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Leighton Pritchard

@widdowquinn.bsky.social
1.4K followers 733 following 787 posts

Computational biologist. Views/opinions mine, not my employer's. Repost != agreement. Not green, just pleasant. Fabian. =﹥÷ I can’t see DMs because of the Online Safety Act.

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Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 1h
so restricting Ukraine's Starlink was Musk's idea, but after Moscow took advantage he became "alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe" to the "night of carnage" and denied responsibility I mean, it sounds like typical Elon
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Ana Conesa @anaconesa.bsky.social · 16h
🔹 TPM works for @pacbio.bsky.social (it compensates the loss of short molecules) but distorts Nanopore estimates. 🔹 For @nanoporetech.com , CQN and EDASeq correct length bias without over-correcting. 🔹 Median-ratio normalization adds noise when biological variability is low.
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Ana Conesa @anaconesa.bsky.social · 16h
New preprint 📄 Should long-read RNA-seq counts be normalized? We benchmarked 5 normalization methods × 5 quantifiers on PacBio and ONT, using spike-ins and matched Illumina as ground truth 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Systematic evaluation of transcript normalization methods and quantification pipelines across long-read sequencing platforms
Long-read RNA sequencing (lrRNA-seq) has transformed transcriptomics by enabling full-length isoform resolution, yet transcript quantification remains confounded by platform-dependent length biases an...
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Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Reframing marine host-microbe symbioses: from taxonomic inventories to functional convergence academic.oup.com/sumbio/advan... #jcampubs
academic.oup.com
Reframing marine host-microbe symbioses: from taxonomic inventories to functional convergence
Abstract. In October 2025, the Trends in Host-Microbe Symbioses Symposium at the University of Padova (Italy) brought together a global community of resear
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Ioanna Chatzigiannidou @ioannachatzig.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
That’s why I’m excited to share our latest work: a catalogue of >9k prokaryotic genomes reconstructed from ultra-deep sequencing of 455 samples collected across two 🇩🇰 Danish agricultural fields. doi.org/10.1093/ismeco/ycag268 @ismepublications.bsky.social @isme-microbes.bsky.social #MicroSky
doi.org
Genome-resolved metagenomics reveals rare taxa and functional traits in two contrasting agricultural fields
Abstract. Agricultural soils harbor highly diverse and functionally rich microbial communities, yet much of their genomic potential remains unexplored. Her
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Can the LLM-based AI agents that are supposed to be able to help with scientific research distinguish real work from pseudoscience, from fraud, or from long-discredited retracted starting papers? Take a guess.
science.org
How LLMs Deal With Fraudulent Papers
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Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I second this appeal on Linkedin
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KunzLab@LMU @kunzlab.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Professorship (W2) of Computational Plant Systematics (6 years/tenure track). New job offer in our biology department @lmu.de 👇. Please apply and help to spread the word. www.nature.com/naturecareer... #PlantSciJob #PlantScience
nature.com
Professorship (W2) of Computational Plant Systematics (6 years/tenure track) - Munich, Bavaria, Germany job with Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) | 12865714
Professorship in computational plant systematics, focusing on plant evolution, adaptation to changing habitats, and taxonomy.
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Matthew Buckley @physicsmatt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Turns out the only unit on campus that is making a profit is central administration. And you're not going to believe this, but that's the unit who gets to decide the formula for how profitability of an academic unit is calculated.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 15/10/2026
No matter where you shop, you're getting screwed by Amazon. Amazon has found a way to make everything you buy - at Target, at a mom-and-pop shop, even direct from the manufacturer - more expensive. And they're not the only one: Expedia's done the same thing, but for hotel rooms.
A faded, scratched postcard advertising the 'Edge of Town Motel.' Next to the motel sign is a vast pink piggybank, out of whose slot rises a motel key on a diamond keychain, emblazoned with a metallic dollar-sign.
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Leighton Pritchard @widdowquinn.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Just in case anyone else wants to turn off the intrusive AI "help" in Adobe Acrobat: community.adobe.com/questions-9/...
community.adobe.com
Turn off "View Summary" prompt | Community
Can I turn off the "View Summary" prompt without turning off generative AI features in Acrobat? I would like to leave generative AI features on, but I don't need to be reminded every single time ...
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 15/10/2026
If Putin stops fighting, the war ends. If Zelensky stops fighting then his country will be occupied, leaders murdered, language banned, businesses stolen, children kidnapped. That's what happens in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Aaron Swartz, coding prodigy and hacktivist who helped develop RSS and was a co-founder of Reddit, died by suicide after facing $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison for felony charges, just for downloading pdfs of research papers with the intention of making them accessible to the public.
