Terry Gaasterland | Lightnews

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸

@mragsac.com

3.9K followers 720 following 830 posts

👩🏽‍💻 #FilipinoAmerican Postdoc 🧪 @ https://amariutalab.org studying #PediatricAsthma • #Bioinformatics PhD, PI: Emma Farley 💻🧬 & #Bioengineering BS, PI: Terry Gaasterland from @ucsandiego.bsky.social ☀️ • #InvisibleDisability 🌻 • She/Hers

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Theresa Gaasterland is an American politician and scientist. She is a Professor of Computational Biology and Genomics and Director of the Scripps Genome Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She was elected a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) in 2018 for contributions to the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. .. more

Biology 71%

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Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 3d

I got an initial appointment for second week of January! 😭 🙌🏽 So excited but also really nervous to meet the surgeon 😵‍💫

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 9d

This is super cool! I made a profile and look forward to using it -- but I am currently having issues with adding information to my profile though ... 😅

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 9d

I like to think of the better short-form video content as informative commercials that get me (or my parents) interested in something so that we can look up more details later! ✨

There is good content out there that people invest lots of time in making ... not everything important has to be dull 🥲

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 9d

For those interested in attending a workshop like this, there's actually another session by @sciline.org coming up this coming Thursday that I'll also be tuning in for! 👀 🧪 ✨ It's also free 💸

🌐 Registration Link: www.sciline.org/learn/scient... 🙌🏽

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 9d

Attended this course led by @drtoriespy.bsky.social and it was cool to learn about how to talk about science with journalists 🎙️ 📰 🧪

🎉 Thanks to @sciline.org for getting this session together and to @sheckmo.bsky.social for your insight during the Q&A session! 🙌🏽 ✨ I'm excited for future workshops! 🤩

SciLine @sciline.org · 10d

Scientific experts—want to improve your media skills? Register for our no-cost course, Understanding the media, being held on Zoom on 12/16 at 2 p.m. ET. bit.ly/4apr2Mj

@aaas.org

Understanding the media: A starter guide for scientists - SciLine

bit.ly

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 9d

I hope that things resolve soon and that the inflammation goes down! 😭 🫂

Reposted by Robert Böhm, Brady T. West, Brendan Nyhan , and 43 more Robert Böhm, Brady T. West, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Hodson, Carl T. Bergstrom, Richard Price, Steven Van de Walle, Mary Feeney, Jamie Morgan, Ian Hall, Fabián Muniesa, Jason Reifler, Kelly Smith, Ingo Rohlfing, Ian Hussey, James Grimmelmann, Smith, Rebecca Tushnet, David R. Miller, Patrick S. Forscher, Michelle L. Mazurek, Margot C. Finn, Michael D. McDonald, Sebastian Karcher, Martin Kreidl, Maria Abreu, Eric Hehman, Zen Faulkes, Joanna Tai, Madeleine Pownall, Damian Trilling, David Murakami Wood, Sofia Stathi, Johannes Breuer, Woodrow Hartzog, Greg Linden, Jack Stilgoe, Richard M. Carpiano, Aleksandra Urman, Juan Ramón, Gemma C. Sharp, Terry Gaasterland, Maksym Polyakov, Jake Anders, Jeannette Sutton, Béatrice Cointe

Sabrina Norwood @sabrinanorwood.bsky.social · 9d

Did you know that from tomorrow, Qualtrics is offering synthetic panels (AI-generated participants)?

Follow me down a rabbit hole I'm calling "doing science is tough and I'm so busy, can't we just make up participants?"

Text reads: About synthetic panels
Recruiting the right participants for a study can be difficult. You may not get the exact demographics you need, and the shorter the deadline, the less sure you can be that everyone will answer on time. One possible solution can be to use synthetic panels.

Synthetic panels are powered by a first party proprietary AI model developed here at Qualtrics. Our synthetic panel is trained on thousands of responses from a variety of demographic backgrounds in order to more accurately predict how certain populations would respond to a survey.

Our synthetic panel is based on the United States General Population, and is only available in English. This panel comes with ready-made quotas and target breakouts in order to represent your chosen population and make it easy to launch your survey right away.

