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Kass Sjostrom

@ksjostrom.bsky.social
169 followers 276 following 164 posts

(he/him) PhD candidate and Public Health enthusiast. I study Mycobacterium. My views are my own.

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Reposted by Kass Sjostrom
Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I think about this more often than I'd like to.
A side-by-side of two head shots: at left, Gavin Newsom smiles, baring top and teeth in a strange expression; at right, Elizabeth Holmes smiles in an oddly similar way.
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BMS at UAlbany @bms-ualbany.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
As we come to the end of Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Month, we would like to thank all public health laboratory professionals for their service. We are proud to partner with the NYS Department of Health and the Wadsworth Center to train exemplary public health laboratory professionals!
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Human Rights Watch en français @hrw-fr.hrw.org · 24/09/2026
#Iran Au Conseil des droits de l’homme à Geneve, Nicola Paccamiccio (HRW) a souligné l’urgence de mettre fin à l’impunité pour la répression brutale des manifestations pro-démocratie.
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UAlbany College of Integrated Health Sciences @ualbanycihs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Most of what we know about how bacteria grow & take shape comes from studying rod-shaped model organisms. Yet the pathogens that cause disease display a remarkable diversity of morphologies – spheres, spirals, curves, & more. Learn more: www.albany.edu/cihs/faculty...
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Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Beile Gao on Flagella Co-opted Type IV Pili Alignment Subcomplex in Deep Ocean See their @natmicrobiol.nature.com paper on Campylobacter jejuni flagellum motor as a teaser: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #EMBOBacNet
nature.com
Structural insights into the assembly and evolution of a complex bacterial flagellar motor - Nature Microbiology
Structural, genetic, functional and biochemical analyses of the complex flagellar motor of Campylobacter jejuni reveal structural adaptations with an ancient origin also found more widely across bacte...
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Astropierre @astropierre.com · 15/09/2026
L'article de The Conversation : theconversation.com/biological-s...
theconversation.com
Biological sex is neither binary nor a spectrum – a biologist explains how it’s multidimensional
Each person is a mosaic of sex-related and postpubertal biological traits that vary in their degree of femaleness and maleness.
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Will Jones @willpjones.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Another important legal victory for @afthighered.bsky.social
nytimes.com
Judge Blocks Trump Rule Aimed at International Students and Journalists (Gift Article)
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV wrote that the administration’s reasons for a rule limiting the length of stay for academics and journalists were “exceptionally weak.”
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Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Wow, the US is really making life hard for international students First they imposed a fixed four-year maximum cap for international student (F-1) & exchange visitor (J-1) visas Now they want $100,000 to allow them to work in the U.S. after they graduate www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Exclusive | U.S. Weighs $100,000 Fee for Foreign Students Wanting to Work After Graduation
The proposed policy would particularly affect Silicon Valley, Wall Street and universities.
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Rose Schmits @roseschmits.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
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Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 13/09/2026
Regardless of your thoughts on voting strategies, the way trans people are being spoken to and about by self-described "progressives" and "allies" is absolutely wild.
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Kass Sjostrom @ksjostrom.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"Rebel with too many causes" but as a gamechanger prompt
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Nigel Goldenfeld @nigelgoldenfeld.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
🧪Depressing news about political interference in NSF, NIST & NOAA ... to change the policy to allow political interference. Excellent & detailed reporting/analysis by @aip.bsky.social as usual.
aip.org
Science Agencies Pull ‘Political Interference’ Protections From Scientific Integrity Policies
NSF and the Department of Commerce have scrubbed references to the dangers of political interference in science from official agency policy documents.
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Lara K. Mahal @glycocode.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Amazing #glycotime opportunity to become a postdoctoral fellow for up and coming glycoscientist Prof. Kim Tsui at the CCRC! Click here sfg.memberclicks.net/post-doctora... to learn more. She is amazing. 🧪 #STEMjobs
sfg.memberclicks.net
Post Doctoral Research Associate
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Molly White @molly.wiki · 05/09/2026
Huge congratulations to the US-based Wikimedia Foundation employees who voted with 92% support in favor of unionizing, and shoutout to the tireless work of the organizers.
wikiworkersunited.org
Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA
U.S. workers form first recognized unit as global union movement builds across Wikimedia Foundation
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UAlbany College of Integrated Health Sciences @ualbanycihs.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
The Department of Biomedical Sciences trains students to be outstanding research scientists for careers in research, teaching and/or public health in academia, government, or the private sector. Learn more: www.albany.edu/cihs/biomedi...
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Kass Sjostrom @ksjostrom.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I had a wonderful time at Phages this August (2026 Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages Meeting). It was such an honor to present my ongoing thesis work. My first talk (vs poster) at a conference. Thrilling!
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Kass Sjostrom @ksjostrom.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
🙃 I hate this
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 01/09/2026
I keep being asked about if I'm doing a book: 1. Yes! Portfolio/Penguin Random House 2. It's called The Hater's Guide To Silicon Valley 3. It's out July 2027. 4. It is currently going through edits! I have written it between podcasts/newsletters. I have been very busy!
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 01/09/2026
Google wasted no time complying with Trump’s “Lake America” order. That's no surprise, considering its track record.
motherjones.com
Google's obedience to Trump's "Lake America" order follows a depressing pattern.
The tech giant renamed Lake Ontario for American eyes only—and hedged everywhere else.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 29/08/2026
If this were happening somewhere else, we would call them what they are: Internally Displaced People.
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 29/08/2026
What does it mean to participate in a library? 🔖 Save a webpage. 📚 Improve a book record. 🔎 Discover a document. 📣 Share a collection. 🏛️ Preserve local history. The Internet Archive has tools for it all. Over 8 weeks, we'll show you how. ➡️ blog.archive.org/2026/08/17/r... #ToolsYouCanUse
Event flyer for "Democracy's Library: Tools for Participation," with the title at the top and a colorful abstract line drawing of a library building rendered in interlocking yellow, pink, and blue lines below. Text reads "Wednesday, October 21st, 5pm - 10pm, Internet Archive, 300 Funston Ave., San Francisco."
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Kass Sjostrom @ksjostrom.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Petition for a Fair Contract for RAU!. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/fa...
actionnetwork.org
Petition for a Fair Contract for RAU!
Research Assistants at UAlbany and SUNY Binghamton voted overwhelmingly to unionize, and are now bargaining for their first contract. Unfortunately, negotiations have stalled on key demands such as a ...
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 17/08/2026
Yesterday, when I arrived in Denmark, a digital records mixup led to some issues at a passport control that were quickly and kindly resolved by helpful officials. Meanwhile but Trump and Miller continue sending immigrations detainees to dark sites overseas, sometimes for similar errors.
nytimes.com
No Way Out (Gift Article)
The U.S. is building an archipelago of overseas detention sites where deportees are often held indefinitely without charge.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 15/08/2026
These gloves don't cause neuromuscular incapacitation the way that a taser does. In fact, they only work when applied directly to bare skin. These aren't made for apprehending anyone. These have one and only one use: causing extreme pain to already-restrained captives. In plain language: torture.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Any successful writer or musician or illustrator has thousands of unpaid hours put into not just honing their craft but brute-forcing their way in front of the people who can actually get them money for their work. But once you get work, you should be getting paid. Anything else is exploitation.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Additional context: the "grave" site is an ecologically significant area fans keep littering trash in. But I guess fans stopped them from building in that specific area, so they can keep trashing it instead?
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
You don't own your baby. A child is not property. They have a right to live that eclipses your right to believe stupid shit
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
This is a really good explainer about the mortality estimates around USAID. One big point is that dismantling USAID also dismantled one of the main sources of mortality data in some of these regions. Early indicators of mortality are very worrying.
I met with, first of all, a woman named Angelina David, who is the clinical manager in Panyijiar for the International Rescue Committee clinics. She was overseeing the clinics that were shut down and could tell me exactly what happened. It was a complete shutdown, and a scramble, because there were medicines and other things on the shelves they didn’t want looted, so they had to get out to these places—and they’re very far away. You have to travel, in some cases, seven or eight hours in order to get to the extent of what’s there.

I then went and visited some of those facilities, and I connected, with her help, to the subcounty chiefs—they’re called the payam administrators—who keep their own records of deaths. So one of the things I found was that their own records showed that they are measuring an over-all tenfold increase in child and adult deaths.

