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Jonathan Dushoff

@jdushoff.bsky.social
1.1K followers 189 following 434 posts

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

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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Seems like a smart question. Pretty sure that all they're sharing is the emergency proportion. You can get it by hovering but afaict it's not in the csv, which is a gap. I'm told they're working on an API.... haven't really found anyone to tag here.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Very nice project: up-to-date COVID, flu and RSV spread information from US CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics www.cdc.gov/cfa-modeling...
A color-coded US map from the linked site, titled "COVID-19 epidemic trend by Health Service Area".
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Our department is looking for a tenure-track plant biologist! See www.academicwork.ca/jobs/tenure-.... Vibrant department; liveable city; friendly country (Canada); new greenhouse facility ...
academicwork.ca
Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Plant Biology
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
How do you figure?
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I would take that job.
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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 · 03/09/2026
Cool-looking building!
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Probably you remember the Fibonacci numbers: start with 1, 1 and then each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ... Probably you don't remember the Lucas numbers. Start instead with 1, 3: 1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18 ...
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
My favorite one is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 = -L(-1), -F(-2), F(-1), F(1), F(2), L(1) When I first thought of it, it seemed implausible that there would really be 6 distinct ways to generate 1 in this context, but it works.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
For example, with difference 8 = F(6) -11, -3, 5, 13, 21, 29 = -L(5), -F(4), F(5), F(7), F(8), L(7) are all in sequence. Sometimes I just sit and think about these sequences.
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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
Basically, you play Go (with the pie rule) until both players pass, and then switch to Hex. You can see a bit more information at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jo... or try playing it (locally) at dushoff.github.io/xGo/.
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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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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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 · 01/08/2026
Eek!
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
E.g., the population has 200 black and 800 white users. 10 black and 10 white users are arrested. That's 5% of black users and 1.25% of white users. 4 times the per-person risk (not the naive 50/20 = 2.5).
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Here's a good example, though. If 20% of recreation drug users and 50% of recreational drug arrests are black people, the relative risk of a black person being arrested is the odds ratio between those two measures.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
They're kind of burying the lead. It's not: how did everyone miss the typo? It's: how can somebody be sent to prison on a single, tenuous piece of evidence? That's not what happens on my teevee!
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I've now played 1000 games since that reset… and my average is 3.993. Equivalent to 7 guesses under par. In 1000 games. Even though it's a bunch of random rules I made up out of almost nothing!
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
After a couple hundred games my score somehow got reset. My average happened to be pretty near my arbitrary par of 4 when that happened.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
So, before I really understood the game well, I arbitrarily decided: • I would play for average • My "par" would be 4 • A loss would have a penalty of 20 over par (i.e., count for 24 guesses)
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
When I first started playing Wordle I was confused about my motivation. Should I play conservatively and never “lose”? Or should I aim for low scores, or what?
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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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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
So 20% of us have glyphosate levels that probably wouldn't be detected in our urine in a standard test. Does that mean we're safe? Maybe not, right? Or maybe the level is very low and many of the 80% are safe? I'm assuming a more sensitive test would show much higher than 80%. Would you agree?
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
I would say that all of us definitely have glyphosate in our bodies. How should we interpret the 80% factoid?
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
You can have it write a python script to translate or clean up references, though.
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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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 · 20/07/2026
That's what I thought too. But now I think he means the Jacobian Conjecture.
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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 · 18/07/2026
2/10 is the probability that the doubled movie is the first chosen; 1/9 is the conditional probability that it is the second chosen. These are the two pieces of the answer in the conventional solution (and the answer is their product).
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Assume: * the teams can be ranked * the higher ranked team always wins * grouping the teams for the first two games is random
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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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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
It would be a big honor for Lincoln.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Oops, thanks.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
@snblair.bsky.social
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I mean, in Spanish its neither. More of an "ah". In English, I guess it's whatever he says it is. But he's from Venezuela so it seems like you should be allowed to pronounce it in Spanish until you get better info.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Some of them would absolutely defend that exact thing, if the play came up. And insult the complainers.
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
oops, I failed to link to the preprint, and nobody apparently noticed! Including me. Sure that doesn't mean anything worrisome about me, bluesky, or anyone, though. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
A simple method of estimating rabies outbreak sizes from phylogenies
The ability to estimate the size of a disease outbreak is beneficial both for coordinating an outbreak response and for retrospectively evaluating the effectiveness of response measures and surveillan...
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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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 · 24/05/2026
Apparently not true www.reuters.com/sports/socce...
reuters.com
White House: No visa issues for Iraq's World Cup team
The White House refuted reports that the United States denied visas for five members of Iraq's ​national team ahead of next month's World ‌Cup.
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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 · 03/05/2026
Did something new happen?
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Jonathan Dushoff @jdushoff.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Boosted this on facebook 11 years ago today.
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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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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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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Reposted by Jonathan Dushoff
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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