Text reads:
Discussion
The current study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis of the TPB when applied to health behaviours which addressed the limitations of previous reviews by including only prospective tests of behaviour, applying RE meta-analytic procedures, correcting correlations for sampling and measurement error, and hierarchically analysing the effect of behaviour type and sample and methodological moderators. Some 237 tests were identified which examined relations amongst model components. Overall the analysis indicated that the TPB could explain 19.3% of the variance in behaviour and 44.3% of the variance in intention across studies. This level of prediction of behaviour is slightly lower than that of previous meta-analytic reviews which have found between 27% (Armitage & Conner, 2001; Hagger et al., 2002) and 36% (Trafimow et al., 2002)
of the variance in behaviour to be explained by intention and PBC.

Reposted by W Grant, Terry Gaasterland

SciLine @sciline.org · 10d

Scientific experts—want to improve your media skills? Register for our no-cost course, Understanding the media, being held on Zoom on 12/16 at 2 p.m. ET. bit.ly/4apr2Mj

@aaas.org

Understanding the media: A starter guide for scientists - SciLine

bit.ly

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 14d

Congratulations on finishing the project !! Seeing your post and the admission that Rust 🦀 is HARD is so validating 🥲 😭

Every year I tell myself I'll sit down for a few weeks to "really" learn Rust and every year I'm so intimidated 🫠

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 14d

Oh gosh, yeah ... I tried Threads briefly and ended up deleting my account because it really did feel like screaming into a void unless I optimized for the algorithm ... 🫠

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 15d

Oh wow this font looks great !! Thank you for sharing 🤩

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 15d

I wasn't able to get in for an initial appointment until next March 2026, but it's progress! 😅

The abdominal pain has been relatively terrible these days to the point of making me light-headed and nauseous 24/7 ... but I've just been pushing through to get analyses 🧪 💻 🧬 done as best I can 🥲 🫠 😭

Reposted by Steve Peers, Matthias Doepke, Bill Bowring , and 6 more Steve Peers, Matthias Doepke, Bill Bowring, Laurent Pech, Seán Hanley, Kai Gehring, Andrew Rudalevige, Terry Gaasterland, Stuart Shapiro

Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 16d

All travelers from ESTA countries (yes the ones on visa waiver programs) will have to disclose 5 years of social media + huge amounts of personal data to enter the US now. All US academic associations should now meet outside the US if we want to meet our international colleagues.

Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 16d

This is INSANE www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/t...

and these are our closest allies!

Travelers visiting the United States from countries like Britain, France, Germany and South Korea could soon have to undergo a review of up to five years of their social media history, according to a proposal filed on Tuesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The change would affect visitors eligible for the visa waiver program, which allows people from 42 countries to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa as long as they first obtain electronic travel authorization.

In a document filed on Tuesday in the Federal Register, C.B.P. said it plans to ask applicants for a long list of personal data including social media, email addresses from the last decade, and the names, birth dates, places of residence and birthplaces of parents, spouses, siblings and children.

Under the current system, applicants from visa waiver countries must enroll in the Electronic System for Travel Authorization program. They pay $40 and submit an email address, home address, phone number and emergency contact information. The authorization is good for two years.

Reposted by Terry Gaasterland, Kristina McElheran

Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 16d

My love for em dashes is as old as the hills and as mighty as my inability to make a transition between thoughts literally any other way and I will be damned if I let the clankers take that from me

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 16d

At @ucsandiego.bsky.social, I had to take some art classes! I ended up taking Theater Design then Advanced Costume Design with the amazing Judith Dolan 🤩✨

Learning about fabrics and waves then definitely influences my clothing purchases nowadays, while graphic design helps with figure creation 🧪🥹🎨

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 16d

OMG I was trying to remember the name of this podcast for the longest time 🤯

Thank you so much for sharing this recent episode by @ifbookspod.bsky.social 🥹 I'm looking forward to listening to this one along with several others that people have recommended!

Reposted by Ann Bartow, Terry Gaasterland

ProPublica @propublica.org · 17d

ProPublica reporter @nicolefoy.bsky.social found that more than 170 U.S. citizens had been detained by immigration agents.

