manisha

I question academic, scientific, and cultural norms, and who they serve.

sculpting cooperative communities of practice and democratizing science @ https://echonetwork.in #climatematch #neuromatch

introvert with keyboard courage :P lover of both the beauty of chaos and ugly perfection :D victim of #ImposterSyndrome trying to embrace my #neurodiverse brain

interested in: a myriad of things #ScientificReform #AcademicReform #OpenScience #OpenInfrastructure #PublicPolicy #governance #cooperatives #sustainability #gardening #RegenerativeAgriculture #Permaculture #EcosystemServices #AccessAndBenefitSharing #NaturalCapitalAccounting #EcosystemsValuation

me: I choose to not disclose my number of followers and my social graph because I am not here for clout and appreciate some digital privacy. #NoIndex #NoBot #NoBridge

also me: I have 2 followers lol

Public Key

npub1zmlgg3m7etup4w0mvatuyuk7yw5ffvk6dfl04w5w5jqhcsh2nw9q8fy9nx

NIP-05 Address

manisha@neuromatch-social.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqspdl5ygalv47q6h8akw47zwt0z82y5ktdx5lh6h282fqtugt4fhzsk05yl7

Author Public Key

npub1zmlgg3m7etup4w0mvatuyuk7yw5ffvk6dfl04w5w5jqhcsh2nw9q8fy9nx

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Last Notes

2025-04-02 22:23:20

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@nprofile…v4qx maybe of interest to @nprofile…afk5?

2025-03-22 19:23:54

#3GoodThings
lots of limes
baby pineapple
in-laws are getting a cute puppy
#gardening #DogsOfMastodon
https://media.neuromatch.social/media_attachments/files/114/207/692/033/688/379/original/f639aacc3bf87309.jpeg
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2025-03-22 19:09:31

#TIL that #bees have been around since the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and ancient bees seem to have also gone through a mass extinction!
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0076683
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131024121158.htm

2025-03-11 16:10:44

Oh no.. this does not bode well since Digital Science is part of the Big Bad Publishing group https://mastodon.social/@leibnizopenscience/114144628157432078

2025-03-11 13:00:53

had a conversation with a female grad student who didn't want to put it in writing that her male PI made some sexist remarks and told her to ignore advice given by women scientists!! 😡 so she very reluctantly told me over a call. I advised her to DEFINITELY document it and shared the grievance process from our code of conduct. ugh - it's 2025, when will this end??!! no wonder we have a leaky pipeline in #academia

2025-03-07 17:58:36

your outie stands up for #science
#StandUpForScience

2025-03-07 15:17:33

https://standupforscience2025.org no local events near me but really hoping for a positive outcome from #StandUpForScience

2025-02-25 18:57:44

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@nprofile…xm42 woohoo, congrats!!

2025-02-22 14:59:49

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@nprofile…xm42 yeah it sucks. I understand that the "customer care" reps are underpaid folks, don't really 'care' about customers, and are just trying to get a commission out of each successful card approval and delivery. I blame Amazon and the bank who are incentivizing such behavior

2025-02-22 14:26:22

For whatever reason #ICICI bank decided to partner with #Amazon for a bank credit card. A customer care official called to inform me that they were offering this card to me with a large limit (and am sure to anyone who'd take it), I just need to agree to the terms. I read the terms, and tried to politely tell her for nearly half an hour that as per the terms the bank will be selling my data to amazon. She repeatedly incorrectly tried to assure me that was not the case. I refused to sign the agreement. Instead of being understanding she just hung up on me! This happened last month.
Today, the bank calls me and tells me that my Amazon Pay credit card has been "pre-approved", I just need to confirm my delivery address. WTF?! I informed her that I didn't ask for it, don't want it delivered to my house, and hung up. Their delivery person then proceeded to repeatedly call me about a dozen times. This representative even sent me an SMS requesting me to pick up the call. I had to block those numbers for my sanity.
Get your shit together #ICICI bank - NO MEANS NO!
#India

2025-02-21 20:56:31

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@nprofile…3evu which Japanese series, if I may ask?

