H3N2 preprint: there are concerns of a severe incoming influenza season due to the drifted H3N2 K clade. We at @psioxford.bsky.social analysed epi data and ran scenario models to see what we could discern about K clade transmission dynamics: zenodo.org/records/1770.... (1/18)

Fresh start to the day with some Grade-A LinkedIn AI slop

🌈 The website for the inaugural rainbowR conference is now live! 🎉 🗓️ Save the date: Feb 25th-26th, 2026 📣 Call for submissions is open 👯 We're bringing together LGBTQ+ R users to promote our work and foster connections among community members conference.rainbowr.org

Sure academic spam and predatory journal solicitations are unwanted clutter, but starting the day with being called "eminent" and told "your recent publication has been provisionally selected for the "Best Researcher Award."" Why yes go off queen 🥰

(With apologies to Randall Munroe)

This is today at 3pm uk time. As a change of pace I think there will be a fairly heavy #julialang component

I love this. Explainer: There are 100 outcomes (all squares) each equally likely. Wiggly lines event happens 20% of the time; grey event happens 30% of the time. >

yeah we're into LLMs (Large Lamb-bridge Models)

Incidentally, in my experience this is the ultimate way to tell an arts nerd from a stem nerd. Arts nerd like the aesthetics of the left side, stem nerds like the logic of the right side. Linguists, being right at the periphery, refuse to choose sides.

a bit delayed, but still hot: ‪‪A phylodynamic study, conducted in southwestern France, on the importance of farm density when it comes to avian influenza spread: www.nature.com/articles/s42... @claireguinat.bsky.social @epidesa.bsky.social

Chuffed to announce that registration for the HPAI Modelling Challenge is now open! Interested in testing your modelling team's outbreak response capabilities in a synthetic, peacetime setting? Want to contribute to the improvement of HPAI epidemic preparedness? Check out below:

Recently came across the really useful term 'Moat of Low Status' from Cate Hall. It describes why we find it so difficult to take steps required to fulfil our ambitions - if we're already good at one thing, it's hard to endure being bad at something else.

Whether it's Democrats making it harder for kids to get cigarettes or Republicans making it harder for kids to get vaccines, both sides have imposed the will of government on America's children.

When Woody Guthrie proclaimed “This Machine Kills Fascists” this is exactly what he meant 🇺🇸 youtu.be/PL0oB1gbZE4?... #SongoftheYear

Bsky is so disseminated that you never know who is seeing what. So I want to be sure that people see that the foremost public and global health law theorist in the US, Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown Law, is here on Bsky and doesn't have nearly enough followers. Fix that, folks.

2 x Postdocs (Berkeley, CA, USA) Infectious-disease modelling & phylodynamics for pandemic preparedness with ‪@charleswhittaker.bsky.social‬ at @petal-team.bsky.social‬ @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social‬ ‪@berkeleypublichlth.bsky.social‬ More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2351

Screwworm is making headlines because of this rare imported human case, but a slightly important omission from these articles is just how *insanely catastrophic* a New World Screwworm (NWS) epidemic would be on people, livestock, pets, and the US economy. 1/7

NEW: The CDC shooting was public health’s Jan. 6. from @colincarlson.bsky.social and myself for @statnews.com. we do not make this comparison lightly, and we bring the receipts.

Love all those calligraphic letters we get to use in stat formulas. I hope other disciplines get to experience the joy of writing a fancy Y rather than the regular boring one.

This op-ed from NIH director Jay Bhattacharya is *infuriating*. He says we have to stop funding mRNA vaccine research because it hasn't "earned public trust." Motherfucker, WHO DID THAT.

