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Resolved: science fair projects are primarily a measurement of the family's education level.

Vancouver SARS-CoV-2 #wastewater update: still increasing.📈 Data from other BC communities: bccdc.shinyapps.io/respiratory_wa…

Canada's excess death toll during COVID is more than double the deaths of the 1918-1920 flu or World War II. The week ending Aug 5/23 weekly excess deaths were reaching the peak of the BA.1 wave in Dec/21 to Jan/22. Get your shots ASAP. Help others get them. Save lives.

Interesting how people report having the “flu” when they are sick now. I monitor wastewater and the level of influenza is minimal right now. COVID on the other hand is very high. It’s COVID. You probably have COVID.

BIRCH WHAT’S NEW THIS WEEK? About 1 in 19 people in Canada are currently infected. Estimated infections are at/nearing peak of all previous Omicron waves except Dec/21 wave. 5-week averages for waste water for all Canadian sites from Health Canada and PHAC are increasing 27%/week.

People don't seem to realize that if we cleaned all indoor air so well that it became close to outdoor air, COVID would become uncommon as the rate of transmission would drop so low that exponential decay would occur. And several other viruses like flu would nearly disappear.

It’s been a long wait but we’re back live on stage Fox Cabaret on Nov. 29th. Kaylee Byers, PhD and Michael John Unger will host Dr. Alex Moore on coastal ecosystems and Dr. Anne-Michelle Tessier on the linguists of swearing! Tickets on the link! bit.ly/40kPoQ9

Still recruiting grad students for Jan or May to work on projects related to polyphosphate biology & lysine acetylation (yeast, bacteria, human cells). Please pass along to anyone who might be interested!

Canadian COVID Forecast: Nov 4 - 17, 2023 SEVERE: CAN, AB, BC, MB, NB, NL, North, NS, ON, PEI, QC, SK VERY HIGH: none HIGH: none ELEVATED: none MODERATE: none LOW: none About 1 in 23 people in Canada are CURRENTLY infected.

We're giving out N95/KN95 masks & rapid tests on Sunday, Nov. 26 at 2-4 pm! Drop by the Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House to pick up some supplies for your household & your neighbours! Learn more about how to keep yourself & others safe this season. #vfnsg #COVID19BC #vanpoli

Our lab is conducting a pilot project on the value of balconies for urban biodiversity conservation, and looking for participants in specific boroughs - help a PhD student out, and get some free milkweed (it's a win-win)!

oh my goddddd researchers built a smartwatch heart beat monitor that uses a slime mold for its operation. the slime mold has to be fed and cared for, so the users in the trial... developed an emotional attachment to it 😭😭

Complain all you want about peer review Frontiers, but its current manifestation is the logical extension of a toxic, dysfunctional and irrational publishing culture that treats papers as currency and continues to propagate the lie that "peer reviewed" means "valid".

I see we are getting to the stage of the discussion where people are starting to defend UMAP saying it can 'reveal patterns' or 'structure' in the data. Without ever specifying what precisely these patterns/structures represent. This is not surprising because hardly anybody 1/n

new poem

Thought inspired by Seamus Blackley and Point Mutation.

I haven't been active here in a while but I'm popping in to announce that I'm moving back to Halifax in August ❤️ Big, scary, exciting times ahead. I'm grateful to have made enough ties in Vancouver to know I'll be back here regularly even after the move. Onward and upward ❤️

This is a good strategy to do grad school and stay sane, but something I try to warn prospective grad students about is that if they’re working class and don’t have a wealthy partner supporting them that grad school will significantly negatively hurt their lifetime earnings

4+ years into COVID and many still missing the nuances: Often 6ft isn't enough, but increasing physical distance reduces risk N95 are much better, but surgical masks do help Outdoors is safer, but you can still catch it Vaccines reduce transmission, but don't eliminate it

KP.3 is starting to outcompete KP.2. Its unique Q493E mutation brings some critical features: 1) KP.3 has higher ACE2 binding affinity than KP.2. 2) KP.3 is more immune evasive. KP.3 +31del (KP.3.1.1) is the most. 3) KP.3 is especially good at evading Class 1 antibodies.