2025-02-21 20:19:13

#3GoodThings
our pineapple plant is flowering again 🍍 the last harvest from this plant was in June 2022! #gardening
a good meeting with the Head of Anthropology Dept at KU, Denmark - lots of synergy for one of our research projects!
got to hangout (online) with some co-operators here at neuromatch.social :) #neuromatchstodon
bonus: the latest #Severance episode - as a neuroscientist this show continues to fascinate me!
#ReasonsToBeCheerful #ThreeGoodThings
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2025-02-18 23:21:59

#3GoodThings
a happy team meeting
helped my cousin (who's approaching her 50s btw) with formatting her English Literature PhD synopsis. until today I'd never bothered to learn who authored classics like Thumbelina, The Emperor's New Clothes, & The Little Mermaid
a friend who now lives in the US msged me to ask if I'd received her postcard. thanks to the unreliable Indian postal system I haven't received it (yet) but her gesture melted my heart 🥰
#FairyTales
#ReasonsToBeCheerful #ThreeGoodThings

2025-02-13 21:30:01

#TIL about The Unjournal and it checks sooo many boxes! https://unjournal.pubpub.org/
#ScholarlyPublishing #metascience
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2025-02-13 21:18:50

If you're interested in #metascience and understanding the implications of #AI for the #science and #research ecosystem, this looks like a great postdoctoral opportunity: https://sloan.org/programs/digital-technology/aipostdoc-rfp

2025-02-12 12:35:30

#gardening update
Harvested 2 guavas
Found a ladybug (finally!) having a good meal on our aphid-infested pomegranate plant
2 limes/lemons are almost ready to be harvested
Found new growth on our mogra (jasmine) plant that we thought was dead!
#ReasonsToBeCheerful
#3GoodThings #ThreeGoodThings #Bloomscrolling
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2025-02-10 17:13:46

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@nprofile…aqq5 @nprofile…heeh I feel the same way 💚 recently started following #3GoodThings #ThreeGoodThings and #ReasonsToBeCheerful to experience and share some of that joy

2025-02-10 11:05:49

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@nprofile…s0cr yay, congrats!! so glad it all worked out

2025-02-09 16:35:05

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@nprofile…cvwk also a towel :)

2025-02-06 19:45:06

As a neuroscientist who's now doing sustainability research, it's going to take me a while to interpret NHP as National Hydrology Project and not as Non-Human Primate 😅

2025-02-06 19:36:33

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@nprofile…xgpv @nprofile…xm42 this is why I appreciate efforts like those by Invest In Open Infrastructure - they've developed this Infra Finder where they've curated a verified list of open infrastructures (though most of the infra listed there seems to be US-based which I'd avoid given what's going on there). So instead of Figshare, I'd go with Zenodo (which is based in Switzerland) for depositing high-res images

2025-02-06 18:52:12

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@nprofile…xm42 yeah I've had to develop the habit of looking into such details about anything in academia (or the world) thanks to capitalism 😭

2025-02-06 18:44:31

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@nprofile…xm42 it's a bit convoluted but Digital Science "was initially the technical division of Nature Publishing Group/Macmillan and is now operated as an independent company by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group."
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group "is a privately held German company headquartered in Stuttgart, that owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies.
In 2015, it merged most of its Macmillan Science and Education unit (including Nature Publishing Group) with Springer Science+Business Media, creating the company Springer Nature. Holtzbrinck owns 53% of the combined company."
And yeah agree that we could be mindful about article sizes. Sry, I'd misunderstood that you meant to have figures separate from the article

2025-02-06 18:41:58

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@nprofile…xm42 it's a bit convoluted but Digital Science "was initially the technical division of Nature Publishing Group/Macmillan and is now operated as an independent company by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group." Holtzbrinck Publishing Group is a "is a privately held German company headquartered in Stuttgart, that owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies.
In 2015, it merged most of its Macmillan Science and Education unit (including Nature Publishing Group) with Springer Science+Business Media, creating the company Springer Nature. Holtzbrinck owns 53% of the combined company."

2025-02-06 18:26:59

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@nprofile…xm42 isn't Figshare owned by Springer Nature? and having figures separate from papers sounds .. less than ideal from a reading perspective. This feels more a Zotero-problem (why do they download all this info w/o informing the user?) and less of a paper-problem no?

