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Jonathan Dushoff

@jdushoff.bsky.social
1.1K followers 189 following 431 posts

Theoretical biologist, recreational mathematician, anti-fascist*. * I had planned not to be political here, but when circumstances change, decisions sometimes have to change.

PostsRepliesMedia
Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Clinic on Dynamical Approaches to Infectious Disease Data (DAIDD): 29 Nov–5 Dec. Nairobi, Kenya Run by us, the International Clinics on Infectious Disease Dynamics and Data (ICI3D) A great opportunity to meet people fighting infectious disease and to learn about dynamical modeling.
The ICI3D logo: a stylized snippet from a network model followed by the letters ICI3D
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Every Fibonacci number is the difference for a sequence of length six that contains: * three other Fibonacci numbers * the negative of yet another Fibonacci number * a Lucas number * the negative of a Lucas number.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I know it sounds insane, but I really believe we've invented the best Go variant. xGo has Go-like play, a global win criterion (no counting) and is elegantly balanced by the pie rule -- accomplishing the goals of Gonnect more beautifully. IMHO. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:He...
commons.wikimedia.org
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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.
data4democracy.substack.com
Hook and Squeeze
How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
xkcd.com/3285/ @xkcd.com reminds me so much of the final scene of Total Recall -- people solving an urgent problem with a geologic-scale process.
xkcd.com
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I think this is pretty remarkable, but it's a bit of a story.
Image of a phone screen showing the NYT Wordle App. User has played 1000 games and solved the puzzle 39 times in two tries; 355 times in three; 410 times in four tries; 146 times in five tries and 40 times in six tries.
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Minor Leaguer @minorleaguer.ca · 23/07/2026
Brendon Little honours a great Blue Jays season with his ERA
Brendan Little has a 20.25 ERA
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Matthew Cortland (they) @matthewcort.land · 20/07/2026
It's a scam all the way down. Taylor Farms gave MAGA Inc. $1M USD less than a week after FDA postponed implementation of food traceability rules. www.patreon.com/mattbc/posts...
FEC Schedule A itemized receipt, line C. Contributor: Taylor Fresh Foods Inc, 911-B Blanco Circle, Salinas, CA 93902. Date of receipt: 03/26/2025. Transaction ID: SA17.4550. Amount of receipt this period: $1,000,000.00. Marked "Memo Item" and labeled "NON-CONTRIBUTION." Receipt-for boxes (Primary/General/Other) are blank. Aggregate year-to-date: $1,000,000.00.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
This is the best opening paragraph in history. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
theatlantic.com
Punctuation: A Generational Divide
Can parents ever learn to text like their kids? Should they even try?
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
A timely puzzle: four teams enter a tournament structured like the World Cup Final Four (there is a bracket, the two first-game winners play for first and the other two teams play for third). What is the probability that the second-best team will take second place? ...
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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Now out in Virus Evolution! CpG content is higher in carnivore-associated rabies virus clades than in bat-associated clades. Coauthors on here: @jdushoff.bsky.social @matt-arnold-bio.bsky.social @khampson.bsky.social
academic.oup.com
Validate User
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
This is an outrageous story. A farmer donated 87 acres to a small Texas city on the condition it be used as a public park. Years later, the farmer has passed away, the city sold the land to a developer, and now it will be the site of a 135,000 square foot data center www.404media.co/a-farmer-don...
404media.co
A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Massive Data Center Instead
In 1999, a farmer gave away 87 acres of land to a small Texas town to use as a park. The town sold to a data center developer for $10 million.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Led by @rowandurrant.bsky.social, we're trying to develop rules of thumb to estimate under-reporting from sequence data. Today rabies, tomorrow the world! With @khampson.bsky.social, @kirstynbrunker.bsky.social and others.
A schematic diagram showing how average phylogenetic branch lengths increase as sampling proportions decrease.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
This is my hobby too!
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
The parable of the polygons is a super-cool way of thinking about pedagogy, a super-cool way of thinking about the usefulness of dynamical modeling, and a super-cool way of thinking about how our world became so polarized (maybe even a thought about how to address that): ncase.me/polygons/
ncase.me
Parable of the Polygons
A playable post on how harmless choices can make a harmful world.
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
The Callais ruling is the latest evidence that the real problem with #SCOTUS is that it can do whatever it wants without any fear of pushback from Congress. The way to fix that is by making the Court *accountable* again, something that expanding it or imposing term limits won't actually accomplish:
stevevladeck.com
Bonus 223: "They Are Who We Thought They Were"
The Callais ruling has prompted renewed calls for Court reform. It's also a reminder of why the most popular proposals *aren't* how we should fix the Court.
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Andrei R. Akhmetzhanov (吳亞克) @aakhmetz.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
In our recent EID letter: Serial Interval and Intervention Efficiency in Pertussis Outbreak, South Korea, 2024, we re-analyzed Cho et al.'s outbreak data to recover the unmitigated serial interval — what would be expected without case isolation. wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/... @jdushoff.bsky.social
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 27/04/2026
you are creating a culture of violence against us by accurately reporting on the culture of violence we're gleefully inflicting on others
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Liverpool FC is not mathematically out of the EPL title race! They've been on the knife's edge since last week, but still survive. (1/3)
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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 22/04/2026
Priceless post from the official White House social media
Margo Martin
@MargoMartin47
X.com
Congratulations, Georgia Women's Tennis!

