Peter Kasson @[email protected]

We're recruiting postdocs to join our group studying viral entry: one experimentalist and one computationalist. Want to understand how viruses interact with host membranes to infect? How to stop them? Come join us! kassonlab.wordpress.com/join-our-team/

Been away for a while. Elon's latest outrage makes me loath to support this site, though I miss the people. Heading back into Mastodonia for a bit. Come find me there.

@ACSPublications customer support "proposed solution" was essentially "not our problem". And then they have the gall to send a satisfaction survey that errors out.

Challenge factor of assembling children's furniture is substantially enhanced when toddler wants to participate.

@vijaypande The thing I always wonder is how much of the rest creates the environment where the sqrt(N) people want to work. Clearly not the -1x but...?

Company with N employees: - sqrt(N) doing most, with the rest: - junior people with reasonable attitudes and minimal skills & contributions - 0.1x lifestyle workers - Good talkers, look like stars but are smoke and mirrors, spending time lobbying others instead of doing (-1x)

@tropicalscience Need to try gloves. Right now we're at no mittens and then getting really unhappy after 30 min in freezing weather.

@kassonlab Gloves (less frustrating once on) with a fun image on palm (like trucks). But also, in frostbite inducing weather, a few minutes without is pretty convincing!

Any suggestions for getting toddlers to wear mittens?

@galinash And since most get HR from the waveform, a lack of waveform shows up. But that's pedantry

@kassonlab Typ, oxygen at 0% is a pulse of zero? 😂

På Spåret host just said that oximeter measures pulse...

@marcvanderkamp Lab account on @kassonlab@sciencemastodon.com, still figuring out if I'll maintain a separate personal or merge

@kassonlab Username@server?

Setting up shop in Mastodonia. Always helps to have alternatives.

@kamerlinlab Bit of a jump from baby shark:)

2yo is singing along, trying to mimic the Queen of the Night's aria and I don't know what to say. 😬😍

We have shown previously that membrane deformability does have a big effect. So for influenza entry, it's not where you start that matters but how you climb the barrier.

Our article on measuring genome exposure in influenza viral entry is posted in final form (available as preprint first). Great work by Ana! Surprisingly, starting membrane curvature doesn't affect fusion kinetics 1/2 doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.…

and commentary nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… "how high will we allow the societal costs to be, and who will bear the greatest costs? Universal masking policies distribute a small cost across society, rather than [...] onto populations that have already been made vulnerable"

Nice study and thoughtful commentary in NEJM: "the lifting of masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 Covid-19 cases per 1000 students and staff during the 15 weeks after the statewide masking policy was rescinded." nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

@ElisaTelisa @bnschlz @LCasalino88 @abbydommer @RommieAmaro Thanks! Yes, love to chat more sometime (this is part of what I wanted to follow up with you about, sorry for being slow and still hoping to). I think it does all connect nicely.

been away from the bird for about a week. Lots happening in the real world. And, well, interesting changes here. Waiting to see how it all plays out.

@hardsci Highly variable. I usually employ the criterion of having enough information to say "yes, I think this is a good person" in a professional context. Could be working with them, interactions at conference, an extended professional conversation.

Fall colors

@RommieAmaro Thanks! I'll be interested to compare your omicron findings because we get weaker kinetic activation for fusion by the omicron spike we've used. If the binding affinity and the activation kinetics are decoupled, that would be really cool. But need to compare closely.

@kassonlab looking forward to digging into this one, Peter!

Happy to share our recent #COVID19 preprint. doi.org/10.1101/2022.1… Using single-virus fusion measurements and a chemical means to tether virus, we show that ACE-2 is not biochemically required for entry. Other attachment factors can suffice. 1/n