We strive to credit labs collecting specimens and generating sequence data prominently. But credit for data contributions is not zero sum – surfacing of data in popular tools generates visibility and does not infringe on future publications by the data generators. 2/5

IMO, the strategy should be to get a priority list of the most-used NCBI tools and functionalities, then copy these for ENA and Europe PMC. This feels time-sensitive, as the potential loss of NCBI would set science back. We should be proactive about this, not reactive.

This is a fraction of the incredible resources offered exclusively by NCBI. #INSDC is 10/10 but the auxiliary toolsets need development. NCBI isn’t perfect, but their tooling and browser experience is 1st class, offering unparalleled user experience for beginners to domain experts.

Independent functionalities/tools like:
- sra-tools
- NCBI Datasets
- Taxdump
- batch entrez
- RefSeq
- Pathogen Isolate Browser and AMRFinderPlus
- PubChem
- While Europe PMC (EMBL-EBI) is a best-in-class tool, much of its content is mirrored from PubMed

💯 great point

I should have mentioned that privileged individuals + universities can (should) be financially supporting these open source projects. It's still a much better deal.

Some free options for university finance teams to consider:

- Zotero > Endnote (superior performance too)
- Inkscape + NIH BioArt/bioicons > Illustrator + BioRender
- SerialCloner/ApE > SnapGene
- LibreOffice > Microsoft suite
- OpenAlex > Web of Science analytics

Research also shows that spreading smaller amounts of funding out over more researchers generally delivers better scientific outcomes per dollar spent than focusing bigger grants on fewer researchers.

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

And as for writing, don't get me started. Most often, the process of writing is not a laborious business of transcription, but a process of thinking itself. I'm not about to outsource my thinking to a machine.

Celia also wrote about how we fitted 4.5 billion years in one image, at scale.

chezvoila.com/blog/saguenay/