Monica Gerber

Furloughed feds pick up Seattle beach trash to keep serving the public Furloughed federal employees were out in the rain picking up cigarette butts, bottle caps, and other trash at Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park on Friday.

Here in Seattle, furloughed NOAA employees were out in the pouring rain cleaning up beaches yesterday, part of a national week of service organized by federal workers who can't do their jobs due to the shutdown.

Story by @heyjohnryan.bsky.social at KUOW, our federally defunded public radio station.

📣 Come work @openscapes.bsky.social ! We're looking for a NASA Openscapes Team Member to improve access & use of NASA suborbital data thru reproducible notebook clinics. Apply by October 26, 2025. Start December 2025.

Details including pay rate: openscapes.org/connect#work...
Please share!

It's rude to show AI output to people | Alex Martsinovich Feeding slop is an act of war

distantprovince.by/posts/its-ru...

Asking for someone's input and then getting chatgpt-generated text is so discouraging.

If RFK Jr approach to develop a vaccine against all viruses involves sequentially exposing himself to each of these viruses and letting his amazing body develop a vaccine the natural way, then I highly endorse this approach.

I would start with something easy like Nipah or Hendra virus

In the Future All Food Will Be Cooked in a Microwave, and if You Can’t Deal With That Then You Need to Get Out of the Kitchen As a restaurant owner – I’m astounded at the rate of progress since microwaves were released a few short years ago. Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s m…

"Many chefs I know get upset at me … But this is the truth: If you can’t cook everything you make in a microwave thats a skill issue. You need to learn now because when everything is cooked in a microwave you’ll be out of a job."

www.colincornaby.me/2025/08/in-t... (h/t @olivia.science )

Thank you Dr. Schrier for visiting us at Fred Hutch. It's such a crucial moment for scientific advances in vaccines & cancer. I appreciate that I have a congressperson who recognizes that.

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight RFK Jr. & HHS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Here’s the show. Please watch!
It’s all about HHS and the first segment is about NIH.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H34...

Non-Government Career Paths for U.S. Federal Data Scientists A community support and networking event hosted by rOpenSci and Openscapes

"rOpenSci and Openscapes are lucky to have as members many U.S. federal employees who enrich our work and community. In a time of great uncertainty for so many government workers, we want to support our members who are considering their next career steps."
ropensci.org/events/datas...

To staff at CDC and everyone working in public health: we’re with you. | Tom Frieden | 50 comments To staff at CDC and everyone working in public health: we’re with you. | 50 comments on LinkedIn

Some words of encouragement from Dr. Tom Frieden, former Director of CDC.

www.linkedin.com/posts/tom-fr...

It's getting late on Friday, so you know what that means: HHS has just updated its list of cancelled grants and programs.

The document went from 14 pages long to 42 pages.

Just an incalculable list of cancelled COVID-19 funding.
taggs.hhs.gov/Content/Data...

I Took My Work Outside Every Day for a Month This Winter. Here’s What I Learned. For a month this winter, I committed to taking my laptop outside every workday—no matter the weather—to see how it impacted my life

I Took My Work Outside Every Day for a Month This Winter. (“My work” = typing on a laptop.) “Even though I’m not perfectly warm, it lifts my mood to be outside. I can hear the community of songbirds holding their morning conferences, a barking dog…” [outsideonline.com]

Nice essay!

"LLMs, while they already have all of humanity's knowledge in memory, haven't generated any new knowledge by connecting previously unrelated facts...We're currently building very obedient students, not revolutionaries."

Dozens of Clinical Trials Have Been Frozen in Response to Trump’s USAID Order (Gift Article) The stop-work order on U.S.A.I.D.-funded research has left thousands of people with experimental drugs and devices in their bodies, with no access to monitoring or care.

This is so deeply, deeply, deeply fucked up.

“The trial was shutting down. A silicone ring inserted into her vagina, needed to be removed right away. … The stop-work order was so immediate and sweeping that the research staff would be violating it if they helped the women remove the rings.”

Illustration by Allison Horst. a seaside landscape with animals on different paths

📣 Openscapes Champions Program at Fred Hutch Cancer Center Apr-Jun 2025!
Please share. Encourage your Hutch friends to sign up! Leading this with @seankross.com @monicagerber.bsky.social @tladeras.bsky.social & Chris Lo
openscapes.org/events/2025-...
#OpenScience #KinderScience

This is how you do open science.

🧵: I am getting texts on what scientists should do in this perilous and scary moment. My advice: your biggest power is to organize through your professional societies. A few ideas -

[SPLASH'24] Pacific - Onward! (Oct 23th) Full Program: https://2024.splashcon.org/program/program-splash-2024/

This talk by @Felienne is fantastic!

A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design: https://www.youtube.com/live/-Br66SUjsdQ?si=C-zNVRDOErYJLbgy&t=12120

Paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689492.3689809

cc: @RLadiesGlobal

What is a Data Science Life Cycle? - Data Science PM A Data Science Life Cycle describes the steps to deliver projects and products. This post walks through one you can use on your next project.

I've been reading about data science lifecycles and workflows (vs. SDLC).

Some things I've been reading:
www.datascience-pm.com/data-science...
www.datascience-pm.com/data-science...
vdsbook.com/02-dslc

Any other good blogs or articles you'd recommend? Unique perspectives?

A paper on code review that uses a rock climbing metaphor?! The must have written this especially for me!

"We believe that the root of inefficiency in implementing the best software development practices in academic settings is the individualistic approach."

More on the lonely bioinformatician problem and its effect on software quality!

academic.oup.com/bioinformati...

One Year in Cancer Research and Much to Celebrate NCI Director Dr. Kimryn Rathmell reviews some of the most noteworthy cancer research findings from 2024, including advances in immunotherapy for children with cancer, a potential therapy for cachexia,...

There was a lot of exiting progress in childhood cancer research this year, including what NCI Director, Dr. Kimryn Rathmell, describes as "a never-before-seen result."

I am thankful that my tax dollars are going towards this important research.

www.cancer.gov/news-events/...

Hi Cat, I referenced your pre-print but will replace that link w/ the published article, thanks! :)

Solving the lonely data scientist problem | Monica Gerber Monica Gerber's personal website.

I wrote up my thoughts on the lonely data scientist problem. I'd love to hear other people's experience with solving this, please comment! Thanks to @openscapes.bsky.social for helping me frame this.
www.monicagerber.com/blog/2024-12...

Who's In Charge Around Here? I am...I think??

I like this depiction of being a woman in leadership as a series of messages that you are continually revising and self-editing. From Dr. Stacy Wentworth:
cancerculture.substack.com/p/whos-in-ch...

Ooh, thinking about it some more, I bet Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood is very entertaining for a cross-country road trip.

I genuinely enjoyed Nina Totenberg's Dinners with Ruth, read in her amazing radio voice. I get easily distracted driving while listening to fiction, so memoirs/nonfiction are better for me.

And give a supportive belay to those brave enough to be on the sharp end of the rope ;)

blueberry yogurt multigrain pancakes Multigrain but not gritty, these pancakes puff up perfectly every time and are full of jammy blueberry pockets.

This one is pretty good. smittenkitchen.com/2011/06/blue...