The photo shows Trump and five white dudes in red ties standing in front of and completely blocking 10 young women
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
What do British people even think "clear" means? For that matter, what do they think "ahead" means, if anything? If the other team has two games in hand, you're not 9 points "clear" -- you're merely 9 points ahead-for-now. More like 3 points clear. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
One of these political leaders has been repeatedly portrayed as an untrustworthy radical hostile to others because of his religious beliefs. You’’ll never guess which one!
Trump insane Easter postMamdani warm and gracious easter greetings
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
A student told me the other day that I reminded him of Phil Jackson. He knows about Phil Jackson from The Last Dance, so maybe Jackson reminded him of me. In any case, other than tall, old, white guy, I'm really not seeing it.
Image of me: a tall, skinny white guy with a brown-flecked white beard, sitting in an office failing to resemble Phil Jackson.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
My whole family is Eastern European Jews. We got out decades before the Holocaust, but there's still a connection. 1/3
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Protip: If you're wearing a golden noose on your lapel, you're not one of the good guys. www.cbc.ca/news/world/i...
cbc.ca
Israeli parliament approves the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis | CBC News
The bill's passage marked the culmination of a years-long push by Israel's far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Remember this when the Supreme Court rules against Trump on this one: they've done a lot on the way that will make things worse in the future. When right-wingers rage about the decision, it will be in part to cover that up. Poopoopoo
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Not sure I've ever seen anything like this: a predicted 10°C increase in three hours – after dark! Curious to see if this will happen in reality.
A table reading 20:00	5	Chance of showers. Risk of thunderstorms 30	*	NE 20 gusts 40
21:00	8	Chance of showers. Risk of thunderstorms 30	*	NE 15
22:00	12	Chance of showers. Risk of thunderstorms 30	*	NE 15
23:00	15	Chance of showers. Risk of thunderstorms 30	*	NE 15
 
with pictures of raining storm clouds
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
When you laugh, you make a "la" 🎶 out of "ugh" 😒
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Very well said.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
I like it when people handwrite "Out of courtesy to others" on signs, because I can choose to read it to myself as "out of courtesy to otters".
Picture of a river otter in the water with a fish in its mouth from Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_River_Otter_Eating_White_Sucker_on_Seedskadee_NWR_(22984535449).jpg
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
This legislation is disgusting on many levels. The Analysis link is also worth reading. www.cbc.ca/news/world/i...
cbc.ca
Israeli parliament approves the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis | CBC News
The bill's passage marked the culmination of a years-long push by Israel's far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
This article from @uk.theconversation.com makes some interesting points, but I find the statistical philosophy horrifying. theconversation.com/truth-or-mis....
theconversation.com
Truth, or misinformation? A statistician explains the challenge of assessing evidence
The word misinformation is loaded, and overused. The difficulty of assessing evidence is partly to blame.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Image of a typeset poem, reading: 

Worldlines

There is only one electron
It entered our universe-bubble just once
and filled it up by travelling forward
and backward in time, its
Innumerable U-turns looking
to us time-locked observers
like creations
and annihilations

There is only one electron
A high-school girl
running easily up the icy courthouse steps
Suddenly realizes that she is also
the old woman on her left
so scared of falling that she can barely move
and also the toddler
flopping happily in the snow that morning

There is only one electron – that fidgety tenant
is me
and so is the bored landlord
and also the sad deputy

There is only one electron
It will exit our universe-bubble
a trillion trillion years from now
once

