You can use fossil gas permitting documents to help track data centre development in the US. This is maybe a lil clue that they're not all running on beautiful clean energy www.404media.co/researchers-... @404media.co

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3US... despatches from a bygone world...I had a brilliant and inspired science teacher (Glen McCaffrey) who showed us this short film series in Year 8...small things that can be hugely influential on life's trajectory

The SCALE of destruction is really hard to fathom. This, obviously, is just one example. It will take a *generation* or more to recover and much will be lost irrevocably. We are watching the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle... Australia, a society where obnoxious behaviours are infinitely justifiable in the name of 'having a good time'...

soundcloud.com/saphileaum/s... current listening favourite

www.timeout.com/singapore/ne... very sorry to see this excellent restaurant close its doors...particularly for weekend dim sum. With Kinokuniya on the floor below, it made for a near-perfect Saturday or Sunday...

Tanjong Pagar docks, looking south from the SAM cafe. On the right you can see the eastern end of Sentosa, and in the between the gantry cranes, either the western end of Batam or Lumba Besar or possibly Bulan. An unusually clear day for the parts...

www.nature.com/articles/d41... an excellent piece by @rochmyaningsih.bsky.social in @nature.com this week about the massive impact of the (under- and mis-reported) recent SEA tropical cyclones...'the world has mostly overlooked this emergency'

Carl Gibson-Hill, as seen at the National Library of Singapore

most people don't want politics that hurt other people. we just want a long overcoat like david bowie and affordable housing

wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...

And here is a link to the wildlabs.net post about the microgrant. wildlabs.net/funding-oppo...

will we take climate change seriously now?

I read and write, I explore and I question, I design and script and analyse, I interpret and communicate. I do this to train my mind in the hopes of one day generating new knowledge. New knowledge that might even be useful, and that no algorithm can yet be trained on.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.05195 a wonderful outreach book just posted on on #arXiv by the African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA). These personal narratives are hugely important for young people to see their way forward, esp. w/o the presence of immediate role models.

Introducing AutoOpenRaman, an automated, inexpensive microscope setup for Raman spectroscopy! We recapitulated many features of expensive commercial systems using economical hardware and open-source software 🧵 [1/8] research.arcadiascience.com/pub/resource...

Non-Conventional Yeasts as a Source of Genetic Diversity and Biotechnological Potential | Annual Reviews - www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

aka a 'bullshit artist'...to evoke an old Australian phrase...

really sorry to see the #theprojector #singapore shutting down...great films, spaces and vibes...the pop-up at Riverside Point was my favourite. Blade Runner at the Pasir Panjang Power Station was unforgettable. Thanks to everyone involved, esp. the volunteers, and good luck for future ventures

Sunday afternoon walk at Marina Coastal Park #Singapore

the @economist.com has a good summary of this disappointing episode www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the A-bombing of Nagasaki. In this podcast, Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki discusses the importance of pursuing a culture of peace: "We have to move forward, even if it is one little step" "to realize a world without nuclear weapons" open.substack.com/pub/annelise...

Picked up a book request at the Central Library this afternoon and decided to back walk to the Life Sciences Institute via Kent Ridge Road…an isolated and vaguely haunting stretch of high road positioned between the north and south sides of #NUS campus

NLM will be going through a major server maintenance from July 25th to July 28th. I'd say avoid NCBI upload/usage during that time! 🧬🖥️🧪 ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2025/07/08/n...

“This decision will kill people. It will lead to millions, if not billions, of USD in additional damages per [hurricane] event.” One has to assume, on purpose.

We have an open call with @continuous.foundation for a Modular Style Peer Review Working Group to: 🌻 Co-create practical models for reviewing non-traditional outputs 🌻 Build trust without gatekeeping 🌻 Design review processes that reflect researcher needs Join us: continuousfoundation.org/peer-form

looks like an extremely useful paper for those microbiome folks working in the low-biomass context

This story is just so sad: a postdoc's life is ruined, and so stupid: our government is disgustingly duplicitous, and the media and university are completely credulous. Needless to say, everyone must have the proper permits for your strains. More importantly, this is targeted fascism. the details:

substack.com/home/post/p-... a compact insightful piece by Sarah Wilson on a recent visit home to #australia the last paragraph says it all

The new NIH director said grants “canceled because they’re DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion]-based science … [which does] not actually have anything to do with promoting the health of the American people” www.science.org/content/arti... So let’s take a quick look at some of his past papers… 🧵

The Australian people have clearly rejected what one commentator has described as "bunyip Trumpism" www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

"These narratives play into our cultural practice of blaming diseases on people outside our tribe, instead of our own failings and responsibilities." observer.co.uk/culture/arti...

Small update from AllTheBacteria (allthebacteria.org). Assemblies can be bulk downloaded from OSF as before, or you can now get individual assemblies from AWS. We now also have a LexicMap index on AWS, so you can align your favourite gene against 2.4million bacteria (next post for price estimates)

"You know, as an example, red lead was used to make cheddar... A can of coffee could be coffee, but it could be ground bone, or charred shells, or dirt." Deborah Blum on our bad food past -- and how to avoid it being our future: buttondown.com/theswordandt...

arxiv.org/abs/2504.09853 looks like an extremely interesting new development in zero-friendly dimensionality reduction for compositional data

For those who aren’t aware, NCBI (the NIH institute that runs PubMed) was already working with an insufficient budget that mostly went towards data management and storage. From what I’ve heard, the personnel cuts are having a devastating effect on NCBI, and the websites we all use are indeed at risk

#ncbi #blast doesn’t work either - i’ve been super concerned this was going to disappear - this database is crucial for genomic/transcriptomic research has anyone thought about how we can archive all of this information?? all the genomes, tools, data, we really cannot afford to lose it 🧪🌎👩🏻‍🔬

Yes, thanks to @seandavi.bsky.social! Tagging for Research Administrators and others that might be trying to work this weekend. #RAdminsky #MedSky #Science #NIH

Cases of whooping cough in Michigan are at their highest level in at least 20 years, as vaccinations decline. The disease can be deadly to infants. Alarmed by the increase, doctors are pleading for families to vaccinate their children.

Definitely a study worth looking into. One gripe I have with these sorts of studies though is often the DNA fragment size is short, not making good use of real long reads. 4.5kb read N50 for ONT isn’t great. We size select and get 20kb N50 typically, which a tail of much longer reads.

Interesting article mapping scientists and science communicators on Bluesky. No SciArt section though 🫠 Also a link to the Top 100 Science Influencers (link for that in reply). 🐡🧪 #scicomm mikeyoungacademy.dk/communities-...

A new report of the #NationalAcademyofSciences on #NASA. It does not say much to address specific problems in #EarthScience but it does describe agency-wide systemic and structural problems that I agree with and do see around me as happening. nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2751... 🧪🌍🛠️🛰️🚀

The micro-ecosystem at the foot of the stairs. #moss #lichen

Save the date #Nitrification #Bremen #MicroSky 🧪

More than half of all mangrove ecosystems at risk of collapse by 2050, first global assessment finds 🧪