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Francesco Dalla Ricca

@dallaricca.bsky.social
88 followers 362 following 117 posts

UCSF PhD student

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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
There was always enough virtue in this Republic to save it; sometimes none to spare, but still enough to meet the emergency. -Abraham Lincoln
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
My quote of the day Atifete Jahjaga
Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
A response from MIT rejecting "The Compact"... orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...
orgchart.mit.edu
Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 01/10/2025
100% All Achievements xkcd.com/3148/
Comic. PERSON 1 to person with white hat: I finished all the gen-ed back in 2010, and I’m up to the 400-level courses in most departments. But now one of my advisors is saying I “can’t have more than 20 majors” and “need to graduate next year.” It’s outrageous! [caption] My university is making it really hard to finish a 100% all achievements speedrun.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
It is obvious that this absolute power becomes despotic once it has lost its connection with a higher power than itself. -Hannah Arendt, On Revolution
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Ideas cannot digest reality. -Jean-Paul Sartre
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Officials of the modern state ar, by necessity, at least one step removed from the society they are charged with governing. They assess the life of their society by a series of typifications that are always some distance from the full reality these abstractions are meant to capture.
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Alexandra Petri @petridishes.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Florida Decided There Were Too Many Children
theatlantic.com
Florida Decided There Were Too Many Children
The state’s elimination of vaccine mandates is a courageous first step toward decluttering itself of any excess kids.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
The fact that I'm not allowed to step on this painting feels antithetical to Yoko's intentions
A picture of Yoko Ono's 'Painting to be Stepped on'. Note the indication of not to touch the painting.A close up of a painting revealing its name: 'Painting to be Stepped on'
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
I'm not a fan of their art
A meme of Marge Simpson holding a potato, where Marge represents the artist Ellsworth Kelly saying that the potato (representing random shapes) is neat.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
This 'pursuit of happiness'... holds that men are entitled to 'the ghastly privilege of pursuing a phantom and embracing a delusion'. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution Quoting Howard Mumford Jones
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
NIH scientists say that mRNA vaccines have saved untold thousands of lives. A heroin addled nepo baby whose brain was partially eaten by a worm says mRNA vaccines are worthless and even dangerous. For busy medical patients, it can be hard to know who to trust.
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Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
I think all the time that this is the "science reform" we need to be having. Discrimination in science probably costs us more in scientific insight and scientists' well-being than anything else. AND these toxic patterns are not independent of fraud because toxic cultures create fraud pressures
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
Apparently Ulysses Grant's bullies called him "Useless Grant" boy howdy children haven't changed in their capacity for evil
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 22/07/2025
iNaturalist Animals and Plants xkcd.com/3118/
Comic. The Most-Observed Animal and Plant in Each State on iNaturalist. (Not the most common species in the state, just the one people have reported the most times.) [labeled map of the US] WA: Mallard/Western Sword Fern. OR: Mule Deer/Western Ponderosa Pine. CA: Western Fence Lizard/California Poppy. HI: Green Sea Turtle/‘Ōhi’a Lehua. ID: Mallard/Big Sagebrush. NV: Common Side-Blotched Lizard/Creosote Bush. MT: White-Tailed Deer/Common Yarrow. WY: American Bison/Sticky Geranium. UT: Mule Deer/Utah Juniper. AZ: Ornate Tree Lizard/Saguaro. CO: Mule Deer/Great Mullein. NM: Mule Deer/Creosote Bush. AK: Moose/Fireweed. ND: American Bison/Prairie Rose. SD: American Bison/Hoary Vervain. NE: American Robin/Common Milkweed. KS: Ornate Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. OK: Pond Slider/Eastern Redcedar. TX: Northern Cardinal/Pinladies. MN, WI, IL: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Common Milkweed. IA, MI: White-Tailed Deer/Common Milkweed. MO: Brown-Belted Bumble Bee/Amur Honeysuckle. AR: Three-toed Box Turtle/Chinese Privet. LA: Green Anole/Baldcypress. IN: American Robin/Amur Honeysuckle. OH: Eastern Pondhawk/Virginia Springbeauty. KY: Common Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. TN: American Robin/Christmas Fern. MS: Northern Cardinal/Pale Pitcher Plant. AL: Gulf Fritillary/American Sweetgum. GA: Green Anole/American Sweetgum. FL: Brown Anole/White Beggarticks. NY: Eastern Gray Squirrel/White Snakeroot. PA: White-Tailed Deer/Garlic Mustard. WV: White-Tailed Deer/Great Rhododendron. VA: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern Poison Ivy. MD: White-Tailed Deer/Wineberry. DE: Fowler’s Toad/American Pokeweed. NC: Eastern Gray Squirrel/Christmas Fern. SC: Northern Cardinal/American Sweetgum. NJ: Spotted Lanternfly/Common Mugwort. VT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. NH: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern White Pine. MA: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. CT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Striped Wintergreen. RI: American Herring Gull. ME: American Herring Gull/Canadian Bunchberry.
