firefoxx66.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

How do viruses evolve — and how can we track them better? In this Uni Nova interview, @firefoxx66.bsky.social discusses PathoPlexus, virus data gaps, and how politics can shape public health outcomes. A fascinating read. 🔗Read here: www.unibas.ch/en/News-Even...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Amazing work from our colleagues in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and elsewhere, making the first sequences available from the ongoing Mpox epidemic in Sierra Leone. More to come - for now, head over to @pathoplexus.org: pathoplexus.org/seqsets/PP_S...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Does publishing serve science or is science serving publishing? Damian Pattinson and I (@elife.bsky.social) argue scientific publishing has evolved into a system that, rather than facilitate scholarly communication, distorts and dictates it. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #OpenScience

submitted 9 days ago • 4 comments

Time Sensitive: Public comment on Schedule F (removing civil service protections for many federal employees INCLUDING THOSE WITH AUTHORITY OVER GRANTS) ends tomorrow. Notice is here: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/... . Comment here (green button) www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... .

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Not sure if my cis pals are aware of this, but if your trans friends are sobbing in their office today this is one of the (many) reasons why:

submitted 6 days ago • 4 comments

I had the fantastic opportunity to interview @firefoxx66.bsky.social for our @unibas.ch magazine UNI NOVA. Her voice should be heard, not only in Switzerland but especially in the US: www.unibas.ch/en/News-Even...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

📢Today Pathoplexus announces the inclusion of 2 new viral pathogens: RSV (A & B) and HMPV. These respiratory viruses cause a serious health burden, particularly in infants & the vulnerable, & Pathoplexus aims to support sequence sharing to improve understanding & response. 1/4

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

two thousand code-commits to loculus, the code that powers @pathoplexus.org. teamwork/dreamwork

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Excited to announce the start of ARTIC2! 🎉 ARTIC2 builds on the success of ARTIC aiming to make sequencing more equitable and accessible. 🤝🧬 EVE Group at @swisstph.ch is a key team member - we'll be helping make sequences easier to store and share via Loculus & @pathoplexus.org ! 🌎 More below! 👀👇🏻

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Let's go #Eurovision! Congrats #Basel on such a great event! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

8️⃣7️⃣ Emma Hodcroft @firefoxx66.bsky.social (1986- ) 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 #womeninSTEM Expert in phylogenetics and molecular epidemiology, Emma Hodcroft traces the spread of #SARSCoV2 in real time. Co-founder of @pathoplexus.org www.horizons-mag.ch/2020/05/15/t...

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Amid all the other news, it's easy to become inured to the basic facts here. Öztürk: -Is not accused of committing any crime -Is nonviolent -Was in this country legally -Merely engaged in speech that the administration objects to -Has been locked up for six weeks

submitted 22 days ago • 38 comments

Wishing myself a happy 10 year Viva-versary! 🎓🎉 I could never have imagined that day what lay in store for me after completing my PhD - and am so incredibly grateful for all those who helped me to get there, and helped me from there to here! Here's to the next 10 years of scientific adventures! 🥂

submitted 24 days ago • 4 comments

This is wild: Trump is offering visits to the White House to people who invest in his bullshit crypto scheme. It is pay-for-influence in the most naked possible way. Just because the corruption is out in the open and unhidden doesn't mean it's not corruption.

submitted 34 days ago • 158 comments

I made a timeline of all the actions in Trump's (almost) first 100 days that have upended science and health. It was staggering to me to see it all in one place, even though I reported on many on these events. www.statnews.com/2025/04/24/t...

submitted 34 days ago • 40 comments

Elon backtracked on DOGE savings goals from $1 trillion to $150 billion. But watchdogs report only $12.6 billion in verifiable savings. That represents just 0.173% of the U.S. federal budget for 2025. We're losing vital government services for basically nothing in return.

submitted 34 days ago • 347 comments

It's a huge honour to have been named one of In Vivo's 'Rising leaders' of 2025! 🙏 And a huge congratulations to all of the incredible pharma, medical, and health scientists selected this year! 🎉 insights.citeline.com/in-vivo/lead...

submitted 35 days ago • 1 comment

You can't report on this garbage without informing readers of the literal identical policy under Hitler. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/u...

submitted 37 days ago • 129 comments

🙏Thanks to support from swissuniversities & help from TNG Tech, particularly Simon - we've got a very exciting update to CoVariants! 📢 🎉You can now switch between Nextstrain & Pango lineages!! 🎚️ 1/3

submitted 38 days ago • 5 comments

🗓️ Pathoplexus has now been around for 7 months! And both we and our users have been busy - so we wanted to share some updates & highlights! 📰 You can see our full News Item here: pathoplexus.org/news/2025-04-16-spring-update 1/9

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

Pathoplexus News Updates always feel like 💃 ! So many cool things to report, including amazing uploads from users! 🕺

