@kofanchen@drosophila.social
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

kofanchen

@kofanchen@drosophila.social

Working with #Drosophila to understand #sleep and #circadian rhythm. Lecturer in #Neurogenetics at University of Leicester
#Han #Taiwanese. #parent. Some history and politics too.
searchable, opinions my own

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BBCRD, to mastodon

We’ve just published an update about this Mastodon trial which has been running for the last 6 months – you can read it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2024-02-extending-our-mastodon-social-media-trial

We are going to continue our trial here for at least another six months while we share our findings internally and seek more engagement from other BBC teams. We are also planning to start researching ways to publish more BBC content using ActivityPub.

kofanchen,
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

@BBCRD
amazing! "So far in the trial we’ve amassed around 60,000 followers across our six trial accounts, and we have had to do very little moderation of replies associated with our content. Reassuringly, most of the comments and feedback have been positive, welcoming both our interest and the way we have set things up.We’ve had really encouraging levels of engagement(i.e. replies, re-posts and likes) on Mastodon."

pvonhellermannn, (edited ) to random
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

My discipline, anthropology, is not seen as a “growth" discipline, and departments are being closed down. But the world needs Anthropology and Anthropologists now more than ever!

Here are my 8 reasons for this:

  1. POSSIBILITIES
    At a time of polycrisis, when the destructive fallouts of capitalist modernity are ever more apparent, anthropology highlights that there are myriad alternative ways of thinking and living; that there is so much to learn from other peoples in the world. 1/n
kofanchen,
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

@urlyman @pvonhellermannn in this era of climate crisis and #anthropocene, it is very short sight to close down Anthropology Dept..

kofanchen,
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

@pvonhellermannn @urlyman I came to realise that education is deeply political: those thought of "Biology/Anthropology/Neuroscience is not popular and losing money blah blah" are rooted even in the middle school already, when the pupils are confronted with vocational decision..."can I make a living on what I love to do?" showing possible and diverse and unusual career pathway outside the societal sanctioned options in the school may not be a quick fix but is needed to happen

pvonhellermannn, to random
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

Half thinking of starting an hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.

Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail.

kofanchen,
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

@pvonhellermannn signed,
I have family relation with #UniversityofKent and they had high praise for the anthropology dept, it would be very sad if the dept did get disbanded. @ucu do you have info or can signpost any campaign against this?

kofanchen,
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

@pvonhellermannn
A couple of years ago, University of Leicester lost the Neuroscience dept.
Uni continues to recruit neuroscience undergraduates and the restructured colleagues were moved to our dept as teaching only. Apparently Neuroscience is losing money
But we haven't entirely recovered the research skillset and reputation, both crucial for Neurogenetics research in my dept.
Your thread and this below 👇 from @neuralreckoning made me seriously consider Uni fiance
https://neuromatch.social/@neuralreckoning/112130922886185462

kofanchen, to Taiwan
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

#taiwan #typhoon

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/03/typhoon-haikui-taiwan-evacuates-thousands-cancels-flights-as-storm-approaches
🙏🙏🙏

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Sigh...
"Britain’s universities are in freefall – and saving them will take more than funding"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/29/britain-universities-freefall-saving-them-funding-international-students

kofanchen, to climate
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Last night, I popped out for groceries, arrived at a traffic junction, got flashed by a sports car, all good, they drove off. But then seeing the whole street of parked cars, with me alone with shopping, suddenly a sense of overwhelming hypocrisy and anger hit:
until we change our behaviour, no way this #climate crisis will go away by having small groceries and food deliveries everywhere running 24 hours and every household having one or sometimes two cars, all in the names of convenience.

kofanchen, to Taiwan
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

#Taiwan presidential transfer. Time to say goodbye

kofanchen, to Birds
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

#birds not sure what this one wants from me....any Gongye Chang (公冶長) on Mastodon? #folklore
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gongye_Chang

Starling calling on a pavement

kofanchen, to Sleeping
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Nice to see this fantastic follow up from Stephane @dissel_lab1 clarifying the role of dFB in #Drosophila #sleep,

Via @flypapers
https://botsin.space/@flypapers/112267139072254390

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

I was frantically searching for the effect of fly food on behaviour and came across Katrin's (@katvogt) ResearchGate comments reminding me this paper from Heisenberg lab in the 90s:
https://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/3/1/49
Describing an effect of #diet on visually guided learning in #drosophila
"Most important, poor nutrition causes complete amnesia within three or four generations. The reverse shift from poor to nutritious food restores learning ability with an even longer delay."

filled symbols (poor to rich food switch) showing gradual increase of learning index; open symbols (rich to poor food switch) showing dradual decline of learning index

kofanchen, to climate
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

#climatecrisis #train
My PhD student was planning a conference trip to the Netherlands in June, I said "please check the Eurostar and if there is not too much price difference please use it instead of flights", they then checked with our finance team using dept credit card and told me yesterday " gosh Eurostar is half of price than flying! I just booked it!"....that is very pleasantly surprising for me, was there effort put in place to subsidise #EU train that I didnot know?

kofanchen, to uk
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Just to say I have not get any invitation whatsoever..I am actually one of these super scared ILR holder

"Fears of new Windrush as thousands of UK immigrants face ‘cliff edge’ visa change"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/18/digital-visa-switch-uk-immigrants-december-deadline

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Thoughts and feelings about #PhD exam and finale, discussion initiated by @neuralreckoning

https://neuromatch.social/@neuralreckoning/112334413549459114

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Is this plateau over last few days marks the true global influx of mastodonian or just Spam influx from the Japan instances?🤦
https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount/111951191343295184

kofanchen, to Bipolar
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

#PhD opportunity with James Hodge ( @DrFly ) and Alice French
Determining the #genetic and #circadian basis of #bipolar disorder at University of #Bristol on FindAPhD.com
https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/funded-phd-determining-the-genetic-and-circadian-basis-of-bipolar-disorder/?p171068

kofanchen, to Taiwan
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Week one in the new administration in #Taiwan, things are getting a bit concerning. We have on one side opposition parties tried to expand the legislative power
https://mastodon.online/@newbloommag/112497354331258676

And separate China holds large scale military drills

https://mstdn.social/@davidonformosa/112494302145784580

China propaganda machine also putting pressure on Taiwanese entertainers working in China to conform

It's incredibly distracting and overwhelming situation...Taiwan gov should keep their vigilant eyes on all fronts

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Cool in the garden, anyone can ID this? could it be Acidia cognata?
https://uknature.co.uk/flies/a.cognata-info

kofanchen, to dragonball
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

😔🙏
Akira Toriyama, creator of manga series, dies aged 68
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/08/akira-toriyama-dragon-ball-creator-manga-series-dies-aged-68

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

#silentsuday

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

This is the first week we feel a sense of summer and it reminds me this brilliant #Taiwanese Pop song by "Five hundred", there is nothing quite like this. It applied very elegant #Hokkien literacy to describe a sense of wandering manhood in youth https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EQI8oKA6X4o
Note: the included lyrics are trying it's best to transcribe Hokkien

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

Lovely day trip to coast

A man and child waking along the beach with wave washing against them

kofanchen, to random
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

"It's kind of impressive, even to me, we've done something that measurably changes how fast the Earth rotates," Duncan Agnew, the author of the study, told NBC News.""
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68684244

manisha, to random
@manisha@neuromatch.social avatar

ugh, with ddg getting enshittified, I'm switching to https://www.startpage.com

kofanchen,
@kofanchen@drosophila.social avatar

@manisha @elduvelle wow, I see
Does Qwant any better?

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