Wait. A tenfold increase?

Yes.
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Kass Sjostrom @ksjostrom.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Rabies is exceedingly rare as far as infections' diseases go, but so much of that is owed to the ongoing public health survience and research. PH infrastructure is so critical, when it's working you don't see it, when it's working people don't get sick as often.
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UAlbany College of Integrated Health Sciences @ualbanycihs.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Our Biomedical Sciences students are doing fantastic work under the mentorship of scientists at the Wadsworth Center! Learn more about their work on Lyme disease: www.albany.edu/cihs/news/20...
albany.edu
Immune Response to Lyme Disease: Research at the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center
Spread by the blacklegged tick, Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and can lead to fever, rash, facial paralysis, irregular heartbeat, arthritis and other symptoms. UAlbany…
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UAlbany College of Integrated Health Sciences @ualbanycihs.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Throwback! UAlbany and Wadsworth scientists collaborating in 1992.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 13/06/2026
Ian Fleming might have made the world’s first trillionaire this evil, but only Philip K. Dick could have made him such a pathetic drug-addled loser, desperate for attention and adulation but incapable of human relationships, and now terrified to go out in public.
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Asif Siddiqi @historyasif.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
The idea that LLMs 'hallucinate' is itself a clever invention of the tech industry to disguise actual failures of their systems. Rebranding these serious algorithmic glitches as 'hallucinations' was designed to make the public accept this bullshit by linking it to the vagaries of human psychology.
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🗽LOLGOP🗽 @lolgop.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
“…something happened on the evening of June 9 that needs to be understood and, hopefully, deplored by all Americans. The USA seems to have deliberately and with foresight, committed a war crime as an act of policy.”
open.substack.com
War Crimes Seem To Be Official US Policy Now
We Will Rue The Day
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 06/06/2026
Remember the current NIH director going on about protecting researchers from government censorship? Today his people called the police in to forcibly remove my colleagues from their own society meeting for sharing an editorial published in their flagship journal that was critical of him. Gift link
nytimes.com
Police Remove Diabetes Experts From Conference for Distributing Critique of Trump Administration
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 06/06/2026
Really wondering when the New York's state and city Human Rights Law is going to be enforced against these hospitals.
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Kass Sjostrom @ksjostrom.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 29/05/2026
“There was a man who has Stage 3 lung cancer, not getting medical treatment. He wants to leave, go back home, spend his final months...with his family. But they just won’t let him go.”
motherjones.com
Andy Kim: Nothing's improved since Minnesota—except private prison profits
We spoke to the senator pepper-sprayed outside ICE's Delaney Hall detention center.
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Princess Arna @arnasilverbird.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 28/05/2026
1. The New York State budget has just been released, and Democrats have provided $0 for transgender care access in the wake of Trump's attacks. Advocates wanted funding for direct access to care. It is the latest in NY electeds not meeting the moment. Subscribe to support our journalism.
erininthemorning.com
New York State Budget Released: $0 For Transgender Care Access
Advocates wanted the state budget to support access to care as hospitals capitulate to the Trump administration.
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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Told a reporter in an interview yesterday that anti-immigrant hate and anti-trans hate are just different components of the same project—which Miller makes clear here.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
from the moment it was founded activists and human rights watchdogs have warned that DHS was constructed to be an almost unaccountable private paramilitary force at the president's sole disposal.
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onion person @junlper.beer · 24/05/2026
america is a totalitarian fascist state
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David Forbes @davidforbes.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
This is key to understanding the attacks trans communities face, on both sides of the Atlantic. Trans genocide doesn't happen without liberal collaboration, and this is what's driving it.
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Wilbert Bitter @wilbertbitter.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
shocking statistics, but only limited public outcry.. We should be more vocal about this tb.impactcounter.com
tb.impactcounter.com
Tuberculosis Impact Counter | Tracking TB Funding Impact
Tracking the impact of TB funding via USAID
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 21/05/2026
Well that's an epistemic train wreck.
time.com
Google Shifts to AI Search, Heralding Major Change in How People Use the Internet
The company's sweeping AI overhaul of Search could reshape how billions of people find information—and impact the publishers and businesses who depend on them.
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