Laura Hug

If you aren't knowledgable, you are impressionable.

“Many young extremists now believe in a much simpler binary: Order and chaos. And if you are spending any time at all trying to derive meaning from violent acts like this then you are, by definition, their enemy.”

Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme Making sense of our dark new era of extremely online political violence

And this one via @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social at @garbageday.email sent me down some rabbit holes (but in a good way).

www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-ki...

Manufacturers use the same cartridge for tons of tests (pregnancy, flu, etc) and just swap out the paper strip for the right one. But I agree that positive/negative would be better!

They’d been exposed for a few days the week prior. They are pro testing, just befuddled

Walked someone through reading a COVID test correctly after they texted me a pic of a perfectly negative test saying “sorry I can’t come”…. No the C does not stand for COVID.
#ItsBeenFiveYears #TwoLinesNotOne

If it’s run for profit, then it’s profiting off of … us.

When I hear that the post office lost money, I think this: Good. We already paid for it. Why on earth should it make even more money from us? Who would keep the money? Would we see it?

I can’t stop laughing about the neighbourhood of doom

At one point his fire station was on fire.

14 yo nephew is playing Cities Skylines and his mishaps are legendary.
He built a neighbourhood that only had subway access to improve ridership
He forgot to build a cemetery so the bodies piled up for a while.
Later, discovered more piles of bodies - turns out you can’t take corpses on the subway

The maddening thing is that we know EXACTLY how to prevent this. Yes, kids should get vaccinated, test, stay home when sick, mask as much as possible.

But even without any of that: Better ventilation and filtration in schools can MASSIVELY reduce viral spread, for all sorts of respiratory diseases.

And in the meantime Canada (checks notes), right, Canada hamstrings research by bankrupting universities

A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees - Nature Microbiome analyses of living trees show that a single tree can host approximately one trillion bacteria, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood and with minim...

Really exciting and important tree microbiome paper published in @nature.com ‘A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees’ 👏 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

If you are a postdoc working on any topic related to environmental microbiology and are looking for exposure, the Thermal Biology Institute (tbi.montana.edu) has slots open for virtual talks via zoom this fall. Email me if you are interested! Seminars are most Mondays, 3-4 pm Mountain Time.

Congratulations Asaf!

wrote the grant. Am annoyed in equal measure that it required 1.5 fully dedicated days and that it _only_ required 1.5 dedicated days given I was meant to have it done in April..

Ooh good one. I meant to pick your brain about board games at the GRC, 8 yo is very into Terra Mystica at the moment and I’m looking for options that are similar-ish but shorter (we have Terra Nova, it is “less good, because there are no cults” 😅

commiserations and Hershey's Hugs to you

at the "must actually write the grant" stage of procrastinating writing a grant. worst stage. only mitigated by my established candy reward structure

my capacity to lose receipts* is astonishing.

* notice a receipt in my bag/wallet, think "ew, why do I have this?" and throw it out...

The year’s crowning achievement! 🙌😂

My sister: are you having an Icarus moment? ☀️🪽🪽
Me, yes and-ing my way to over commitment: probably? But I know how to swim! 🏊‍♀️

Research grants to universities & colleges as well as graduate scholarships face $764 million in cuts to pay for tax cuts and miliary spending. The Tri-council agencies providing those funds just won an increase in the last budget, but that will be completely undercut now. 6/x

@gilbertjacka.bsky.social does a karaoke version of Microbe Microbe with @lhug.bsky.social and @kuesellab.bsky.social and the 2025 AEM GRC group meet the challenge?

As a Hug studying bugs, I am conflicted

You really should!

Shameless plug for this beautiful and free course on communicating with people with dementia. Based on clinical trial data, building from a critically acclaimed movie, designed and built by (disclaimer) my talented brother in law.

howyouaretome.com

A bar chart with 7 different ice cream flavours, each with a height of ten, making for an entirely filled page of coloured stripes.

This week in bad graphs, the 5 yo learned about bar charts.
Asked everyone in her class their favourite ice cream flavour, and then “went back to the people I needed to fill it up”.

This is very cool work proving something I thought was odd but couldn’t follow up! So nice to see, Brava!

Map of southern Ontario with forecast categories based on the likelihood of a snow day for schools. Categories range from “do your homework” to “cross your shovels” to “let it snow”

This snow day forecast… the categories! 😂