto ads, unhinged idiots swamping posts by respected folk…time to delete, I think.
You know you could buy a smart new one, right? Right??
This is how outbreak response should go: fast, transparent, and actionable. Ebola will continue to spill over into humans. So will other viruses, some new, some old. Having this response capacity is what controls outbreaks, stops epidemics, & saves lives.
Pragtig!
“mRNA vaccines have a superpower that no other type of vaccine can currently match: They can be quickly updated and manufactured within two to three months”. Wrong: DNA vaccines can also do this, and plant-made protein vaccines too. Project Blue Angel: 10-40 mill doses flu vaccine in 1 month.
My daughter has done well out of us: she is a natural antiquarian, and looks really good in my wife’s old clothes. She politely declined my old Indian cheesecloth embroidered shirts, though.
I did just rip 150 CDs that I didn’t feel like rebuying digitally….
Noooooooo Larry! Not the vinyl!! Or box it and ship it here….
I have rugby shirts from schools I last attended in 1968 and 1973. And my Sgt Pepper’s 33 1/3 rpm mono vinyl from 1968.
Kudos indeed for sequencing and sharing from DR Congo!
Amazing!🤩 But you might be surprised: streaming stuff is compressed pretty drastically in terms of tonal range and even volume variations. I have a turntable with amp and iPod connections AND a USB slot: very useful. Connected to my 1983 NAD3020 amp and big speakers. You know you want to…😁🎼🎸
Oh, yes!!
Howzit, boet.
Youngster. I got there first!
DRC just declared an Ebola outbreak with 13 deaths so far.
Influenza virus Rhinovirus 😀
We bought, in the face of people saying "use Google maps for Namibia!", a big plasticised map from Tracks4Africa. It worked so well - cell phone reception across northern Nam was CRAP, generally - that we did the same for northern South Africa. Invaluable!
REALLY cool example of extreme genetic parasitism: I can see this being incorporated into SF stories really soon...eh, @aptshadow.bsky.social? 😄
😲 TFW you discover in a talk at a retreat on something not remotely in your field of expertise that you may be at increased risk of resistant hypertension due to your statin regime...😩
Oh, to have the physique and health again...with present levels of experience and/or wisdom! 😩
Nah…!
You were 21?!
It would be nice if you did posts that actually tell a complete story without having to link out to a blog…just saying.
Those grated carrot salads with sugar…! Ghastly.
You might be amazed at how many people just keep on rolling. Not if I’m chairing, though B-)
Yes, I have written about this. I think the point of my original post was not understood correctly. medium.com/@socialcreat...
Sounds like several speakers from the US that I have heard squash 3 20 minute talks into 1 30 minute one - that runs 10 minutes overtime. Except when I’m chairing.
More evidence for role of #antihistamines in potentially preventing #Covid infections--this time w nasal spray. www-nbcnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nbcn...
Fuck, I need to add a few things to my block list if I'm to keep my blood pressure down and awful sense of impending disaster at bay. Like Vought, NIH, CDC, Congress, Senate, US, USA...🙄
That's what I love about this Universe: you just wait, and more good stuff emerges 😁
Hey, I took 30 years to NOT finish my definitive Introduction ot Molecular Virology - until @ajcann.bsky.social walked away from his book after 30-odd years, and I got to revise it for the 7th Edition. Suddenly finished!! Get a co-author 😎
Stupid bastards 😡
I was replying to @signfire.bsky.social - a lot of people don't appreciate that quite a few cancers are very strongly linked to viruses. You are not among them!😁
Way longer than ten years, and causation is a fact in the case of cervical cancer and HPV - and strongly linked with hepatocellular carcinoma and HBV, and nasopharyngial carcinoma and Burkitt lymphoma and EBV.
Welcome - to the fun house...😎
I love looking at this graph, showing it to my students, and sharing it on social media, even though it unerringly brings out the trolls. This is the efficacy curve of Pfizer's mRNA COVID vaccine. This, people, is what ended the emergency phase of the COVID pandemic. Despite what RFK Jr says.
One aspires! 😁
Gary on Camping @profgdfoster.bsky.social
Before COVID we didn’t even know a virus causes multiple sclerosis. They just figured out how it does it. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
RNA droplets that grow and segregate by ribozyme catalysis. Check out our latest preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.29.673008v1
As a longtime (since mid-60s) fan of SF/F, I can attest that “it” is in rude health, and not even thinking of dying. There is an amazing amount of stuff out right now, with a glorious diversity of style, theme,, and content - and it is wonderful. As it was in the 60s-70s with the New Wave!
