Sharif Islam🐧🎸

Who and What to Watch as the World Gathers for COP30 Climate Talks The U.S. won't be at the COP30 climate talks, but dozens of governors and mayors will. Here's a guide to who at what to watch.

"A COP is a bit like a potluck dinner," @katharinehayhoe.com said. Each participant brings an offering to the table and "it's obvious who took the time to bake and who dug out the frozen chicken nuggets." 🙃

#COP30

also. Current tools do different things: GNVerifier=string matching, Wikidata=curated ID links. entity res does MORE. for : relationship graphs, ML from past decisions, network effects (like '10 specimens use spelling A, so specimen 11 with spelling B is likely the same'). Auto-resolution etc.

it's about the techniques enterprise/industry uses to solve these problems that we can learn/borrow.

Wikidata does mapping but that's different from entity res. Wikidata: 'these IDs are related/refer to this taxon'. Enterprise entity resolution: 'these messy records are probably the same entity' using probabilistic scoring. What I'm brainstorming (in my post) is that we need both.

Yes. Maintenance and sustainability always a challenge. So that is why I am trying to look at this from entity resolution instead of another global ID. Ideally there could be many types of these mappings. If banks and companies can do this with customer data why can’t we?? 🧐

One Species -> Many IDs: Applying enterprise "Entity Resolution" to Biodiversity Data Here's a crazy idea. What if we treat species identifiers in the biodiversity data landscape the same way commercial organisations treat customers? Hear me out.

Love to hear your thought on this. @rdmpage.bsky.social @dshorthouse.bsky.social @debpaul.bsky.social 🦉 I wrote a post on treating species identifiers with the same rigour as enterprise entity resolution. Not a new idea but we have to think about the scale. www.linkedin.com/pulse/one-sp...

A BMD survey gathers input to guide the design of project's online toolbox The BMD project is inviting Europe’s natural site managers to take part in a survey on the monitoring and analysis needs of protected and restored natural sites. The survey seeks input on biodive...

bmd-project.eu/news/new-sur... The @bmd-project.eu is inviting Europe’s natural site managers to take part in a survey on the monitoring and analysis needs of protected and restored natural sites. #Biodiversity #Natura2000 @eea.europa.eu

So it turns out... the US air travel system was incredibly, deeply dependent on federal funding to just run day-to-day all this time, to the benefit of private airline shareholders, when everyone thinks that state-run trains are leeching off the government. Weird!

It's brilliant and exciting to see Zohran Mamdani elected.
More leaders like him please, and fewer like Cuomo, Schumer and the rest of the oligarch-pleasing, hope-destroying, election-losing, right-centrist political class.

Oh! I knew it!! Those Belarusian teens!! 😂

it's also available as open access! www.jstor.org/stable/jj.34...

Thanks. Adding to my list!

Jamaica set for post-Melissa payout but experts warn of limits to hurricane insurance.

sadnewsletter.substack.com/p/when-neutr...
The #Python Software Foundation recently had to pass on a US$1.5M grant from the National Science Foundation for PyPI maintenance. One condition of the funding was that the they drop any DEI efforts. My thoughts on this.

My quote from an Axios interview, stating that: People often think of climate change as a separate bucket at the end of a long row of other buckets of problems we're trying to fix that are wrong in the world," Hayhoe told Axios. This includes poverty, disease and access to clean water. "Climate change is not a separate bucket," Hayhoe said. "The reason we care about climate change is that it's the hole in every bucket."

If you take the time to read the whole Gates memo (which I did), the bulk of the content was mostly solid and encouraging. Really!

It was the FRAME that was off--very off, from the first line.

And when your framing is off, then how you make decisions and set priorities is off. THAT'S the problem.

I think part of the issue is that we are taking someone like Bill Gates seriously to advise the world about climate change. It's like how Al Gore created the internet! 🤔 #ClimateChange

bird skeleton

Vampire squid specimen

an ant with a fungus growing out of it

a sundew with text about data quality issues surrounding it

👻 Enter if you dare....explore the terrifying world of GBIF where you can find some truly creepy curiosities! 👀

#Halloween

Drop your biodiversity nightmare below 👇

Interesting study: the role of media and climate anxiety. Even though #biodiversity crisis has not been covered by the media the same way, I wonder how does this apply apply to understanding environmental issues in general? How can biodiversity research take into account the role of media/anxiety? 🌎

honestly probably good for society

✊

Our Wouter Addink at #LivingData2025 presenting the roadmap for @dissco.bsky.social's #digitalspecimen enrollment. His message: Join the future of #naturalhistory collections by getting onboard with DiSSCo. Deadline getting close! Free pre-registration 👉 dissco.eu/ds-enrollment/

#Biodiversity data should not disappear when projects end but too often, it does. #LivingData2025 session talking about how we can properly ensure knowledge transfer and maintain continuity across research projects. 🧪🌏📚🧬

Thank goodness I can rewatch this keynote by Rudolf Meier. His hugely data rich presentation points out how much knowledge we lack. #LivingData2025

My slides for the talk “One vision for building the ‘bibliography of life’” are on @figshare.com doi.org/10.6084/m9.f... from the Disentis symposium #livingdata2025

You're invited to the second day of our #LivingData2025 symposium - it starts at 10:45!

Projects like @bioagora.eu, @forsaid.eu, @wildposh.eu, and @ip4os.eu will be presented

A photo of Jane Goodall, alongside a quote

Most scientists are not great at communicating their science, says Dean Pentcheff #LivingData2025. #ScienceCommunication is effective when we use narratives. Tell your story. Then you’ll get into people’s hearts. #JaneGoodall

Really interesting presentation on the importance of the @gbif.org #GRSciColl database by Marie Grosjean. scientific-collections.gbif.org Here is the "how to" if you want to contribute! scientific-collections.gbif.org/how-to #LivingData2025

Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social spoke at #LivingData2025 today about the critical role BHL plays in making the publications of small organizations freely accessible. This is a title BHL Australia digitized and uploaded this week, which before now was available nowhere else online. #OpenAccess 🧪📖

+1. @rdmpage.bsky.social @siobhanleachman.bsky.social wondering where do projects like openalex.org or explore.openaire.eu fit in? they also harvest and kind of work like a citebank?

Presentation slide

Interesting and thought provoking suggestions from @rdmpage.bsky.social on what the biodiversity literature community should consider doing. #LivingData2025