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Simone Cuff

@simonecuff.bsky.social
2.1K followers 2.2K following 121 posts

Lover of all things data, immunology and viruses. Also a bit of sci-art.

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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
News: "There are no young people. Where are all the young people?" Me trying to cycle to work past a college just before lectures begin for the day: "Found them. "
Dog being squished between sheep. His bicycle is probably under there somewhere.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Super excited with the kids for the solar eclipse today! We're getting up to 90% in 20min! #eclipse2026 #ColanderCam
Shadow of an eclipse focussed through a colander
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I spoke to some of my awesome scientific colleagues at work today, & each talked about how their contracts were ending & their PIs were juggling to keep them on. These are deeply skilled people spending their lives hanging onto employment by their fingertips. And that's normal. But it's not right
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Just got back from getting MenB Vax for kid#2, and they vaxxed kid#3 for HPV at the same time. Overheard from the nurse "...and the cervical cancers. They're just gone! There are none in vaccinated girls! It's a modern miracle!" Immunology for the win. Hell yeah! #BSI #Vaccines
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Marshall Abrams @marshall0i.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
#philbio #philsci
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
The science is the what and the how, the arts and humanities is the why. Society can only flourish when we have both.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
WFH unexpected bonuses. My teen's playing Resident Evil in the room next to me & as the sounds of screams & crashing accompany my emails I get to chide "Gentle hands! What have I taught you? It doesn't sound like you are using your gentle hands!" to her as she destroys zombies. Eyerolls achieved.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I saw an AI today that helps you look through the literature for promising ideas, helps with research design, looks for funding opportunities and then helps you write the grant application. So the question is, will this break the current funding system?
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Daniel L. Barber, PhD @danbarberphd.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
So we blocked IFNγ in Mtb infected macaques and….the animals were fine. Turns out mice overestimate the importance of IFNγ in TB because IFNγ drives iNOS in mice but not macaques or humans. This means we don’t actually know how T cells suppress Mtb. rdcu.be/ff9GB #tuberculosis #immunology
rdcu.be
IFNγ blockade in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infected macaques alters the granuloma environment but not bacterial control
Nature Communications - Here, the authors show that IFNγ blockade does not impair resistance to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in macaques, opposed to what has been observed in mice, due...
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Fascinating thread
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
What a find! Cruising the second hand book shops for interesting reads when I found a reprint of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters back from Turkey ,including her observations on variolation from the 1720s. #vaccines #immunology #history
A page of a book with the first two paragraphs showing.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Just biology being cool again.
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HUPO @hupo-org.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Don’t miss this chance to ROCK your abstract@ Join the HUPO ECR webinar with Reegan Burnell-Clarke, Taylor & Francis Group, and discover how to craft a clear, powerful, & engaging scientific abstract-plus choose strategic keywords that boost your visibility & impact us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Richard Jones @richardaljones.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
The way UK govt funds science is in the midst of a major transition, with creation of a much more direct link between government priorities & UKRI research funding. My attempt to set in context the biggest upheaval in UK science funding policy since the 1980s: softmachines.org?p=3252
softmachines.org
UK science policy in transition – Soft Machines, by Richard Jones
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Yes, drawing helps me think. It also helps me get through zoom seminars where I disagree with the people giving them. The gently scruffy nature of this pony means I was mildly miffed at some of the points made at today's talk.
A scruffy pony sketch on the front of an envelope.
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Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
How likely is ‘likely’? Does ‘likely’ have a higher probability than ‘probable’? I put together a quick quiz so you can see how you interpret probability phrases, then see how you compare with others: probability.kucharski.io
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British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Santa has come early! New issue out now, full of festive treats for all the family. Biochemical functions and quantum fluctuations! Weyl tiles and ordinal scales! Mass extinctions, artificial neural networks and much more…Find it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/bjps/cur... #philsci #philsky
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Volume 76, Issue 4

Table of Contents

Editors' Choice Article:
Semanticization Challenges the Episodic–Semantic Distinction
By Sara Aronowitz

Why the Weyl Tile Argument Is Wrong
By Lu Chen

Biochemical Functions
By Francesca Bellazzi

The Bohmian Approach to the Problems of Cosmological Quantum Fluctuations
By Sheldon Goldstein, Ward Struyve, and Roderich Tumulka

A Hybrid Theory of Induction
By Adrià Segarra

Bayesian Merging of Opinions and Algorithmic Randomness
By Francesca Zaffora Blando