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Sandy Hetherington @sandyheth.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Are you looking for a PhD in the area of plant evolution? If so do apply to join the lab for this competitively funded @gpsep.bsky.social PhD project to study the evolution of branching architecture by combing data from fossils, ferns and genes. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
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Martin Steinegger 🇺🇦 @martinsteinegger.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
LoL-align is out in @natmethods.nature.com! It aligns protein structures without superposition. More sensitive than TM-align and DALI, producing better alignments 5–20× faster. Now available in Foldseek! 📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 💾 github.com/steineggerlab/foldseek 🌐 search.foldseek.com
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Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Bacteria synthesize a bacteriocin within the cell membrane journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... #jcampubs
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It does seem like Putin is rushing fo get the most possible out of his client Trump before the electoral bloodbath of 3 November.
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Jonathan Parra @jonathanparra.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Genus-wide comparative genomics reveals extensive unexplored biosynthetic diversity in Pseudonocardia. Sci Rep (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
Genus-wide comparative genomics reveals extensive unexplored biosynthetic diversity in Pseudonocardia - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Genus-wide comparative genomics reveals extensive unexplored biosynthetic diversity in Pseudonocardia
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Leighton Pritchard @widdowquinn.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It feels like prosecuting the company is the appropriate response… www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
washingtonpost.com
AI system submits false homicide tip to Philadelphia police
Anthropic’s AI agent used an online tip line to suggest it had information about an unsolved murder.
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Leighton Pritchard @widdowquinn.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Academics everywhere now contriving to injure themselves so they get some time to do productive things like this…
static.klipy.com
Cute Penguin Slides and Falls in the Snow
ALT: Cute Penguin Slides and Falls in the Snow
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Adam Phillippy @aphillippy.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Must-see new tool from me and Alex! I hurt my back a few weeks ago and was confined to the couch. I used my "break" to play around with webassembly and ended up vibe-coding an AMAZING interactive dotplotter. Passed my prototype to Alex to clean up and extend. Check out his release thread!
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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 14/10/2026
This is incredible. And not in a good way at all www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...
irishtimes.com
Sally Rooney’s books will no longer be published in UK over her support for Palestine Action
Faber blames UK antiterrorism legislation for decision to stop distributing bestselling author’s works
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Audrey Farnsworth @audipenny.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Not trying to be dramatic but I think there might be something wrong with everything
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Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
No. Nationalise it. Don’t abolish it
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Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson @ashdashlee.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
We've gotta learn to believe these authoritarians are who they say they are the first time they tell us. Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home this morning. Her office says, "The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong." Here are some things I'm not seeing enough of in our online chatter. 🧵
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Feel a lot of pride about the way Britain has responded to Trump's attacks on Ukraine, repeatedly launching big symbolic demonstrations of solidarity when things are at their most tenuous.
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Leighton Pritchard @widdowquinn.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It's difficult not to see this as a joint attack by Russia, Trump/Hegseth, and Musk. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
theguardian.com
Ukrainian military’s access to Starlink satellite internet suddenly restricted
Launch of Russian ballistic missiles on Ukraine, with no US warning, coincides with outage of Starlink managed by Musk’s SpaceX
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Kate from Kharkiv @kateinkharkiv.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Just so you understand the scale of betrayal: first, our "partners" didn't warn Ukraine about the incoming ballistic missiles, so the air raid alert wasn't activated before impact, robbing people of their chance to survive. ​Then, Starlink was restricted to stop working at speeds above 100 mph.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Four days after Musk wrote, “Zelensky has gone too far.” @financialtimes.com #ukraine www.ft.com/content/3708...
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
My heart breaks for mathematicians whose lives and careers are being destroyed by AI — and especially this PhD student, who doesn’t even know he is a poet
Kai Shaikh, a Ph.D. student in mathematics at the University of Toronto, also currently at SLMath, observed that theorems are easy to use as benchmarks, but that they capture little of the wonderment at the heart of math. "Just like a photograph of a mile marker can't provide much of the value of actually going on a hike," he said,
"it would seem to me that proofs without stories, or even stories without struggle or mystery, and first glimpses of strange beasts, are not very meaningful or valuable to us humans."
