Snuggled in bed, too lazy to check for the Northern Lights.
Any UK facing research-associated orgs who are looking to switch from X, add your alternative socials to my spreadsheet - the list has over 300 entries now. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
This is fabulous. Read it and (literally) weep.
This is so unsurprising. When I moderated email forums in the late 90s and 00s, almost all problems were caused by just a handful of people. You could try to explain the rules to such people, and they’d continue to find ways to asshole. But if I banned them, the forum lost nothing and gained peace.
![Online discussions are dominated by a surprisingly small, extremely vocal, and non-representative minority. Research on social media has found that, while only 3 % of active accounts are toxic, they produce 33 % of all content [4]. Furthermore, 74 % of all online conflicts are started in just 1 % of communities [5], and 0.1 % of users shared 80 % of fake news [6,7]. Not only does this extreme minority stir discontent, spread misinformation, and spark outrage online, they also bias the meta-perceptions of most users who passively “lurk” online. This can lead to false polarization and pluralistic ignorance, which are linked to a number of problems including drug and alcohol use [8], intergroup hostility [9,10], and support for authoritarian regimes [11]. Furthermore, exposure to extreme content can normalize unhealthy and dangerous behavior. For example, teens exposed to extreme content related to alcohol consumption thought dangerous alcohol consumption was normative [12].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:jmte4w4x7ukciit6lci6ziau/bafkreiddm2btaao7h3fzhkrjkn3iel7ppeihtycfzca7wbqj7l2v3pcuda@jpeg)
Re staying on X/Twitter to fight the “good” fight. Musk owns the site. He posts constantly. He micromanages the algorithm. If you think your tweets are so powerful they can beat the guy who spent $44bn to buy it & promote far right propaganda… eh, good luck, chuck, but you sound a bit delulu
I really loathe this idea that not being a “traditional” tenure-track academic is “quitting science”. I didn’t “quit science” - I opted not to become a research professor. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Twenty years of publishing data across many countries and disciplines show women are more likely than men to leave research.
Do you have a big idea about health/medicine/illness you’d like to turn into a non-fiction book? The Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards is now open to support writers from underrepresented groups: www.spreadtheword.org.uk/projects/wel...
Yesterday was the last day of coal burning in the UK. A real achievement of successive governments to replace with renewables and gas. I believe UK is the first country to wean ourselves off coal entirely though Spain are hot on our heels. A change to a cleaner world is possible
This is a good blog in response to University UK's blueprint published today: www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/09/30/s...
Sir Anthony Seldon was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham from 2015 to 2020. Universities have woken bolt upright to the fact that they can be, indeed must be, masters of their own fu...