Alex Freeman

Octopus | Built for Researchers Get started with Octopus, an open access platform where researchers can read, review and publish findings at all stages of the scientific process.

Don’t forget not-for-profit alternative publishing platforms too… (like my own octopus.ac but there are others) Might require more of a change of practice for some researchers, but for those willing to try, it fixes more issues with how scientific research is done/communicated/by whom

I am a documentary maker in a film. I never have to get consent forms signed or worry about legalities of broadcasting footage I’ve shot of young people, victims, or accusing people of things. I can film perfect footage in near darkness, never have to film cut-aways, and have unlimited memory cards.

You should be able to get a refund at ticket counter. (I have done worse when I turned up at airport for return flight that had left the day before…)

Trump, medicines and the NHS Following recent press speculation that the UK may soon agree to pay more for drugs used within the NHS as part of a trade deal with the USA, we spoke to Mark Dayan and Sally Gainsbury to discuss the ...

🆕 Following recent press speculation that the UK may soon agree to pay more for drugs used within the #NHS as part of a trade deal with the USA, we asked experts @markgdayan.bsky.social and @sallygainsbury.bsky.social to explain the situation. 💊

🤖 What could workplace AI and other tech developments mean for 🏡 home working?

Join us on Monday 30 June as we explore this subject with:

- Prof Efpraxia Zamani @efpraxiaz.bsky.social‬, Durham University Business School
- Prof Carl Frey @carlbfrey.bsky.social‬, @ox.ac.uk‬ Internet Institute

A nice example of the need for careful cleaning of data? Field input/matching errors etc…

Octopus | Built for Researchers Get started with Octopus, an open access platform where researchers can read, review and publish findings at all stages of the scientific process.

When we designed Octopus.ac as a new publishing platform, I bore in mind all the journal nightmare submission platforms I had come across.

My ‘favourite’ had, after about 19 pages, a last checklist that told you, for the first time, to put a statement on your cover page - that was uploaded on p1…

(Big fan of your work, by the way)

I know it's complicated by sometimes wanting to compare very common and very rare risks. But for this chart, I think you could do a lot out of 100, and then the few rare events out of 1000 (making it really, really obvious where you change denominator)

The '1 in x' format of numbers makes them hard to compare and is also counter-intuitive (the bigger the second number, the smaller the chance). It is better to find a common denominator, like 100, and make them all 'x out of 100'. That way it's easiest for people to see which is bigger.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on.

slate.com/technology/2...

OpenSAFELY Schools A collaboration between the National Institute of Teaching and the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

"Have you thought about applying the @opensafely model, for data privacy and efficiency, to non-health data?"

YES WE HAVE

Behold the new... OpenSAFELY-Schools!!

schools.opensafely.org

I know this is specifically referring to preprints and preprint servers, but how does this square with Green OA, in which the author's accepted manuscript (i.e. post peer review) is placed in an institutional repository for open access? Is that now banned by Wiley?

‪@colinmegill.com‬ Can we chat?

Big toile project

Cheltenham Science Festival was ace again this year. Thanks to all those who gave us such great feedback on our Citizen Science project on nappies. 300,000 nappies per minute become waste globally. Please help us by joining the project here: www.bigtoiletproject.org

The Future of Scientific Publishing - survey

We are reviewing the current state of scientific publishing, and we want to hear from researchers on their perceptions of publishing in the current context and how it might develop in future. Complete our short survey now:

Diabolus Ex Machina This Is Not An Essay

Possibly the best thing I've read about ChatGPT yet.

h/t @melaniemitchell.bsky.social

amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

Lords consider changes to Data (Use and Access) Bill Members discuss House of Commons changes to the bill in

Yesterday, Monday 2 June, the #HouseOfLords voted through a change to the #DataBill on the transparency of copyrighted materials used to train AI models.

Lords members scrutinise legislation and hold the government to account. Find out more ⬇️ www.parliament.uk/business/new...

It does! Thank you! I shall forward to people I think should hear about it…

Link still says expired!

If a screening test that is done over consecutive years has a false positive rate of 10%, by occasion 7 the prob of a false + is 0.522, therefore prep pts to ‘expect a false +’

Maths lesson at #bcs2025 by the superb @kityates.bsky.social

#cardiosky #medsky

The link says the job posting has already expired!

Closeup of an orange involuted surface glistening with biological potential

Zoom out to see the same orange surface contained within a frosted glass

Made a cocktail for my wife and she put it in the freezer, inadvertently creating a new superorganism please hel—*glurk*

Catalytic converters?

Interested in sharing your work with Octopus? Join us for tomorrow's webinar, where we'll talk through all the new features we've been adding to Octopus to make it easier to create publications: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/f6985a...

Lords consider changes to Data (Use and Access) Bill Members discuss House of Commons changes in 'ping pong'.

Members have asked the government to think again on requiring transparency of copyrighted works used to train AI models.

The House of Lords voted on a new amendment proposed by Baroness Kidron during 'ping pong' on the Data (Use and Access) Bill.

📄 Find out more www.parliament.uk/business/new...

Search publications - Octopus | Built for Researchers Find and read open access scientific research relevant to you.

Want to help policy makers in research backed decision making? New Areas of Research Interest have just been published on Octopus for 4 governmental organisations. Visit www.octopus.ac/search/publi... to take a look, and write a hypothesis attached to one register your interest and get involved!

Quite possibly the biggest climate story of the year (especially when we look back on this in a few years' time)

For the first time on record, China's emissions are falling due to clean energy growth, not slow power demand...

Most clinicians think they practice evidence based medicine but most of us don’t. The evidence base is so enormous and rapidly changing we need decision support tools to do the heavy lifting for us. Here’s a great example of one such tool. It needs a financial backer. Any takers?