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Did you even grow up in the UK if you don't have 'summer' holiday snaps like this? 😆 (In case you can't tell, I'm the one drowning in her parka on the left.) #summerTimeAndTheLivingsEasy #britishSummer

submitted 45 days ago • 3 comments

Back from the “Emerging Viruses and New Vaccines” symposium in Geneva by @gcevd.bsky.social. Highlights: Martin Beer on zoonotic influenza, @firefoxx66.bsky.social on enterovirus evolution, @kischober.bsky.social on COVID‑19 hypervaccination, and David Heymann on poxvirus eradication. Great event!

submitted 49 days ago • 2 comments

It's hard to come up with new ways to say that the latest thing is harmful and horrifying. But this cannot be understated in its intent to silence and terrorise. Coming to the US now means losing basic rights of expression.

submitted 49 days ago • 1 comment

Why do we like vaccines and water systems so much? It used to be 50/50 whether your kid lived to be an adult. With 4 kids, 94% chance they wouldn't all make it. Fun times. Maybe let's not do that again. We don't have magic cures for diseases like measles. We have vaccines.

submitted 49 days ago • 8 comments

The cuts are literally killing people, don't let anyone tell you otherwise (and this is, of course, just one example).

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

It's beyond ridiculous that one of TWO BSL4 (highest security) labs in the USA & World Reference Centre for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses has had funding cut by Trump & DOGE because it had a COVID component. We are willfully & actively throwing valuable & critical science in the trash.

submitted 49 days ago • 3 comments

It’s incredible to think that just 30 years ago there were 3.5 million cases of #GuineaWorm disease globally every year. In each of the last four years, there have been 15 cases or less. We are on the brink of an historic achievement.

submitted 50 days ago • 4 comments

I say this every time de-extinction comes up: it makes no sense to devote science to bringing back extinct animals when we can’t be bothered to keep extant ones alive in the first place.

submitted 50 days ago • 17 comments

In other economic news: The five U.S. airports with the most international traffic have seen an obvious slide in international passengers, maybe because people are being snatched and sent to gulags. s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?tra...

submitted 51 days ago • 159 comments

✔️The programme for the #bc2basel tutorials & workshops is out! From #geneexpression analysis to #machinelearning or #datavisualization, beginner or advanced: boost your #bioinformatics skills! 👉 Register to make sure to secure your spot (limited seats): bc2.ch/registration...

submitted 58 days ago • 1 comment

So far there have been three measles deaths in under six weeks in the ongoing US measles outbreak. Prior to this year there had only been three measles deaths in the United States in total in the entire last thirty years.

submitted 51 days ago • 23 comments

U.S. citizen interested in grad studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada)? Grad programs are re-opening applications of US programs for one week. With expedited decisions. U.S. Applicant Week: www.grad.ubc.ca/us-applicant... #AcademicChatter #Canada #GradSchool

submitted 51 days ago • 10 comments

they 100% dumped the cold backups into an s3 bucket to save $1m a year because they can't understand the value of tape storage

submitted 52 days ago • 84 comments

Well this seems like a fantastic plan. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/h...

submitted 52 days ago • 1655 comments

We (@SafeguardingResearch) need urgent help with archiving websites & datasets from NOAA: https://forum.safeguar.de/t/noaa-all-services-urgent/569 If you can contribute, please consider doing so. #NOAA #SafeguardingResearch #Data #Weather

submitted 55 days ago • 10 comments

Lysenkoism: A Soviet-era pseudoscience that rejected genetics, suppressed dissenting scientists, and led to crop failure and famine. It’s a warning from history about what happens when ideology controls science. 1/8

submitted 53 days ago • 8 comments

It’s time. Pull the trigger.

submitted 52 days ago • 3 comments

This child could still be alive. All it takes is a vaccine.

submitted 52 days ago • 1 comment

Defend science 🔬 Defend truth ⚖️ Defend education 👩🏻‍🏫 Defend our environment 🌍 Defend our fellow people 🫂 Defend your rights ✊🏻 #HandsOff2025

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

The vaccine against Shingles helps protect against dementia, results of a natural experiment, adding to prior evidence "implications are profound" New @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41... nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 56 days ago • 171 comments

In other news, our travel alert program is providing me with wonderfully concise lists of where one can show up to protest on April 5 :)

submitted 57 days ago • 1 comment

"Consequences." The #BrokenTimes implies it's the profs' fault. They refuse to see and understand fascist power. When will they all learn that bending at the knee only gets you kneecapped? There is no choice but to stand up to the dictator.

submitted 57 days ago • 8 comments

If it can happen to them, it can happen to you. And soon fear of it happening to you, will keep you from speaking out against them. That's by plan, not by accident.

submitted 57 days ago • 2 comments

Several colleagues at the CDC are waking up this morning to emails notifying them they are no longer employed. A cruel purge that will cripple the agency and its mission of protecting public health. I stand with public health. www.wsbtv.com/news/local/l...

submitted 57 days ago • 4 comments