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Vegard Eldholm @vehuardo.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Trump and Elon are putting their full weight behind Putin and his attempted genocide. It will get uglier for Ukraine, more kids and families will be killed, but this won’t be enough to force a Ruzzian victory. Europe, now is the time to max out our support for 🇺🇦 across the board.
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HappyToast @happytoast.co.uk · 14/10/2026
Post apocalyptic Pat
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Private Eye Magazine @privateeyenews.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Eco chamber: Visions of the future From the latest Private Eye, out now.
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Star Trek Minus Context @nocontexttrek1.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Star Trek Voyager scene. We see a small, lone shuttlecraft fllying through a cloudy sky. Closed caption reads, "(screaming)"
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It always feels like there's this dream of returning to the 20th century information environment where institutions gatekeep information rather than adapting to the reality of the situation we find ourselves in.
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Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
BS engine gives high score for BS content on CVs: "The agent was impressed by glossy applications from candidates who claimed to have achieved exceptional IT feats in record time at a previous employer (....) they were too good to be true — and smacked of having been written with the help of AI."
ft.com
What if AI prefers CVs written by AI?
The signs are that it does and one law firm’s experience is revealing
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David Díez del Molino 🇪🇸🇸🇪🏳️‍🌈 @indianadiez.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
🚨 #postdoc alert ❤️‍🔥 I'm looking for a postdoctoral researcher to join my group at @cpgsthlm.bsky.social and @stockholm-uni.bsky.social working on #woollymammoth genomics 🦣🦴🧬✨ Deadline: 30th Nov. +Info about the position 👉 www.su.se/english/divi... +info about CPG 👉 palaeogenetics.com RT pls
Broken down mammoth molar from a museum collectionMammoth bone accumulation site
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Leighton Pritchard @widdowquinn.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Err… Yeah… I have a 3bn parameter model running on my laptop and it is certainly not running on a "smart home device." Bro need more VC much?
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Spiritu the Mysterious @spiritu.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
We live in a police state. Not an exaggeration. This is what they’re like.
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 13/10/2026
The best explanation for Trump’s affection for Russia is likely the simplest one, @jonathanbchait.bsky.social argues:
bit.ly
Trump’s Affection for Russia Is No Mystery
The best explanation is the least complicated one.
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Arthur Snell @snellarthur.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/w...
nytimes.com
Trump Hands Victories to Putin, Who Offers More War in Return (Gift Article)
Russia has reaped a diesel deal and an increase in U.S. pressure on Ukraine as President Trump’s political needs align with his longstanding inclinations toward Russia.
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Andrew Rambaut (🐏🎀) @arambaut.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Following up from my thread about a new version of my phylogenetic tree viewer, PearTree, that was developed using extensive use of LLMs... bsky.app/profile/aram...
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Andrew Rambaut (🐏🎀) @arambaut.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Version 1.3.2 of PearTree released: github.com/artic-networ... Fixes many of the remaining niggling bugs. WebApp updated at peartree.live
The logo of the PearTree phylogenetic tree viewer app - a partridge in a pear tree.
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BladeoftheSun @bladeofthes.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Every Right Wing Goverment ever.
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Leighton Pritchard @widdowquinn.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Leave him alone. He’s armless.
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James Felton @jimmfelton.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Man in a gilet stood on platform 12 gives up on reading the display and asks ChatGPT out loud if he is on the right platform for his train. I don’t want to be dramatic about it but Eratosthenes figured out the circumference of the Earth using a stick and knowledge of a distant well.
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Arthur Snell @snellarthur.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Yeah Bob, maybe. But the war crimes trials would last rather longer, than that.
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Matt Hutchings @matthutchings.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Fully funded PhD with me and @barriewilks.bsky.social - starting Oct 27. We identified a Streptomyces spore phase regulator, when we over express this it activates loads of silent antibiotic biosynthesis pathways. Come help us understand how! biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/ant...
biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk
Antibiotic discovery in Streptomyces bacteria (HUTCHINGS_J27DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership
Antimicrobial resistance in disease-causing bacteria represents a significant threat to global health. To address this, we urgently need to replenish the antibiotic discovery pipeline with new…
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
To those who say "heat pumps are for the middle classes": the whole damn point of subsidising them and rolling out the technology is to ensure that heat pumps are for everyone, reducing our bills, reducing indoor and outdoor pollution, reducing our emissions, while making our homes more habitable.
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Alas, adopting yet another constitutional code will not solve the problem of those with power acting unconstitutionally. You can keep adopting new written constitutions, but things will not change until and unless there are changes in political culture.
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