This looks like it soundcloud.com/user-7173499...
18.02.2026 02:46 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0This looks like it soundcloud.com/user-7173499...
18.02.2026 02:46 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
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...
About measles, the risks and the best protection you can get by my fantastic colleagues theconversation.com/nz-may-be-on...
23.10.2025 19:56 β π 9 π 7 π¬ 0 π 1looks good! You pay for that or cobble it together?
29.09.2025 02:56 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
πππ
University of Auckland ordered to pay scientist Siouxsie Wiles $205,000 in court costs
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/siouxsie-...
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:
25.05.2025 11:29 β π 90 π 46 π¬ 2 π 5
Since the NYT Armchair Brigade is at it again, let me just share a few public quotes made in May, 2020.
1οΈβ£ "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...
The Covid Response will be launched tomorrow in Wellington at the Royal Society Te ApΔrangi. 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...
28.04.2025 00:53 β π 92 π 28 π¬ 5 π 5
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
Grateful to @smritimallapaty.bsky.social for covering our analysis of host transcriptional infection signatures at the Huanan market! Still not the βsmoking raccoon dogβ but getting closerβ¦
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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.
04.12.2024 04:44 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0I am horrified by todayβs announcement. I am absolutely disgusted by the way that the kind of science I, and my colleagues do β as physical scientists involved in research that is purposeful, focused on solutions to climate and sustainability challenges, that do have real economic value β 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 donβt 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 β and it is fair to consider that esoteric at times β 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 β 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 β based on discipline specific assessment of what excellence is β 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 βpick winnersβ 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 βfundamentalβ, or βblue skiesβ topics? Watch out. You will be next if we let this stand. β Professor Nicola Gaston, FRSNZ Usual disclaimer that I am CD of MacD and currently funded by Marsden. Iβm also really fucking mad but you donβt have to print that bit. Will go take a walk β thanks for the opportunity to comment. N
First thing written. Need to walk it off and then will write the longer follow up π€·ββοΈ
#MarsdenSchmarsden
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.
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)