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Dan Jagger @auditorynerves.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
'They took shrapnel from my heart' – the magnets saving lives in Ukraine. The pen-sized magnetic extractors are powerful enough to lift a sledgehammer. 🧪💣🧲🇺🇦 www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
"They took shrapnel out of my heart" - a life saved by Ukrainian ingenuity
A magnetic extractor is changing the face of front-line medicine in Ukraine.
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Alicia Bannon @aliciabannon.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
But one thing SCOTUS did make clear is that its ruling doesn’t have to be final. Congress has a say in the scope of the courts’ equitable powers - i.e., a judge’s authority to craft remedies in a case. It should step in to reestablish the constitutional balance. /fin
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Between the centuries of misery and disorder there are others when societies come to rest when the human race seems to draw breath. In actual fact, such times are more apparent than real...
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Dr. Ahna Skop @ahnaskop.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
AI, peer review and the human activity of science
nature.com
AI, peer review and the human activity of science
When researchers cede their scientific judgement to machines, we lose something important.
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Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Kuldorff is now going to present on the MMRV vaccine. The slides have not been posted. CDC has a briefing doc: www.cdc.gov/acip/downloa... MMRV was shown to have a slightly increased risk of febrile seizures compared to separate MMR + varicella vaccines in a VSD rapid cycle analysis.
Postvaccination seizures among 12- to 23-month-olds according to vaccine received: VSD study population, 2000 -2008.
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→—MMRV
- MMR + varicella
—*- MMR alone
-*— Varicella alone
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per 100 000 doses
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Seizures
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Klein N, Fireman B, Yih WK, Lewis E, Kulldorff M, Ray P, Baxter R, Hambidge S, Nordin J, Naleway A, Belongia E, Lieu T, Baggs J, Weintraub E, for the Vaccine Safety Datalink. Measles-Mumps-Rubella-Varicella Combination Vaccine and the Risk of Febrile Seizures, Pediatrics, 2010.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
They needed no facts, no information; they had a "theory", and all data that did not fit were denied or ignored. -Hannah Arendt, On Lying and Politics, 1971
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 14/05/2025
*crab-walked
A CNN news notification : The convicted killer crab walked between two walls and pushed through the newly installed razor wire to break out of prison, authorities say
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Governmental centralization acquires immense power when joined to administrative centralization. In this way, it accustoms men completely and continuously to disregard their own wishes and to obey, not only for once and upon one point but in every respect and at all times.
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Nash Turley @nashturley.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
It's a raging cicada party out there. They waited 17 years for this!
A periodic cicada sitting on a leaf, black thor axe with bright red eyes and long clear wingsLooking down on a cicada, sitting on a leaf with wings, partially openThree cicadas hanging on plant stems, one in the foreground, in focus in two in the background that are blurryCicada, hanging upside down on a leaf with an empty skin of a cicada on the left and another one on the right
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
One way of lessening the action of authority lies not in stripping society of some of its rights or in paralyzing its efforts but in distributing the exercise of power in several hands, in multiplying the number of civil servants to whom just enough power is granted to perform what is asked of them.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
From the article: Some groups that see nuclear power as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels also offered praise. The call to reconsider the LNT model and other safety standards is a positive step toward reforming NRC’s “overly risk-averse culture, structure, and regulations” 1/3
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Springer Nature @springernature.com · 28/05/2025
The further a scientist moves away from the topic of their previous work, the fewer citations their new work will receive, an analysis of millions of scientific papers and patents reveals. The findings are published in @nature.com: spklr.io/63325hiCV #SocialScience 🧪
spklr.io
The pivot penalty in research - Nature
An analysis of millions of scientific papers and patents reveals a ‘pivot penalty’ when researchers shift direction, with the impact of studies decreasing rapidly the further they move from their previous work.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
This is cool to see, though the irony of having an article about a nonprofit being behind a paywall is not lost on me. #openscience
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Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
1/7) Thoughtful article from @neuralreckoning.bsky.social here, very well worth a read! I am sympathetic to the argument, but not entirely in agreement (no surprise there, I suppose). Specifically, I take a different lesson from other large-scale science projects' successes and failures. 🧠📈 🧪
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Large-scale projects run the risk of stifling scientific independence. Instead, let’s explore alternative mechanisms of collaboration, writes @neuralreckoning.bsky.social. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/funding/neur...
thetransmitter.org
Neuroscience needs to empower early-career researchers, not fund moon shots
Large-scale projects run the risk of stifling scientific independence. Instead, let’s explore alternative mechanisms of collaboration.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
A paper on the effect of cell metabolism on biotechnology and medication 👀
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Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 23/05/2025
Genentech authors flip PNAS study from corrected to retracted following Retraction Watch coverage
retractionwatch.com
Genentech authors flip PNAS study from corrected to retracted following Retraction Watch coverage
The authors of a 2006 paper have retracted their article following an extensive correction in January – and a Retraction Watch story noting the correction missed at least one additional issue with …
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Have all centuries reassembled our own? Has mankind always looked out to a world like our own, where nothing is consistent, where virtue is without genius, genius without honor, where the love of order is joined to an inclination for tyranny and the holy worship of liberty to a disdain for the law..