2025-01-21 17:29:48

how accurate is this guide on academic feedback interpretation for UK and US? :lolsob: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/08/16/academic-feedback/
@nprofile…xjc6
#academia #AcademicChatter

2025-01-19 20:47:36

did they switch calendars? coz today sure feels like April fool's day!
https://tech.lgbt/@LilahTovMoon/113856722544205845
https://jorts.horse/@vegetablegremlin/113856648118452382
https://phpc.social/@Synchro/113856429115196468
#enshittification #Tiktok

2025-01-17 15:39:58

Out of the many things that I love about my job, one of them is that I get to have deep discussions with experts from not just #academia as we work towards building communities of practice. Today, in our Expert Dialogues session for the Digitization project, I learnt so much about human-centered design and design-thinking, something they never taught me when I was a computer science engineering undergrad.
One of the consortium members shared that they'd built this really beautiful app for a rural community in #India, spent a few crore INR in the process, and then no one ended up using it! 😬 I'm glad they are a member of this consortium and were willing to share this so that we don't make the same mistakes! Also learnt that while community members may answer positively to all your survey questions, that doesn't mean they'll actually use whatever digital solution you build - you need to embed yourself within the community and engage in dialogues to get to the crux of the problems they face.
Two of our PhD Fellows are working in the Himalayan region and during the meeting were facing bandwidth issues. Something we definitely need to keep in mind - if we want to design a solution for communities with limited internet connectivity.
@nprofile…xjc6
#Digitization #ecosystem #EcosystemStewardship #sustainability #CommunitiesOfPractice #HumanCenteredDesign #DesignThinking #research #science #AcademicChatter

2025-01-16 20:26:55

well this explains why my work gmail account suddenly had gemini enabled with no way to disable it. I asked Gemini to help. It of course did not.
#Gemini #Google #enshittification
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2025-01-16 16:25:54

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@nprofile…cvwk there's https://pixelfed.social hosted by the lead developer of pixelfed

2025-01-14 15:08:08

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@nprofile…s86f dang, #TIL that dogs go into heat 1-2 times a year and do not go through menopause! https://www.petmd.com/dog/general-health/dog-in-heat
hope your pupper's day improves hereon!

2025-01-14 14:47:54

peeps on masto are so creative! if you haven't already, checkout #PortfolioDay

2025-01-06 16:30:51

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@nprofile…xm42 thank you!! It looks like a good option. Someone else also suggested it. I've used it as a reference manager but never dived into its indexing feature. Do you happen to know if Zotero libraries can be made public?

2025-01-06 15:53:38

Does anyone know of an #OpenAccess full-text #PDF #search engine/tool using which I can search for relevant PDFs from a self-hosted #database?
Context: we have a curated database of #research articles but so far our search capability has been limited to tagged keywords or title and abstract field search only. We'd like to be able to search the entire PDF.
Side note: I know that PDFs are not a great way to store scientific information. I'd prefer not to use a proprietary #LLM if possible
#LexicalSearch #SemanticSearch #AskAcademia #academia #science #sciences #ScienceMastodon #AskFedi #OpenScience

2025-01-04 02:16:07

Retraction Watch is #hiring for their Sleuth in Residence Program https://retractionwatch.com/2025/01/02/introducing-the-retraction-watch-sleuth-in-residence-program/
#FediHiring #getFediHired #Science #Sciences #ethics #RetractionWatch

2024-12-30 16:57:26

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@nprofile…xm42 well then we are questioning their ethics, which as a reviewer I think you'd be allowed to raise concerns about. It would probably boil down to giving them the benefit of the doubt if they come back and say that they didn't use genAI, and if you recommend publication then you could state in your review something like "as long as the authors' declaration about AI usage is accurate, I recommend publication ..." .
Or they may admit that they used it to correct grammar and sentence construction? This was the case when I'd suspected genAI use in a few students' assignments this year. I just requested them to resubmit by writing it out in their own words. Copy editors at journals could likely correct grammatical mistakes and non-English speaking scientists shouldn't be shamed for having minor language-related errors in the first place - this is likely what drives them to such "tools". However, if the usage of genAI leads to questionable scientific results, then that should definitely be raised as a major issue in the review. that'd likely be my approach..

2024-12-30 15:33:08

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@nprofile…xm42 I've noticed that journals have started asking authors to add a declaration for any usage of genAI and specify the nature of usage, for e.g. see the section on "Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing" here https://www.cell.com/one-earth/author
If such a declaration was missing from this manuscript that you reviewed, I would go back to the editors and request for one. If the authors didn't use any genAI to help with the writing they can just add NA in that declaration?

2024-12-23 18:49:25

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@nprofile…xm42 pouvons-nous faire une mashup des deux?

2024-12-23 18:42:12

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@nprofile…xm42 je crois que je comprends (je toujour "mess up" les verbs et tenses 😅).. Hmm c'est vraiment une difficile decision. Mais, je pense que les results du sondage doit acceptable par l'instance, non? On discute sur discord?