Bird flu is spreading a LOT in dairy farms now in US- now is the time for surveillance and stepping up action on vaccine- but US has Kennedy who seems to think infections are fine and has cancelled the contract for developing a mrna bird flu vaccine

For who still thinks this can’t happen here… it’s already happening. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

The “Infection Pause”: because its about fewer infections, not an immune debt to repay There was a real, measurable shift in the peak season for several endemic human pathogens as well as a rebound in infections, coinfections, and disease severity among them after the COVID-19 pandemic's…

NEW The White House is blocking the NIH from awarding new research grants for the rest of the fiscal year Chokes off billions in research funding Gift link www.wsj.com/politics/pol... with @nidhisubs.bsky.social

You should never follow any of these color charts. They are all stupid. I'll show you why. 🧵

Over 100,000 people die from measles each year globally—a completely preventable tragedy. With U.S. cases rising, we risk losing our elimination status. I shared insights with @emilymullin.bsky.social / Wired magazine on what’s driving the outbreak. www.wired.com/story/can-us...

getting in an arms race with LLMs over em-dashes by using dashes so long ——— so very long ——— that they have never appeared in training data

New preprint! 🚨 We study the interaction between misinformation and science on Twitter during COVID-19 based on ~407M tweets. Both science and misinformation featured prominently during the pandemic, but the interaction between the two has not been studied on this scale before. 🧵 (1/10)

'The myth of meritocracy in science collapses under the financial sacrifices expected at every career stage. From unpaid internships and self-funded conferences to underpaid graduate and postdoctoral positions, the hidden costs of ‘doing science’ are profound.' journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

Good thread on the appeal of the 'data science' label and how the seemingly-blurred lines between—and admin perceptions of—Stat, DS, and CS have real consequences to funding, training, and futures. Worth a quick read 📖

Will be interested to see how this develops – it's very common in research for people to focus on (and report) only one corner of the workflow, e.g. inferential model -> estimate

For todays #epinowcast seminar at 3pm UK time we have Maile Thayer talking about Real-time modeling during the 2024-2025 Dengue Epidemic in Puerto Rico: Applications and insights www.epinowcast.org/seminars/202...

Infectious Disease Modelling starter pack update! Many more modellers have joined Bluesky recently so this update is overdue. Pls keep on sending suggestions! (bio should contain experience relevant for this pack) IDModelling pack 1: go.bsky.app/86Ao1a5 IDModelling pack 2 : go.bsky.app/2oBB7KX

amtrak’s marketing team gets it

New piece on why it’s unhelpful to characterise COVID debate as ‘lockdowns are bad’ vs ‘lockdowns are good’ when it was really about people who claimed that COVID was 100x less fatal than it was + optimal to have a massive epidemic immediately before vaccine… vs those who sense checked these claims.

📢 New paper out! Since Oct 2023, France has vaccinated ducks against HPAI. Outbreaks dropped sharply. We estimated 314–756 outbreaks were expected, but saw 96–99% fewer. Vaccination likely key, but other factors still to explore. doi.org/10.3201/eid3... @epidesa.bsky.social @inrae-france.bsky.social

Our General Assembly last week was a great success, thanks to our colleagues at #UAB (AlbertoAllepuz, NataliaCiriaArtiga, GiovannaCiaravino, TeresaImperial, FernandoDuarteGodoy) who took care of every little detail and need. Thank you & we look forward to our next meeting, which will be virtual!

Frequentist vs Bayesian Interpretations of Severity Mayo (2025) responds to van Dongen et al. (2023) van Dongen et al. (2023): doi.org/10.3758/s134... Mayo (2025): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1... #PhilSci #PsycSci #Stats

Forecasting Seasonal Influenza Epidemics with Physics-Informed Neural Networks arxiv.org/abs/2506.03897

🐔🔐 Well done Rebecca, Oksana, and Mattias with excellent presentations at the first conference of the World Animal Biosecurity Association. From participatory research to practical policy discussion, collective action with farmers policy-makers and researchers is the way forward.

once again I must tap my own sign

New postdoc positions with a number of exciting epidemic modelling projects opening in our Unit at @pasteur.fr in beautiful Paris. Deadline for applications: 26th June. research.pasteur.fr/en/job/postd...

That's why.

Day 1 of the #BIOSECURE General Assembly wrapped up with important updates, insightful discussions, and parallel working sessions. The evening closed on a high note with a city tour and a wonderful dinner, organized by our partners from Veterinària UAB! Now on to Day 2! 🙌

Reminder that this very interesting talk will be tomorrow!

The take home message here seems to be that you shouldn’t drink large amounts of tampons which, fair enough.

A historic day! The Pandemic Agreement is adopted! 🌍✍️ This landmark achievement will make the world safer from future pandemic threats.

Happy Small Horse Day / World Bidet Day