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cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
CF Gene Therapy
@cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
280 followers 170 following 280 posts
PI of Pulmonary Gene Therapy Group, CGEM, IGC, University of Edinburgh. UK CF Gene Therapy Consortium. Personal opinions. https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/persons/christopher-boyd
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cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
The mid-afternoon temperature here in Edinburgh has exceeded 30 C for the first time in 2025: the all-time record is 31.0 C, reached in July 2022. Two days ago, a large area of gorse on Arthur's Seat caught fire. Not good.
Edinburgh weather station 1EDINBUR102 chart for 12th August 2025 showing a peak temperature of 30.3 celsius at 4:44 pm.
August 12, 2025 at 5:49 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
Shots I took in May of Stac Pollaidh from the car park and vice versa. Weather perfect and midges absent.
Southern aspect of Stac Pollaidh (near Ullapool, Scotland) View northwards from the eastern top of Stac Pollaidh
July 23, 2025 at 7:10 AM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
July is the best month to find the striking caterpillars of the Cinnabar moth on their food plant, the ragwort: Here's some I saw on Saturday (S Edinburgh). Sadly, they're much rarer than they used to be, and you'll probably have to visit many ragworts to find any.
Black and orange striped Cinnabar moth caterpillars on yellow-flowered ragworts. Close-up of a single caterpillar
July 21, 2025 at 6:23 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
Here's a graph based on UK population statistics to illustrate your point. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...
Figure 3 shows that people aged 65 years in the UK in 2023 can expect to live on average a further 19.8 years for males and 22.5 years for females. By 2047, males aged 65 years are expected to live for a further 21.8 years and females aged 65 years for 24.4 years. These are projections of cohort life expectancy, which take account of assumed improvements in mortality rates at older ages into the future. Source: Past and projected period and cohort life tables: 2022-based, UK, 1981 to 2072 from the Office for National Statistics
July 5, 2025 at 6:24 AM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
Judging by today in Edinburgh, June is the new April.
Rain radar map of central Scotland showing frequent showers
June 1, 2025 at 12:33 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
The brain under time pressure be like:
Top panel: orange-coat meme man recoils from executive function. Bottom panel: orange-coat meme man approves of executive dysfunction.
May 3, 2025 at 6:04 AM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
Greetings from Sfallavo, on the bracing Erm Sea coast.

Credit: www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/co...
April 19, 2025 at 11:03 AM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
Edinburgh is again beset by the haar, which brings to mind Robert Louis Stevenson's brutal but not entirely inaccurate opinion of its climate. He suffered from a "weak chest" (variously attributed to TB, bronchiectasis or sarcoidosis), and eventually settled in Samoa where he died of a stroke at 44.
But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from the Highland hills. The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the spring. The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate. For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence. Many such aspire angrily after that Somewhere-else of the imagination, where all troubles are supposed to end... From "Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes" by RL Stevenson www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usebooks/steveson-edinburgh/
September 6, 2024 at 9:42 AM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
A Royal Air Force recruitment pack posted to me at home surprised my parents, but not me (aged 6).
"Tell us a true, one-sentence story from your life that absolutely opens more questions than it answers and demands further context."
August 30, 2024 at 2:41 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
I've often criticised ChatGPT, but it's pretty good at composing answers in verse. Here's the response it gave when I posed this challenge:

Describe the central dogma of biology in verse, using iambic heptameter

Clearly it's sticking to the looser "DNA makes RNA, & RNA makes protein" definition.
In cells where life begins to thrive, the code does then unfold, Through DNA, the message clear, in strands of double-hold. Transcription starts the journey's path, as RNA is born, A mirror to the sacred script, by enzymes finely worn. Then off to ribosomes it goes, the messenger of fate, Where codons speak in triads strong, and proteins they create. Translation crafts the final form, as chains of life are spun, In central dogma's ancient dance, where life's great work is done.
August 22, 2024 at 12:19 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
Photo I took in Lesotho in December 2004.

He seemed to appear from nowhere, stopped for a moment, then trotted off without a word.

#WorldPhotographyDay
August 20, 2024 at 1:48 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
My lovely horse.
My minuscule contribution to today's zeitgeist.
August 16, 2024 at 8:48 AM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
That would be a lot of work!

I asked ChatGPT to "draw an annotated figure of Mobile Genetic Elements in bacterial plasmids and phages": it generated a few bullet points of reasonable text, and the diagram below. Needs major revision IMHO.
Basic LLM-drawn diagram of MGEs in prokaryotes. It has no educational value.
August 15, 2024 at 6:46 PM
cfgtedinburgh.bsky.social
King penguin on South Georgia, December 2023. Somehow it seems like an eternity ago.
King penguin walking right to left on South Georgia. Behind is some tussac, a kind ot tussock grass.
August 7, 2024 at 2:41 PM