Against Prohibition (or, When Using Ordinal Scales to Compare Groups Is OK)
By Cristian Larroulet Philippi

Are We in a Sixth Mass Extinction? The Challenges of Answering and Value of Asking
By Federica Bocchi, Alisa Bokulich, Leticia Castillo Brache, Gloria Grand-Pierre, and Aja Watkins

A Falsificationist Account of Artificial Neural Networks
By Oliver Buchholz and Eric Raidl

General-Purpose Institutional Decision-Making Heuristics: The Case of Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty
By David Thorstad

The Typical Principle
By Isaac Wilhelm
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Superbugs 🦠🔬🏫🧒🏽 @superbugs.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Prof. Matthias Eberl @eberllab.bsky.social: "A Microbial Horror Show — Devastating outbreaks of disease that shaped how we fight infections" Public Lecture Thursday 27th November, 7:00 pm UK time @cumedicengage.bsky.social 👉🏼 tinyurl.com/microbial-ho... 🦠🧫🔬🤒🏥
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Just saw ChatGPT and its AI LLM ilk called stochastic parrots and it is just the most fabulously satisfying, accurate metaphor. When you are being formal: LLM. When you are saying what you think: SP.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Pleased to see this extending further across the publishing ecosystem. #ResearchIntegrity www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Transparent peer review to be extended to all of Nature’s research papers
From today, all new submissions to Nature that are published will be accompanied by referees’ reports and author responses — to illuminate the process of producing rigorous science.
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Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
To celebrate this (urp 🤢) exciting new journal series, we made a mini game! Can YOU guess which journals are Discover, MDPI, or both? No cheating! There's even the challenge mode "APC Ladder." Share your high score with the hashtag #ResearchIntegrity pagoba.shinyapps.io/publi_guess/ FUN!! 🤮 6/n
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Tech giant creates a green space only to be horrified that they are accidentally creating a valuable ecosystem rather than a token piece of bio-art.
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Paige Byerly, PhD @paigebyerly.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
A female Western Gull was recorded riding 150km in a garbage truck from San Francisco to a compost facility in Central CA, probably to forage. TWICE. An innovator, an icon, a genius. This is one of my favorite @waterbirdsociety.bsky.social papers I've ever handled as managing editor #ornithology
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Robin Bisson @robinbisson.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Here's our piece on the £86bn R&D budget The govt calls it a “bumper funding package” worth more than £22.5bn a year by 2029–30 In reality it's a real-terms freeze, accounting for inflation, using OBR forecasts But probably as good as the research sector could hope for
researchprofessionalnews.com
Rachel Reeves to set £86bn R&D budget over four years - Research Professional News
Research escapes real-terms cut in static spending review settlement, as regional innovation funding expanded
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Dave Goulson @davegoulson.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Our latest research shows spot-on flea treatments on dogs are released into water when dogs swim even 28 days after treatment - in contrast to the label which suggests dogs can safely swim 48 h after treatment. www.newscientist.com/article/2482...
newscientist.com
Dogs pollute water with pesticides even weeks after flea treatment
When dogs given spot treatments for fleas go swimming, they release levels of pesticides dangerous to aquatic life for at least a month after the treatment
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
See also statistics and critical thinking. But mainly because this not only has an excellent point, but because it is a damn good read.
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Microbiology Society @microbiologysociety.org · 03/06/2025
🚨 We're recruiting! The Journal of Medical Microbiology is seeking two Editors for our Molecular and Microbial Epidemiology section. Help shape the future of microbiology research. 📅 Apply by 20 June 2025 🔗 microb.io/News
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Superbugs 🦠🔬🏫🧒🏽 @superbugs.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
We have officially moved in. Our Pop-Up Science Shop will be open to the public from 7th July until 3rd August 3025. Find us in the St David's shopping centre in Cardiff near John Lewis, Zara and Apple. Learn about the microbial world in, on and around us. Including the black death.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
The nature of status-seeking in society (and by some elements in science especially) normally makes me despair. LLMs enabling that without effort even more so. This blog post suggests a refreshingly subversive take on both.
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Michelle Wille @duckswabber.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Mass mortality of Black-legged Kittiwakes, Norway, 2023: more than 15,000 birds dead, population reduction of 50%. genotype EA-2022-BB 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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European Research Council (ERC) @erc.europa.eu · 19/05/2025
Are you based in the U.S. 🇺🇸 or Canada 🇨🇦 and thinking of doing research in Europe? ERC grants offer up to €4.5 million to support groundbreaking, investigator-driven frontier research in all fields. Watch the dedicated info session for researchers in your region👉 youtu.be/92QYink1Lik #ChooseEurope
youtu.be
ERC Grants: EU funding for your bottom-up research proposal (2025)
YouTube video by EURAXESS North America