2024-12-23 18:17:53

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@nprofile…xm42 oui stp 🙂

2024-12-23 18:12:28

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@nprofile…xm42 neuromatch.social parce que nous avons le traduction option. les cheavaux sont bienvenue aussi. Can you tell I am at A1 level? 😅

2024-12-20 11:46:03

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@nprofile…4qfx yeah, the US visa process is very weird. Last time I'd applied to travel for a #neuroscience conference, they asked for all my social media handles from like last 5 years (even the deleted ones iirc) - this included Reddit where most people create accounts that allow them to stay at least pseudonymous. Talk about invasion of privacy!
On arrival, I had a funny interaction with the immigration officer who asked me about my work. I mentioned that I study this part of the brain called the #hippocampus and different brain rhythms. He seemed really fascinated and I remember his next question very distinctly (which he asked with a big smile):
"So, are you pro-hippocampus or anti?"
I chuckled and said, "oh, very pro-hippocampus" 😂
[sorry, didn't mean to distract from the message in the OP, just that it reminded me of this interaction]

2024-12-19 14:41:45

Today, I had a meeting with someone who works for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in India. He was at some UN forum recently where they were discussing the carbon footprint of the internet and he mentioned that there's very little data on this. Well guess what, here on #mastodon I've been following the work of @nprofile…faap and I immediately ended up sharing her research with him, especially this paper on The world wide web of carbon: Toward a relational footprinting of information and communications technology’s climate impacts. Thank you Anne for your research on this!
He was grateful and exited to look into this further! And now I'm trying to see if he'd be interested in collaborating with us on our digitization project. It's a long shot, but worth a try.. he said he'll get back to me by next week. Let's see if that happens 🙈

2024-12-18 16:15:32

Looks like there are impersonation attacks happening on Bluesky and the moderation team banned some real accounts rather than the fake ones?! Lots of drama with an apparent extortion scheme involving famous writers and entrepreneurs. https://tedium.co/2024/12/17/bluesky-impersonation-risks/
#bluesky #moderation

2024-12-16 15:27:50

I just attended this webinar on Transitions to Sustainable Futures: Water and Water Systems in the Urban by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and learnt so much! I was especially drawn to the research being conducted by Joyeeta Gupta and her involvement with the Earth Commission. One of the frameworks that she's co-developing seems to have elements of a counter movement to capitalism and I'm all for it!!
Adding these 2 to my reading list: Earth system boundaries and Earth system justice: sharing the ecospace and A just world on a safe planet: a Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations
Her Global Constitution Project is also so fascinating!
#WASH #Water #Ecosystem #Earth #EarthSystemBoundaries #climate #ecology #Anthropocene #Justice #ClimateJustice #Capitalism

2024-12-14 11:58:41

Astera’s Open Science Fellow program is accepting new applications. This program supports dedicated innovators who want to unlock new tools for scientific publishing. Such tools could be new technologies, workflows, or other projects.
Deadline : 31 December 2024
#OpenScience

2024-12-13 13:22:37

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@nprofile…xm42 aw you are too kind :FaceHoldingBackTears: ❤️

2024-12-13 13:08:55

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@nprofile…xm42 @nprofile…pssf @nprofile…rdnn @nprofile…fg7z @nprofile…pssf @nprofile…xm42 @nprofile…rdnn @nprofile…fg7z thanks and sorry, that sounded like a total brag post, but all I wanted to say is that there are efforts ongoing and I hope they will accelerate. There's also founding starting to incentivize this, like the civic science fellowships
#science #sciences #CivicScience

2024-12-13 13:03:10

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@nprofile…pssf @nprofile…xm42 agreed. trying to do this with collaborators who are on the same page. It's one of the reasons I'm currently working with the echo network where we are trying to embed science within society. It's also one of the reasons why I co-founded the #Climatematch Impact Scholars Program with other volunteers at @nprofile…rdnn. last year, we made it a requirement for all micropublications to have a summary for the general public and we encouraged the scholars to explore creative formats. It was awesome!
We got text summaries but we also got poems like this and this, graphical summary, and we had a public seminar -- all the video presentations are available for each of the projects.
The Impact Scholars Program was so well received that @nprofile…fg7z has now extended it to all the courses! It's one of the things I'm really proud of having co-created ❤️

2024-12-12 18:08:57

looking at https://metascience.info/call-for-proposals I doubt I'd go for the in-person event but considering a proposal for the virtual symposium. Looking at their theme on alliances. hmu if you're interested in collaborating
#Metascience #metascience25