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Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Crash Course is a free educational video series that is used in over 90% of high schools in the US. Because it's free, teachers and students decide for themselves whether they want to use it...and they do. Also...the world record for most high fives in a day is 15,338.
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Dr. Brendan Anderson @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Day 13 of photoshopping @lastweektonight.com's John Oliver with fossils in the hopes that he saves the Paleontological Research Institution I know John wants to learn the Cretaceous origins of the paperclip form with Diplomoceras maximum, an Antarctic ammonite. Comedian is H. sapiens #savePRI 🦑🧪
John oliver in a tuxedo with "Clippy" the paperclip looking at a ~2 m long paperclip shaped ammonite in a case with other fossils in the background
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
A fascinating initiative pushed by the Brazilian science community! I hope more countries follow their lead elifesciences.org/interviews/3... #science #elife
elifesciences.org
Reproducibility: How replicable is biomedical science in Brazil?
The results of a project to estimate the reproducibility of research in Brazil have just been published.
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Season of Scaryanne Denton 🧡🎃 @mariannedenton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
Good night.
A bouquet of white, purple and deep wine colored lilacs. There is a warm light shining towards it. The glass vase is on a square shelf.
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The Doctor (Commissions open) @lucidillusions.in · 14/07/2023
Cat alignment chart. Where does your kitty fall?
Cat alignment chart...
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
"For decades the NSF has employed hundreds of scientists... [to] choose the best research to fund. But today NSF officials announced they are essentially abandoning that approach... [to] focus on a handful of areas President Donald Trump has identified as priorities for his administration."
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daily bunnies 🐇✨ @dailybunnies.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Two lop-eared bunnies sitting side by side on a patterned rug. The left bunny is light brown, and the right is white with brown patches.
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Corey Brickley * Blight's Hollow Dot Com @coreybrickley.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
"i dont know what id do widdout my chatgpt 🥺👉👈" Oh my god go back to Baby School you fucking failure
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Corey Brickley * Blight's Hollow Dot Com @coreybrickley.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
With the power of cutting edge GPT tech we've invented a way to make mediocre coworkers less reliable and more annoying
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Jeffrey Heilveil (he/him) @nigronia.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
OMG!!! This students' science communication project on food webs blew me away. Here's PART of it... 1/n #insects #rivers #PUI #AcademicChatter
A crocheted food web. The top level is a banner with a sun, a falling leaf, and the bottom of a tree trunk on a stream bank. The next level is two rectangles, one with Diatoms and on with detritus. Below that are a series of crocheted organisms, with connections made of bicolored crocheted strings, the blue half leads to the eater, the white to the eaten. 
The next level has three organisms: a copepod (Cyclops), a mayfly nymph (Epeorus), and a midge larva (chironomid).
The next level has a caddisfly larva (Hydropsyche) and a shredder/scraper stonefly (perlodid), the level below has a salamander, and the level below that is a trout. Many organisms link to multiple trophic levels.
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Nature @nature.com · 08/05/2025
Nature research paper: Activation of lysosomal iron triggers ferroptosis in cancer go.nature.com/4jO9ZVX
go.nature.com
Activation of lysosomal iron triggers ferroptosis in cancer - Nature
Some cancer cells exhibit high loads of reactive iron in lysosomes, and this feature is exploited by using fentomycin-1, a newly developed small molecule, to induce ferroptosis.
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Francesco Dalla Ricca @dallaricca.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
It seems like the time honored tradition of becoming the lab rat is alive and well. Dr. Barry Marshall would be proud! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
cell.com
Snake venom protection by a cocktail of varespladib and broadly neutralizing human antibodies
To combat snake bites from diverse species, this work identifies broadly neutralizing antibodies from a donor hyperimmune to snake venom, and it demonstrates that a combination of two of the identifie...
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Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
I hope everyone knows that it's very easy for any social content platform, including Bluesky, to be a misery machine and that if you aren't intentional about it, they will absolutely decrease the positive impact you have on the world while making you less happy.
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A/Prof Sam Stehbens PhD (She/Her) @samstehbens.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
This is how your email finds me #catsOfAcademia #AustralianMist
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/04/2025
Tennis Balls xkcd.com/3080
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Science Magazine @science.org · 24/04/2025
A rare carnivorous caterpillar—previously unknown to biologists—stalks spiderwebs for food whilst dressed in the remains of its prey, a new Science study reports. This new species, dubbed the “bone collector,” is found only on a single mountainside on the Hawai’ian island of Oa’hu. scim.ag/3GBDcV7
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C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) @cenmag.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Drug discoverers pursuing a new target in disease have to make careful choices to minimize the risk that their molecules will fail. cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic... #chemsky🧪 #biosky
cen.acs.org
Drug discovery à la modality
Drugmakers sort through many modalities to find the best match for their target proteins
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