David Welch (@welchdavid) — Bluesky Profile

3 weeks ago

Fred again.. - Dublin Live set 2025 (USB002 WEEK 5) TRACKLIST: 00:00:00 Fred again.. & Young Thug - ID (We Up) w/ solo (Acapella) 00:03:42 glow x ten 00:10:45 ICEY. 00:14:43 Beto’s Horns (fred remix) 00:19:39 stayinit 00:24:48 the floor (fred remix)

This looks like it soundcloud.com/user-7173499...

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4 months ago

Support Dr Siouxsie After She Supported Us! | PledgeMe Support Dr Siouxsie to recover some of the money she spent fighting her legal case to protect employees experiencing online abuse

Super happy to have a chance to help @siouxsiew.bsky.social after her epic few years of work which which was rewarded by her employer (also my employer) battling her in court over whether scicomm is real academic work (law said it is).
Please support her if you can www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/852...

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4 months ago

NZ may be on the cusp of another measles outbreak – what happened in 2019 should be a warning Only about 82% of two-year-olds are fully immunised against measles, with two doses of the vaccine. This leaves at least one in five unprotected.

About measles, the risks and the best protection you can get by my fantastic colleagues theconversation.com/nz-may-be-on...

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5 months ago

looks good! You pay for that or cobble it together?

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9 months ago

'Tsunami of threats': Auckland uni ordered to pay Siouxsie Wiles $205k The final amount was more than Wiles first sought from her employer.

👏👏👏

University of Auckland ordered to pay scientist Siouxsie Wiles $205,000 in court costs
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/siouxsie-...

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9 months ago

A long thread about mpox and the context specific nature of outbreaks prompted by the large outbreak of MPXV Clade IIb happening at the moment in Sierra Leone:

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9 months ago

Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab

Since the NYT Armchair Brigade is at it again, let me just share a few public quotes made in May, 2020.

1️⃣ "Even Kristian Andersen [.] first thought that COVID-19 was just as likely to have been accidentally released from a lab as it was to have come from nature"

www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/sci...

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10 months ago

'The Covid Response' by Shaun Hendy - BWB Talks, Wellington! - BWB Bridget Williams Books Bridget Williams Books invites you to a BWB Talk in Wellington with Shaun Hendy in conversation with Susie Ferguson, discussing his new book, The Covi...

The Covid Response will be launched tomorrow in Wellington at the Royal Society Te Apārangi. There will be copies for purchase and Susie Ferguson and I will be talking about the book - and our pandemic response and preparedness - from 6-7pm www.bwb.co.nz/events/the-c...

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1 year ago

Modelling the interaction between ethnicity and infectious disease dynamics at University of Canterbury on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Modelling the interaction between ethnicity and infectious disease dynamics at University of Canterbury, listed on FindAPhD.com

We are advertising two PhD scholarships to work on models of the interaction between ethnicity and infectious disease dynamics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Open to international students.

Please share!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

@iddjobs.bsky.social

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1 year ago

Sick animals suggest COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market A preliminary analysis takes a closer look at genomic data collected at the market.

Grateful to @smritimallapaty.bsky.social for covering our analysis of host transcriptional infection signatures at the Huanan market! Still not the “smoking raccoon dog” but getting closer…

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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1 year ago

I can't imagine anyone who should head up the Marsden Council thinks this is a good idea. Resigning would just open up the position to someone who shouldn't be there.

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1 year ago

I am horrified by today’s announcement. I am absolutely disgusted by the way that the kind of science I, and my colleagues do – as physical scientists involved in research that is purposeful, focused on solutions to climate and sustainability challenges, that do have real economic value – is being weaponised against our colleagues in the humanities and the social sciences.

The work that our colleagues in the humanities and social sciences do is incredibly important. We can do all the work in developing clean technologies we want, but if we don’t understand the barrriers to people purchasing that tech? It becomes useless.

We need scholars who work in the arts, in the social sciences, who ask questions about who we are and why. We need these people not only so that they may publish their work – and it is fair to consider that esoteric at times – but so they may teach the next generation. Teaching should never be reduced to repeating what is contained in decades old textbooks, but must be based in active scholarship – in asking research questions of relevance to our times today, and to our society.

And in any case, can it really be any more esoteric than quantum physics? In my experience, when I look at the work of my colleagues in the humanities and social scientists, it is always far more based in the needs of now and here that anything.

Science that has economic impact is already privileged in our funding system. It has access to funding through MBIE, both via Endeavour programmes and Smart Ideas funding. Health research has its own funding mechanism, through the Health Research Council. We could argue about the relative amounts of funding that are awarded through these different mechanisms, but the fact remains: the Marsden Fund is the only funding source that operates even-handedly across disciplines.

The Marsden Fund is not a partisan beast. It was set up by Simon Upton, when he was the responsible Minister for the National Government in 1992. It was established to support research excellence – based on discipline specific assessment of what excellence is – because it has long been understood by scientists, and in scientific communities, that the path from fundamental research to impact is a long and unpredictable one. Trying to ‘pick winners’ when funding fundamental science is a fools task: the impact is real, but it is measurable only at a collective level.

The context we are currently in, with our Science and University funding systems being reviewed, is also important. There are significant changes on the cards in the next years, and we all understand that. Changes to the PBRF or to the overheads paid to our universities might change the overall equation in terms of funding the vital work done by the humanities and social scientist in Aotearoa New Zealand. But none of those decisions have yet been made public. As it stands, this decision is an outrageous indictment on the research funding system in Aotearoa, and our collective understanding of what scholarship is.

Scientists who take pride in your work on ‘fundamental’, or ‘blue skies’ topics? Watch out. You will be next if we let this stand.
“

Professor Nicola Gaston, FRSNZ
Usual disclaimer that I am CD of MacD and currently funded by Marsden.

I’m also really fucking mad but you don’t have to print that bit. Will go take a walk – thanks for the opportunity to comment.
N

First thing written. Need to walk it off and then will write the longer follow up 🤷‍♀️

#MarsdenSchmarsden

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1 year ago

This is so backward
1. Science is more than just commercialisable widgetry
2. Making progress on our biggest problems (climate change, infectious diseases, misinfo to name a few) will need more collaboration between STEM and hum/social sci not less.

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1 year ago

Handy RStudio editor features:
Duplicate line Opt+Cmd+Up/Down (PC is Shift+Alt+Up/Down)
Add multiple cursors Ctrl+Opt+Up/Down (PC is Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down)

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