2024-12-12 16:22:30

dang, life's been hectic and I just realized that it was #neuromatchstodon's 2nd anniversary 2 weeks ago!! Thank you to all the members for making neuromatch.social such a wonderful community ❤️
A special shoutout to @nprofile…uc38 @nprofile…xm42 @nprofile…lxvd for all that you do for the @nprofile…s5rc and @nprofile…tjcx

2024-12-12 15:25:19

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@nprofile…xm42 yeah, we were looking at another journal earlier that had an APC of around USD 3000 and that already felt like a lot to me so seeing APC of USD 9k was just 🤯

2024-12-12 15:04:58

working on a manuscript and one of the co-authors suggested submitting it to One Earth as our work aligns with their aims and scope but omg APC of USD 9170 feels EXORBITANT and PROHIBITIVE! Dunno about my collaborators in Denmark and Sweden but APCs like that just remind me that I live in a poor country 😭
I'm more than happy to just publish it on #Zenodo (which is free and #OpenAccess) or another open access repository where we can have some peer-review but the first author is a student who really wants to publish in a journal which is understandable given how #academia works currently smh
if anyone has suggestions for #sustainability and #OneHealth related open access journals that don't have eye-gouging APCs, please share!
@nprofile…xjc6
#AcademicChatter #AcademicPublishing #Science #Sciences

2024-12-11 15:50:03

Dear #neuromatchstodon members, this vote to amend our instance rules will be closing soon (Wednesday, December 11th at 23:59 Pacific Time): https://neuromatch.social/@socialwg/113598775241668096
We hope that these changes will help us continue to keep our instance safe by allowing us moderators to make fewer judgement calls and provide clearer guidelines to members. Please let us know if you agree/disagree with the proposed amendments

2024-11-29 20:53:00

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@nprofile…48vs disclaimer, haven't read it fully, plan to over the weekend. But I wouldn't be surprised if their claims are grandiose/misleading generalizations 🙈

2024-11-29 18:53:14

Large language models surpass human experts in predicting #neuroscience results
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02046-9
Anyone who's read it already, thoughts?

2024-11-29 18:34:46

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@nprofile…xm42 I started using it a few months ago. No complaints so far.. they also have a calendar app which I haven't tried yet.

2024-11-26 20:53:45

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@nprofile…0ksc would you happen to have any suggestions/solution for addressing @nprofile…xm42's lost #PeerReview records problem, which other scientists may also be facing?
I'd also like to point out that many scientists don't trust #Clarivate which is a for-profit closed-access data surveillance company. it would be very much appreciated if you'd remove and ban them from your trusted organizations list

2024-11-26 20:46:35

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@nprofile…xm42 yeah that's reasonable! Re-DOIs -- you are correct. turns out that you can't add Peer Review records to @nprofile…0ksc manually. they can only be added by trusted organizations and you must make the review activity visible to everyone in order for it to display on your public ORCID record.
#PeerReview #ORCID #Clarivate

2024-11-26 19:01:44

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@nprofile…xm42 oh, I just found out that #Publons was bought by #Clarivate grr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publons

2024-11-26 18:58:42

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@nprofile…xm42 this sucks! This would be a pain but is it possible to email the journals directly to add them back or to add them manually yourself through DOIs?

2024-11-22 12:52:21

have any labs/departments tried getting support for their journal club through ASAPbio to convert it to a preprint review club? looks like it could be really beneficial to the #OpenScience ecosystem!
https://asapbio.org/apply-for-support-in-converting-your-journal-club-to-a-preprint-review-club
@nprofile…xjc6
#science #sciences #JournalClub #AcademicChatter

2024-11-13 17:40:29

If you're looking for a simplified guide to turbo-charge people to move away from Twitter/X and join #Mastodon, this is a really good one from @npub1cpk…j83l : https://quantixed.org/2024/08/14/exodus-moving-to-mastodon/

2024-09-06 16:42:10

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@npub1skv…aky3 congrats! so glad that you were picked to be the narrator for the audiobook. Looking forward to its release!

2024-06-19 14:23:09

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@npub1l3z…4dy5 hi! PhD in neuroscience here, now working in the non-profit sector doing sustainability research 🙂

2024-06-04 19:25:28

In other news from India, after a week of ~45°C temp, which felt more like ~50°C due to the humidity, we finally had some light showers today!

2024-05-30 01:20:55

Interviewing PhD candidates for the first time and the role reversal feels... weird! All the candidates bring something different to the table and it's such a tough call to decide who makes the cut.
@npub1t7d…h3ud
#AcademicChatter

2024-04-29 18:58:22

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@npub1qtk…xqrw good riddance indeed!!