“The number became an important, irrefutable fact in the conversation about the immigration crackdown,” our editor-in-chief @sengelberg.bsky.social writes.

The Data Doesn’t Lie: How ProPublica Reports the Truth in an Era of False Claims

As federal data becomes less available, our journalists are doing shoe-leather reporting to provide readers with the precise numbers.

www.propublica.org

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 17d

I had a small non-science-related win 👀 🧪 My doctor FINALLY sent in a referral for me to get an exploratory laparoscopy for endometriosis 😭 💖 It only took ~10 years 🥲

I've been pushing through a lot of pain with this #InvisibleIllness 🌻 lately--hopefully they're able to find what's wrong with me! 🫠

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 19d

I saw when I was working for the engineering team at my previous company 🥲

When I interacted with the infrastructure folks, they were willing to sit down with me and explain software design decisions, etc. Whereas with my boss, he prioritized speed (and bad code) versus robustness and accuracy 🫠

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 19d

I love the LGBTQIA+ ribbon! It's so pretty! 🏳️‍🌈 🤩

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 19d

A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

Redirecting

doi.org

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 20d

Looking forward to all of the demos the team has planned to learn more about AnVIL and how to use it for research! 🤩

Our lab is looking to use AnVIL after recent changes in NIST guidelines rendered EXPANSE at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at @ucsandiego.bsky.social non-compliant 🥲

Reposted by Peter Thorne, Jonathan A. Foley, Richard Waite , and 2 more Peter Thorne, Jonathan A. Foley, Richard Waite, Terry Gaasterland, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 20d

"All is lost" narratives are popular because people generally do not want to take action. Taking action is tiring so if all is lost, you are off the hook. Nothing is more seductive than not having to do anything.

Reposted by Terry Gaasterland

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · 20d

Overall trust in scientists and medical professionals is still rather high (Pew 2024). And only about 7% of American/Canadian respondents in a study (Gravelle 2022) are stridently anti-vax.

MAHA is platforming views of a very small minority, to erode the majority.

Chart Title: Confidence in scientists up slightly but remains lower than before pandemic.
% of US adults who have % of confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public.

In 2024, 76% had a "fair amount" of confidence in scientists, and 26% have a "great deal" of confidence.

Gravelle 2022, "For each country, the modal class comprises those who “strongly support” vaccines. Importantly, despite concerns about vaccines being common, a majority are in one of the two pro-vaccine classes (UK: 76%, Canada: 69%, and US 60%). In all three countries, the percentage classified as ardently “anti-vax” is very small. Only 7% of American and Canadian respondents and 3% of British respondents can be identified as anti-vax."

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 21d

Oh wow! How did you acquire the FASTQ file?? That's such a weird issue!

Reposted by Terry Gaasterland

NPR @npr.org · 21d

This is the first time Pantone has chosen a shade of white. The company says it's "a lofty white that serves as a symbol of calming influence in a society rediscovering the value of quiet reflection." n.pr/4rDF0jv

You read that white: Pantone's 2026 Color of the Year is 'Cloud Dancer'

n.pr

Reposted by Peter Thorne, James P. Collins, Daniel Huppmann , and 3 more Peter Thorne, James P. Collins, Daniel Huppmann, Mark Rice, Terry Gaasterland, Annalee Newitz

California King Tides Project @kingtides.bsky.social · 21d

The Bay took over the highway during this morning's #KingTides in Marin.

See from above, water covers an off-ramp of highway 101 and a parking lot next to the highway and bikepath.

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 21d

DECEASED 💀

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 21d

I was actually curious and totaled the amounts listed in my Billing Account tab 😰 These amounts don't include private clinic, dental, or vision visits either 🫠

Michelle Franc Ragsac, PhD 🇵🇭🇺🇸 @mragsac.com · 21d

Oh my goodness, I've been looking for an app like this to help manage my chronic health conditions! 🤯 Thank you so much for sharing it -- I'm looking forward to downloading it to try things out 🙏🏽 ✨

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