– Jonathan Dushoff
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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Just look at the difference
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
When I woke up this morning the centigrade temperature was three times the fahrenheit temperature. But by 9 AM it was already 10 times the fahrenheit temperature and the ratio was climbing at a dizzying rate!
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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
In a long-form piece, I address recent claims by the Editor-in-Chief of @science.org that "quiet" insiders rather than "heated" activists should be credited for passage of top-line budget numbers for science and medical research. joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/science-ad...
joshuasweitz.substack.com
Science Advocacy: The Risks of Playing the Long Game vs. Playing the Game For Too Long
Reflecting on the establishment view of recent ‘wins’ for research and what real winning looks like when public-facing advocacy is credited and included in broader coalitions.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Accounting for heterogeneity among hosts, even if done very simply, can have dramatic effects on models' ability to parse out patterns.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Why indeed? Because it's exactly what you would expect. The shots are excellent -- and led to "measles-elimination status". But they're not perfect.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Measles is spreading. The number of cases in vaccinated people will continue to go up (although not as fast as the number in unvaccinated people). These "breakthrough" cases will be used for #antivax propaganda. Public health needs to be ready.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
I need somehow to recast how I think about the US Executive branch: I have to stop being horrified that they cross this line or that line and just accept that they are the enemy, and that nothing is holding them back except public opinion -- no law, no morality www.stevevladeck.com/p/205-chief-...
stevevladeck.com
205. Chief Judge Schiltz and the Department of Justice
Every federal judge (and justice) should read the two letters from Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz in the church protest case—and what they tell us about the Department of Justice's litigation behavior.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
This post about violence and norms www.popehat.com/p/we-should-... from @kenwhite.bsky.social is both perceptive and bold.
popehat.com
We Should Talk About The Morality of Political Violence
What Are The Best Moral Arguments Against It?
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Any continuous function that is both non-increasing and non-decreasing attains its global maximum at exp(τ), and its global minimum at -exp(-τ)!, where τ≈6.283 is the circle constant. You can read actually interesting perspectives on τ at www.tauday.com/tau-manifesto.
tauday.com
No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto
For millennia, the circle has been considered the most perfect of shapes, and the circle constant π captured the geometry of the circle in a single number. But π is wrong, and it’s time to set things ...
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
I know it's everything all the time these days, but this feels like a big deal: Until now, [the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press] said, the Justice Department had “never executed a search warrant at the home of a reporter in a national security leak case.” www.cnn.com/2026/01/15/m...
cnn.com
‘Tip of the iceberg’: The FBI search of a reporter’s home has newsrooms bracing for more | CNN Business
Inside The Washington Post, the impact was immediate. Reporters called the search “incredibly disturbing.” Hannah Natanson, whose home was raided, urged her Post colleagues to keep reporting.
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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
New preprint! We had a look at the codon and dinucleotide usage of rabies clades that circulate in specific host species, and found some interesting differences, particularly between carnivore- and bat-associated clades 👀 Coauthors on bluesky: @jdushoff.bsky.social @matt-arnold-bio.bsky.social
biorxiv.org
Differences in codon usage between host-species-specific rabies virus clades are driven by UpA and purine content
Viral genes sometimes use certain codons more than others due to their nucleotide content, translational efficiency, and selection pressure from the host immune system. The rabies virus (RABV) is a ne...
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Can interactive web apps help biology students become better modellers? Stephan Peischl's group is running an ethics-approved study. Learn more at: peischllab.github.io/MEEW.html Contact ana-hermina.ghenu@unibe.ch to receive the survey link. @spei.bsky.social
peischllab.github.io
MEEW
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Federal Reserve @federalreserve.gov · 12/01/2026
Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...
youtube.com
Statement by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell
YouTube video by Federal Reserve
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Some nice press coverage from our #DavidEarn-led article on CANDID (Canadian Notifiable Disease Incidence Dataset) archive.ph/jRBfz See also journals.plos.org/globalpublic... bsky.app/profile/jdus... @davidearn.bsky.social @cfts.bsky.social
archive.ph
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Jake Williams @malwarejake.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Just wow. @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy came out swinging in this article. He's right though and that's the coolest part.
In 2026, countries that want to win the trade war have a unique historical possibility: They could repeal their “anticircumvention” laws, which make it illegal—a felony, in many cases—to modify devices and services without permission from their manufacturers. Over the past two decades, the office of the US Trade Representative–which is responsible for developing and coordinating US international trade, commodity, and direct investment policy—has pressured most of the world into adopting these laws, hamstringing foreign startups that might compete with Apple (by providing a jailbreaking kit that installs a third-party app store), or Google (by blocking tracking on Android devices), or Amazon (by converting Kindle and Audible files to formats that work on rival apps), or John Deere (by disabling the systems that block third-party repairs), or the Big Three automakers (by decoding the encrypted error messages mechanics need to service our cars). The rents that these digital locks help American companies extract run to hundreds of billions of dollars every single year. The world’s governments agreed to protect this racket in exchange for tariff-free access to American markets. Now that the US has reneged on its side of the bargain, these laws serve no useful purpose.
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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Many thanks to cofounder @asinclair.bsky.social & the entire SCIMaP team (scienceimpacts.org) for collaborative work to confront federal cuts to science and medical research; together, our effort was recognized as a 2025 Public Health Hero in @thenation.com. a 🧵 www.thenation.com/article/soci...
thenation.com
The Public Health Heroes of 2025
The Trump administration wants to destroy our health infrastructure. These warriors aren't letting that happen without a fight.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
This is a really cool project, I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate. news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...
news.mcmaster.ca
McMaster research team digitizes more than 100 years of Canadian infectious disease data
The new, publicly accessible database contains more than a million infectious disease incidence counts dating back to 1903.
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