2024-03-30 08:28:27

If you use homebrew on MacOS, please read this discussion about the xz vulnerability: https://github.com/orgs/Homebrew/discussions/5243#discussioncomment-8954951
#xz #MacOS #homebrew

2024-03-28 14:28:46

This thread by @npub1yzt…qh0x just made my day! ❤️💚
https://urbanists.social/@straphanger/112168979067387415
#solarpunk #sustainability #nature

2024-03-28 10:26:26

Google be like: we won't do anything meaningful to reduce carbon emissions but we will greenwash our image by buying these ultra-useful carbon removal credits worth $35M
learn how to never address the source of the problem from the "best" 😒
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/pledge-to-support-carbon-removal-solutions
#google #climate #sustainability #CarbonCredits

2024-03-21 03:35:21

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@npub19d9…f02p afaik, overheads are not meant to cover the cost of research. They are meant to cover admin costs - this thread has useful info.
Cost of research covered by the grant = Total grant amount - Overheads.

2024-03-14 00:17:01

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@npub14ha…pqf0 omg, just yesterday I was thinking to myself that it's been a long time since I saw J blue's gardening updates! very sorry to hear about your mom. hope all goes well. take care!

2024-03-08 22:34:11

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@npub1skv…aky3 ❤️ :FaceHoldingBackTears: 🙏

2024-03-08 05:34:07

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@npub1qk5…jlda whoa that's tall! had never heard of this plant before.

2024-03-05 04:47:50

I thought of writing this "blog" post after reading @npub1jzg…hc3a's question: Are there any US universities that actually pay you to do research
Here's my understanding of the operations of most US universities that hire scientists as faculty (some of this may be applicable to universities in other parts of the world too):
Universities operate like companies where teaching profs are employees, educational degrees are the products being sold, and students are the customers (they pay for tuition and we all know how big of a problem is student debt thanks to these companies, err I mean universities).
Research Faculty are expected to teach and that's the main source of their income. Probably also why usually they aren't given the title of "Scientist" but of "Research Faculty".
Research Faculty pay for their research through grants. If they don't wish to take on teaching duties, they must be able to secure grants to pay for their salaries.
Research Faculty pay for the lab space, shared equipment, benefits, and other admin costs to the university via what are called "overheads" - this is the % cut that the university takes from each grant that a research faculty gets while being affiliated to the university.
This is why the bigger your grants, the happier the university will be to promote you to a "tenured" position. Also why scientists are often forced to follow grant "trends" to get the big bucks.
Some universities are so rich that they can afford to pay for-profit data cartels to strategically decide which sector their next hire should come from, e.g Clarivate's Research funding and analytics services
side note Clarivate's data is also used to decide university rankings and journal impact factors. Clarivate's scam is for out of scope for this blog but hope you see the circularity here and how the rich get richer in academia ...
Universities also rely on endowments, gifts, and donations from wealthy individuals and philanthropic organizations to pay for things like construction/renovation of buildings/libraries, or for paying certain research faculty who take on extra duties like the Chairs/Heads of departments. That's why you see titles like "The XYZ Chair of Neuroscience" where XYZ is usually the name of the entity that made the donation.
Sometimes (but not often enough), endowments/donations/gifts are made to waive tuition fees like this recent one made by a billionaire.
Postdocs and lab managers/techs are temporary contractors and are paid from the Research Faculty's grants. I won't be surprised if the benefits that they are offered are also derived from the grant's "overheads".
Universities have done a great job of marketing themselves as an ivory tower distinct from "industry" but when you look at how they operate, are they not just a part of it?
I'm not sure of how much of the public funding that public universities receive is allocated for research 🤔
I'm sure there are more layers to this that I am missing (like how libraries operate and how Clarivate and journal subscription fees are involved there, sigh).
If you know of something that's crucial to understanding university operations or something that's mentioned here that isn't true, please share! It would be nice to collectively understand the systems we are/were/want to be a part of 🙂
@npub1t7d…h3ud #Academia #Research #AcademicChatter

2024-03-03 23:58:09

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@npub1skv…aky3 "Academic power structures as they currently stand are toxic - as evidenced by the outcomes" - Kay Tye
As relatively junior scientists, some of us have talked about academic toxicity in the past only to be harassed, silenced, ignored, or forced to leave. I'm glad that someone in a position of power acknowledged the toxicity. I hope that the toxic hierarchy collapses sooner than later.
Us choosing a cooperative form of governance at neuromatch.social, instead of a typical top-down hierarchy, is our attempt of trying a different power structure. I hope that we see more of such experiments permeate throughout academia.
https://neuromatch.social/system/media_attachments/files/112/034/273/894/154/175/original/6842efbe7041fc4b.png

