Rohan Williams

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.

African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA) - African Astronomical Society What is AfNWA? The African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA) is an initiative that aims to connect women working…

www.africanastronomicalsociety.org/afnwa/

Inspiring stories from women in astronomy in Africa In preparation for the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly (GA) 2024, the first GA held in Africa, the African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA) embarked on a visionary project...

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.

"There was a glow in the sky as if great furnace doors were opened." Arthur Machen, The Hill of Dreams (1907)

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...

interesting mix !

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-...

wonderfully put...even in translation you get that same feeling from reading Thomas Mann, Alejo Carpentier or Hermann Hesse

Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki On the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki calls on the world to remember—and act.

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...

and beyond the main text and display items, it is easy to forget how much work is required to now get a paper to submission. Collating, checking, formatting, re-checking the Supplementary material, public database submissions for raw data and the overall onerous processes associated with submission

I found developing the skill (and it took me a long time) of chipping away at the text at random locations in short chucks is well worth it

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

NCBI Website Maintenance - Beginning July 25th - NCBI Insights On Friday, July 25th, starting at 9:00 PM EDT, we’ll be performing essential maintenance on the NLM data center. This upgrade is critical to ensure the continued reliability and stability of our servi...

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...

Forecasters to Lose Hurricane Satellite Data at the Worst Possible Time This latest blow to federal forecasting abilities is sparking outrage from meteorologists and public officials.

“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:

Everyone in Australia's wearing a bloody Oura ring... and some other parting observations

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… 🧵

Australia re-elects Anthony Albanese as Labor rides anti-Trump wave to seal crushing win Opposition leader Peter Dutton fails to dissociate himself from Trump-like rhetoric and policies – and loses his seat

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

Was it the bats all along? A new film about the origins of Covid-19 tells how rightwing conspiracy theorists pushed the lab-leak theory to their own ends, suppressing the work of real scientists

"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)

How to Not Get Poisoned in America The minute I saw that Robert Kennedy Jr., a notorious disease-loving health crank, was going to be responsible for the nation’s health—and the health of its...

"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...

Principal Subsimplex Analysis Compositional data, also referred to as simplicial data, naturally arise in many scientific domains such as geochemistry, microbiology, and economics. In such domains, obtaining sensible lower-dimensi...

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

#MathSky

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