Michal Zweig

NHS and private American insurance policies are just looking for reasons not to cover the vaccines (despite them being preventative measures that could cut future healthcare costs and save lives). I was shocked to find out from a colleague that the age limit in the UK is 26!

Phytophthora capsici loves Halloween 🎃

I just published: Fascists want us to live in space and other little pieces

This week, my mind is racing, and I can’t find the zen mood to craft a reflective blog post. Instead, here’s a medley of what’s come across my path.

link.medium.com/tcX5L69BRDb

Can you share examples of inappropriate figure manipulations that you have seen in manuscripts or journals with me? #PlantScience

Mexican barbasco trade - Wikipedia

Did you know the mass production of the birth control pill was only possible because of Mexican campesinos trading yam species with American-owned pharmaceutical companies? And did you know the entire pharmaceutical steroid industry was birthed from that development? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican...

Squalene production is a great intersection between shark conservation and plant biology! Tobacco instead of sharks can be a cheap and renewable source of it onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

When have words become such an important thing in academia? Shouldn't students say they're not experts? I'm confused as I thought PhD is more so about can you get from a to b not be a subject expert

I think the vagueness/ambiguity is because academics are so inundated with admin work that if job descriptions were transparent about that, it be much harder to recruit people into the roles. Some more thoughts on that idea here (though not as specific to science): strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

I have doubts it should even be published. Who will ever read it? As for the vagueness of academic job descriptions, I have a much more cynical view.

I think peer reviewing easily falls into research - it seems a great way to stay up-to-date on what's happening. I don't think it should be viewed as such drudgery, academics should only review papers that interest them. And If no one wants to peer review a paper because it's boring then

It is interesting! I have two responses to this coming in a short 🧵

Thank you!

The senior scientists and CEOs of big tobacco companies knew smoking caused cancer as early as the 1940s. The senior scientists and CEOs of Exxon (and other big oil companies) knew the truth about climate change in the 1970s. There's a concerted effort and conspiracy to keep us all in the dark.

#PublishingModels #AcademicPublishing

A figure showing the proportion of women at assistant, associate, and full professor rank among grant submissions at NSF. Men are way overrepresented and the disparity grows at each career stage.

Sure, women are growing in representation among undergrads and grad students. But then there's this. Fig by Rissler et al 2020.

The research by social scientists has shown that this isn't a passive filter. It's caused by harassment, discrimination, and overt bias.

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

They shouldn't have agreed to review a manuscript they didn't understand

Can you share an example of a time when you thought a reviewer was being too vague in the feedback on your manuscript? #PlantScience #biology

What was the most helpful feedback you ever received from a reviewer on a manuscript? #PlantScience #biology

What are some examples of unprofessional comments reviewers have made on your manuscripts? #PlantScience #biology

When review reports are published in the supplementary data in a journal article who decides what gets excluded from the report, the journal or the author? #PeerReview #PlantScience

Most South African Jews are originally from Lithuania.

Is your 'academic grandson' the student of someone who was previously your student? Or is it your grandson who is an academic? 🤔

But I bet this is all much less an issue in fields whose findings aren't as easily commercialised. Hmm

Surely these big folk could be on Bluesky too?

considering all the industry-academia partnerships/industry-funded grants, startups that are university spinouts seedbacked by huge corporations and academic institutions pushing their researchers to do this. Not to mention, loads of CEOs, billionaires and major industries have a Twitter presence

Interesting take - not sure I fully get it bc I find there's a lot of blurring of the lines between commercial and academic in past few decades

So they replicated the 🎍species with #arabidopsis and guess what? The results agreed!

This information tells us that in #soybean : phosphate starvation response starts with mild drought AND that the #phytohormone ABA (#abscisicacid) response is induced from a more severe drought. BUT the scientists wanted to know, do these finds apply to other 🌱 species?

Meaning the less phosphate content, the more transcription, and vice versa.

ABA, the phytohormone I mentioned earlier, also began to increase 📈 as drought conditions became more severe.

They found that while phosphate initially decreased with drought, more severe drought conditions caused it to increase. They also saw an inverse correlation between the upregulation of two phosphate starvation-response 🧬s and the phosphate content.