2024-03-02 03:54:37

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@npub1xr8…3q0g lovely! We've got lemons too! Or limes? I actually don't know for sure because we bought this plant from a local nursery over a year ago and both lemon and lime are called the same (nimbu) in Hindi lol
Just a few nights ago we harvested one of them to make delicious fresh-lime soda🍹but we felt that we may have harvested it too early, so there's a possibility these are lemons and not limes 😄
#gardening #WhenLifeGivesYouLemons
https://neuromatch.social/system/media_attachments/files/112/024/013/594/064/294/original/1dea03e8c682261b.jpeg

2024-02-28 15:00:37

Today is National Science Day in India. I learnt form a woman scientist colleague of mine who was invited to speak at an event celebrating this day that she was very unceremoniously cut-off at the 6 min mark of her 10 min speech by the master of ceremonies, while a male scientist who spoke before her was allowed to speak for the full duration AND was asked questions by the MC! So disrespectful! 😡
#WomenInSTEM #NationalScienceDay #India

2024-01-29 00:42:56

TIL that there's a term for an observation about inequities in science that I've been describing to a few people I talk to regularly - it's called "Parachute Science"
"There are often inequities in international research relationships, in which studies conducted in the Global South are led by scientists based in the Global North with limited involvement of local researchers and poor investment in local capacity building. This is a practice known as parachute science. "
From:
Global inequities in local science https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02064-2 (sadly behind a paywall 😢). Nature Ecology and Evolution doesn't even allow Open Access for such articles!?! 😡
"*Non-primary research (e.g. Reviews, Comments, News & Views) is not eligible for Open Access and is only published using the traditional publishing route." https://www.nature.com/natecolevol/our-publishing-models
Anyhoo, I found the publication that this article describes and it is OA 🥳
Parachute conservation: Investigating trends in international research
"Parachute science is a term to describe the inequity in research relationships between Global North and South scientists. This is typically characterized by a lack of meaningful, long-term involvement of local researchers in research and of investment in building local research capacity (Asase et al., 2021; de Vos, 2022; Stefanoudis et al., 2021). Similar, often synonymous, terms include helicopter or neo-colonial science (Ahmadia et al., 2021). Such inequitable relationships are sometimes conducted with the best of intentions but may persist due to poor awareness and institutional barriers (Mwampamba et al., 2022)."
#science #conservation #ecology #AcademicPublishing #AcademicChatter #OpenAccess @npub1t7d…h3ud

2024-01-24 02:50:37

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@npub1skv…aky3 similarly, lieutenant = "leftenant" in British English, which is what we were taught in school. The only reason I remember the spelling is because our teacher taught us the mnemonic jhoot tu dus cheeti, which is Hindi transliteration for lie-u-ten-ant 😅 (staring at that leading m in mnemonic - what are you doing there?!)
I love watching Masterchef from various countries and sometimes even the contestants/chefs have trouble pronouncing worcestershire sauce.
As someone who is now doing ecological research, I've also noticed how often environment gets mispronounced as en-vee-ron-ment here instead of https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/environment
English, you gotta be this way? :)

2024-01-14 18:29:00

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@npub1skv…aky3 re-1), there's a way to filter posts on mastodon: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moderating/#filters. Hope this helps cleanse your timeline! Note to self - pin a @npub1w6v…ph80 post about how to filter messages, and update wiki to include this as a tip https://wiki.neuromatch.social/Using_Mastodon
re 2) yeah, and we haven't found the recipe to make more folks transition to communities that are owned by themselves rather than by for-profit corporations :( working on this in a voluntary capacity also makes it a bit challenging as the efforts are happening in our spare time, which is limited. I will continue to try and raise funds for it. Our first attempt at fund-raising got positive reviews from all 3 reviewers but wasn't funded unfortunately :(
@npub1w6d…ytvx
@npub1gt5…g9em

2024-01-11 17:13:43

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@npub1skv…aky3 woohoo, congrats!! 🥳 The discussions you've started on #neuromatchstodon have been very thought-provoking. Look forward to reading the book.
Curious to know: are you self-publishing this? And will there be an audiobook? sorry for too many questions 🙈

2024-01-11 11:14:28

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@npub1hyk…3p33 backed! I am a Marty Hench fan. We had backed the audiobook for Red Team Blues and had finished listening to it within a single sitting - it was so gripping! Can't wait for The Bezzle.