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Ervin Fodor @efodor.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Exciting job opportunities! Two postdoc positions are available in the Fodor Lab at @dunnschool.bsky.social to study influenza virus transcription, genome replication, nuclear export and assembly. More info: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
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Defector @defector.com · 25/05/2025
Close reading is for everyone: defector.com/close-readin...
But close reading is not just for academics, and it deserves a bigger audience. Not because it’s virtuous. Not because it makes us better people. (I know some great close readers who are real assholes.) But because it’s a thrilling way to think with others, to claw back some of the time taken from us daily by tech oligarchs (I have looked at Twitter impulsively several times while writing this pointedly long, difficult sentence), and relearn some of our capacity, atrophied into passivity by algorithms, for aesthetics, a term that arose in modernity to name a storehouse of values in dialectical opposition to those of capitalism: above all, treating texts as ends in themselves rather than as means to productive ends—treating them, that is, as art.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 22/05/2025
"According to his research, worldwide AI energy demand is now set to surpass demand from bitcoin mining by the end of this year" New paper from Alex DeVries on what proportion of total data centre demand is for machine learning applications
wired.com
AI Is Eating Data Center Power Demand—and It’s Only Getting Worse
A new analysis of AI hardware being produced and how it is being used attempts to estimate the vast amount of electricity being consumed by AI.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I've just learned that adding "-ai" to your Google search will get rid of those annoying, often inaccurate AI summaries which otherwise appear at the top. The info was gifted to me and now I gift it to you. 😊. Now, if only I could get rid of SEO...
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
A mockup of a guide to coding called "Coding with GPT" with a picture of a dog-possibly emu hybrid animal on the front.  Credit to @DanielW_Kiwi is in the right hand lower corner.
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Emily Goss @barrowmember.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
"This consultation seeks views on the approaches government should consider around reform of the #health and #disability benefits system and employment support." Respond by 30th June - online form here forms.office.com/pages/respon.... www.gov.uk/government/c... #Disability #DisabilitySky #NEISVoid
gov.uk
Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper
This consultation seeks views on the approaches government should consider around reform of the health and disability benefits system and employment support.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 09/04/2025
The problem with most machine-based random number generators is that they’re not TRULY random, so if you need genuine randomness it is sometimes necessary to link your code to an external random process like a physical noise source or the current rate of US tariffs on a given country.
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Johannes Gierschner @gierschner.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
This paper👇 is now retracted (with the authors' agreement): thanks again to the authors for putting this on the table, and hoping the "reviewer" feels ashamed... #researchintegrity doi.org/10.1016/j.ij...
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Really enjoying meeting like minds at #FAIRS (Fostering Accountability for the Integrity of Science). #ResearchIntegrity
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Please enjoy part 1 of a series of blog posts written by myself and @brettfavaro.bsky.social offering our advice on how scientists can effectively speak with jouranlists about our areas of expertise. Part 2 is coming next week. Please read and share! www.southernfriedscience.com/advice-for-t... 🧪
southernfriedscience.com
Advice for talking to the media as a conservation scientist: Part 1
By David Shiffman and Brett Favaro. Many environmental scientists understand that there is value in communicating about their work through the media, as publicity can help raise public awareness of…
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
I'm searching audio libraries for clips of the elderly for a new research integrity project but am being distracted & delighted by the contributions of pet-owners that not only recorded their older dogs & cats snoring, but have then shared the unique snorts & grunts of their pets with the world. 😂
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
The Royal Society does so much good, and then it undermines itself like this. He is not in keeping with the aims of the society. To keep him as a fellow is to de facto condone his actions. Please, RS, reconsider. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
theguardian.com
‘It would be seen as political’: why the Royal Society is torn over Elon Musk
Many fellows feel the billionaire has breached its code of conduct, but others say scientific neutrality is at stake
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Scientific organisations need to stand up for the values of science, even more so as attacks on science ramp up
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
It's a really special feeling when you work on a funding application and then Microsoft's software just swallows it whole, never to be found again, so that instead of submitting it you are flailing about with document systems while the deadline flies past.
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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Don't just look at the USA's growing inequality and think that the rest of the world is immune. It is happening here in the UK too, just more quietly. So the question is: what are we going to do about it?
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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Hugely informative thread.
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