Jacob A Tennessen

I think I'm done here. Find me at @JacobPhD@scicomm.xyz

One of my first uses of this site, in 2013, was to live-tweet my re-read of Jurassic Park. In the story, a greedy tycoon bites off more than he can chew in a business venture and accidentally turns it into a living nightmare. Have we come full circle?

You know it's getting real when university admin gets involved.

Synapsids (🦣) and sauropsids (🐦) have been at war over planetary dominance for >300 million years. 🦣got an early lead in the Permian, then🐦famously ruled the Mesozoic.🦣took over again after the K-T extinction. Today many species of both🐦&🦣are endangered. What happens next?

I guess that sink at twitter headquarters was meant in the "source–sink dynamics" sense

@debivort @JacobPhD@scicomm.xyz

@MNithyassree @S__Baksh That would make sense, but unfortunately nothing in immunology makes sense. The B stands for Bursa.

@S__Baksh Brace yourself. B cells are called that because they develop in the Bone Marrow and not because they be bitchin' badass.

I’ve joined Mastodon: @JacobPhD@scicomm.xyz But not abandoning twitter yet.

We are searching for a Genomics Technology Transfer Specialist to help support malaria molecular surveillance at partner laboratories in South America. Please reach out to me directly if you fit the profile and will be at #ASTMH2022! shorturl.at/CMPS8

Covid has killed so many more than, say, Ebola, in part because it’s not scary enough: folks didn’t take it seriously since it’s largely survivable, hence the huge death toll. I think of this when people point out that climate change is more survivable than, say, nuclear war.

Going to my first in-person conference (ASTMH) since 2019. To the best of my knowledge I’ve still never had covid. Wish me luck.

Even Randall Munroe gets confused by chirality

Sea cucumber or microbe?

This is fine

Reviewer: The methods are logically flawed and Figure 1 is not supported by the data; units are wrong on line 108 Author: *fixes methods and removes figure, making the next figure into Figure 1, line 108 is now a lit review* Reader of transparent reviews: Huh?

Has anyone ever read the "transparent" peer reviews published alongside a paper (which refer to an earlier draft of the manuscript and thus are presumably largely unintelligible)? Why?

@PhD_Genie We’re technically co-first authors but she did most of the work

Things that you can say about your paper and also about your child

@JamesWorron @AdamRutherford twitter.com/vsbuffalo/stat…

@JacobPhD @AdamRutherford you can just go on wikipedia and see the matter isnt settled, and can't be. or google and see there is plenty of research suggesting Aboriginies were genetically isolated. your suggestion of pre-columbian exchange seems more problematic tbh.

This is obviously not true.

@JamesWorron @AdamRutherford If you know of peer-reviewed modeling work or population genetics, or statements by population biologists, that cast doubt on the model I'd be happy to take a look.

@JacobPhD @AdamRutherford Ultimately though ancestor point is a model which depends on certain assumptions that are true over a sufficiently long time period. The time period may not be sufficiently long.

@JamesWorron @AdamRutherford B/c it's often easier to spread sperm than germs (which require certain human population densities, animal vectors, etc. or they peter out). And small numbers of migrants don't substantially change the genetic makeup of a population, & in the absence of selection immunity wanes.

@JamesWorron @AdamRutherford Not sure if you're suggesting that the germs should have already been in e.g. the Americas, or just the genetic immunity to those germs. Either way, why weren't European descendants of East Asians (e.g. Genghis Khan) immune to the Black Death, also from East Asia?