2023-12-21 12:57:44

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@npub1skv…aky3 @npub1s67…n47c agreed! I've had this extension installed on Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/eightdollars/ and can see neuroscientists who are willingly paying $8 per month for reach on Twitter/X and it includes people who talk about democratizing science. What a let down!

2023-12-14 14:42:37

Love the idea of cooperatively owned #scicomm
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/science-journalism-has-its-defector-moment

2023-11-14 22:20:59

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@npub1skv…aky3 she's on masto - @npub1j6w…9ltk 🙂

2023-10-11 16:32:24

"but of course, in every just revolution there are losers. And if there's one thing history has taught us it's that losing a just revolution doesn't mean that you go away, dig a hole, climb inside, pull the dirt in on top of yourself. You hang around nursing your grievances and that has what has come to the world of The Lost Cause"
I had thoroughly enjoyed #RedTeamBlues and just backed @npub1hyk…3p33's new novel of #climate and hope on kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-lost-cause-a-novel-of-climate-and-hope. Thank you Cory for providing the option of a DRM-free audio book!

2023-09-30 13:49:56

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@npub1skv…aky3 in another context we've been discussing about the types of volunteers. some volunteers devote a fixed amount of time and learn new skills by focusing on a few tasks. These would be the hedgehogs. Some volunteers (who I call as curious beings) devote a lot of time and learn a little bit of almost everything at the org. These would be the foxes. In this process though sometimes some of them end up specializing in a few things -- so they would be in the category of the senior staffers that @npub1flm…n7vn mentioned.

2023-09-02 02:12:51

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@npub1qtk…xqrw grrr... I have watch history turned off and every time I login to YT it shows me this (screenshot).
I wanna scream at YT - I know. I did it on purpose. Stop reminding of it.
https://neuromatch.social/system/media_attachments/files/110/993/121/522/497/508/original/f8aa3998e155918d.png

2023-09-01 21:31:00

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@npub1skv…aky3 @npub1tar…x57t @npub1u2v…4999
#ControversialOpinion #MiceRuleTheWorld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Vli6Fnj1E
https://youtu.be/y5xcvAoKojo?t=87
😄 plz don't mind me, I am just here to add #neurobuzz @npub1vju…ddcq so more folks can discover this thread and the OP

2023-08-30 14:18:29

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@npub14ha…pqf0 We've been collecting such resources to aid the filing of #AccessAndBenefitSharing forms in #India. This is super useful, thx!

2023-08-24 19:58:54

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@npub1cqh…4rf7 hekin chonker! had never heard of this cultivar. Does it actually have hints of a pineapple-y taste?

2023-08-21 17:41:00

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@npub14d7…dm4s is this a subtoot? :P

2023-08-19 20:23:59

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@npub14d7…dm4s reached the point about #TreeLaw and I am like wut?!! smh

2023-08-16 04:20:10

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@npub14d7…dm4s While trying to fix this we found this useful resource shared by @npub1fe4…sgyk https://ricard.dev/improving-mastodons-disk-usage/
#MastoAdmin

2023-08-15 11:50:18

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@npub14d7…dm4s when we build that #ContributionGraph there's going to be a big-ass node called "Social Organizing" and transform that bad --> good for the CV :catnod:

2023-08-08 20:53:03

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@npub14d7…dm4s there's already wordpress, squarespace, and wix to ruin making websites...
from 9 years ago but still relevant - https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/2gc1yg/what_is_so_wrong_about_wix/ckhs9rn

2023-07-27 16:26:49

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@npub1skv…aky3 When I was an undergrad pursuing a degree in Computer Science and Engineering, one of my favorite subjects was Linear Algebra where I was introduced to the concept of Fields, Vector Spaces, Real Analysis,... Proving (-1)*(-1) = +1 from first principles in an assignment was soo darn satisfying and a highlight of my first year as an undergrad 😁 So I'd definitely say Number Theory! I'll throw in Probability Theory in there (not just for all the Bayesian approaches used in #neuroscience).
Another course I was fascinated by and loved was Finite Automata and Formal Languages! So I'd also say Automata Theory and Theory of Computation - Babbage, Lovelace, Church, von Neumann, Turing, Gödel, Chomsky ... it's a long list :)

2023-07-16 05:07:00

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@npub14d7…dm4s @npub1w6v…ph80 hahaha pfp anarchy
to be fair, we asked the instance first :P
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jv7jcciKB_s