Martha Wells’ Murderbot series. Mainly novellas, 2 short novels. ALL first person; REALLY good!
Unimplementable because it was SO expensive to make synthetic mRNA, and very difficult to scale it up. It’s much cheaper now, obviously.
Ismail, we have met: in the days of the old Mail & Guardian chat group. Once, for a coffee. And some discussion about Grand Funk Railroad B-) So over 25 years ago? If you’re in CT, we can rectify the gap, though?
Will Santino. #comics #art #cartoon
Thanks! Oh, it was pretty quick, as noro normally is, apparently. But my ribs and intercostal muscles ache, my back is spasming…where is that damn Icon Genetics plant-made vaccine?!
Get better soon!!
Drop an old person you're going to turn into in the future. Or are now.
Yup! And violent…upchacking, shall we say.
All one can ask!
Long distance transport through a building ventilation system.
“I’m watching you, hooman…just don’t turn your back!”
Norovirus!
Have 3 copies 🙄
Done, with yoghurt. 👍
Oh, it’s having a whale of a time…!
Need..to…caption…a…kitty picture!!
You’re young, mate!
So the obvious symptoms no longer present - but now a serious fucking headache. I don’t DO headaches; I’m lucky - and serious lethargy. Viruses: can’t love them all…!
Nah: that’s been a 3rd world country recipe for longer than I know.
First bout in YEARS!! Out of the blue, as it were.
Welkom in Nederland!!
Addis Ababa: all of the above (except it’s new), AND no announcing gate changes.
A WARM good morning! Happy Vaccination Day Bowie!!
I invoke for September: - The first teaser for The Mandalorian and Grogu - The second trailer for Project Hail Mary - The first teaser and release date for For All Mankind Season 5 - A first look at Star City (spin-off of For All Mankind) - Something next Trek movie - First look at Blade Runner 2099
On our way, are we??
Crossed messaging - that’s my present-state GIF!
Teaspoon of salt, dessert spoon of sugar, in 1 litre. The go-to rehydration remdy.
This one?
PS: thanks!
Understand - yes. But it does nothing for the symptoms. Only codeine does that.
Having got up close and personal with what has to be a norovirus infection that manifested last night, I can attest that there is a cloth-head syndrome that goes with energetically evacuating your stomach, that is seriously debilitating. That, and a monster headache. Fuck!!
I DO like that animation!
That is a SERIOUSLY good run of two series - third, not so much. Animated shorts (with quality ranging from hard-to-tell-not-live to very stylised. Stories from Neal Asher, John Scalzi, Alastair Reynolds - brilliant!
Did you see the Love, Death & Robots episode?
Zima Blue, anyone?
And then there was “misled”. Obviously the past tense of the verb “to misle”, pronounced myzel. I though that until was 25 or so….
Well, obviously, one would take more than one…? That would come with The Who.
And??
On the contrary, alive and very well!!
I am sure I got a Candida infection up my nose from a lab strain…”Sniff this plate!” we were told….
Me talking with The Daughter about Deep Things. Like red wine 😁👍🍷
And if you had any sense, you used those autoclaved serological pipettes plugged with cotton wool at the top end!
Know by mouth feel: like one of @aptshadow.bsky.social’s engineered reptiles.
You should not sit on the floor, period!
So are quite a few of us…personally, I’ve had acrylamide mix, phenol/chloroform and various solutions into my mouth. Autopipettes couldn’t have come too soon!
Ever had that experience when you think of doing some online food shopping, get the app, set up your account, do the 2-factor thing, navigate the menus, fill up the basket with “Ooh, that looks nice!” things, and get to what you wanted - to see it’s not in stock. Screw it, I drove to the nearby Spar
I lie: some F, too.
Mouth pipetting bacterial suspensions: nature’s way of immunising scientists!!
Your house is burning and you can only save one record:
Yabba dabba!
Yup! But a cool 13.
OK, my lunch date is delayed, so I end up listening to this, also from 1968. Now you can too. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeIc...
Alastair Reynolds wrote a trilogy of really good future pirate novels suitable for teens a while back? www.google.com/search?q=ala...
OK, more flowers - and rocks! With a little natural rock garden.
