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tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
@tirscienceblog.bsky.social
310 followers 480 following 310 posts
Blog about the human side of #science, by Brooke Morriswood (formerly Cam Biochem, CIMR,MRC-LMB,Yale, MFPL, UniWue, now #MedComms). Commentary, silliness, & how-to guides for improving young scientists’ soft skills.

https://totalinternalreflectionblog.com
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tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Dec 22
Looking for help? TIR has a whole category of "How to..." postings focusing on soft skills in science: writing papers, giving presentations, starting a lab, asking questions in seminars, critical reading, etc. Suggestions for future postings welcome... totalinternalreflectionblog.com/category/how...
How to… – Total Internal Reflection
Posts about How to… written by Brooke Morriswood
totalinternalreflectionblog.com
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
I’m off to Vienna today for a #MedComms career workshop as part of the VBC #PhD symposium (training.vbc.ac.at/phd-program/...) 🤩Updates to follow… @vbcscitraining.bsky.social @maxperutzlabs.ac.at @imbavienna.bsky.social @gmivienna.bsky.social @impvienna.bsky.social
Program
training.vbc.ac.at
November 5, 2025 at 10:01 AM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Decided it’s finally time for me to get around to reading “The Remains of the Day”.
October 25, 2025 at 7:33 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
If you don’t already follow @ourworldindata.org, do so now! Very rare to have a single account regularly post such insightful & interesting content 🤩 Check this for size: the disparity between what Americans actually die from vs media coverage of causes of death 🤯👇
ourworldindata.org Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · Oct 7
Does the news reflect what we die from?
The image presents a comparison of the leading causes of death in the United States for 2023 and the media coverage these causes receive from three news outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fox News. In the footer, it notes the data sources, indicating that the information is based on media mentions from Media Cloud (2025) and death data from the US CDC (2025) and the Global Terrorism Index, with a clarification that values are normalized to sum to 100%.
October 21, 2025 at 6:40 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
It breaks my heart and blows my mind to think of how many thousands upon thousands of #pumpkin seeds I must have thrown away in my lifetime, little knowing that they make the most DELICIOUS snack with virtually zero effort 😊😋🎃
Hokkaido pumpkin seeds, brushed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and roasted.
October 19, 2025 at 3:36 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
What’s the right length for a cover letter? 1 page? >1 page? Do they get read anyway? Curious as there seems to be a lot of variation in this. @ritastrack.bsky.social @katherine-brown.bsky.social @aemonten.bsky.social & any other editors, what’s your verdict? Thanks in advance!
October 17, 2025 at 8:36 AM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
🚨🚨🚨Project Director position open at @arcadiascience.com in California 🇺🇸, $150K+ to work on high dimensional phenotyping. Great opportunity in a cutting-edge institution🤩 👇
pracheeac.bsky.social Prachee Avasthi @pracheeac.bsky.social · 26d
If you’re a PhD scientist with technical skills spanning these areas and also have project/people management experience, I’m looking for you! Apply now, or if you know someone else that would be a good fit, kindly pass along the job ad below! 👇

jobs.lever.co/arcadiascien...
Arcadia Science - Project Director
A Bit About Us We are Arcadia Science, an evolutionary biology company founded and led by scientists. Our mission is to turn natural innovations into real-world solutions by developing systematic and ...
jobs.lever.co
October 15, 2025 at 7:46 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Really amazing initiative from @odedrechavi.bsky.social & Co at @qedscience.bsky.social: an AI tool to critically evaluate your work & get constructive feedback to help you assess/improve it. Read the whole 🧵fo details & website link 👏👍👇
odedrechavi.bsky.social Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · 26d
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT📣: I haven’t been this excited to be part of something new in 15 years… Thrilled to reveal the passion project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half!🙀🥳 (thread 👇)
October 15, 2025 at 7:35 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Moving house is always a pain, but one silver lining is the opportunity to re-rack and re-classify your music collection 🤩…and be repeatedly reminded how many amazing albums there are that you haven’t listened to in years 🤣
October 12, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
cyrilpedia.bsky.social
'Now, it seems, right-wing populists on both sides of the Atlantic have decided that the fundamental problem isn’t the EU (although it’s striking how they all loathe it), but immigrants. Now it’s people like me that are the problem.'
@tirscienceblog.bsky.social
One of the scapegoats
I’m a white, cisgendered, heterosexual male. I was born in an affluent Western country and lucky enough to get an elite education. I have all the attendant privileges and instinctive reassurance th…
totalinternalreflectionblog.com
October 11, 2025 at 7:14 AM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
New posting, and a very personal one this time: some reflections on spending the last 19 years of my life as an #immigrant, how that's enriched me beyond measure, and how targeting immigrants is not the solution to a society's problems.
totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2025/10/10/o...
One of the scapegoats
I’m a white, cisgendered, heterosexual male. I was born in an affluent Western country and lucky enough to get an elite education. I have all the attendant privileges and instinctive reassurance th…
totalinternalreflectionblog.com
October 10, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
unavaleable.bsky.social
Again Bouie from the top rope
Here I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 address at Cooper Union, where he defends his opposition to the expansion of slavery. Responding to Southern critics who insisted that the Republican Party was a conspiracy to abolish slavery, Lincoln said that the truth of the situation was that there was nothing either Republicans or the entire North could say, short of outright submission to the slave South, that would calm Southern anger or assuage the South’s paranoia: What will convince them? This, and this only: Cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. We can say something similar of our time. Neither Trump nor the MAGA right wants to discuss or deliberate; it wants to dominate. American politics is no longer a fight over policy; it is a fight over the character of the nation itself. The task of this moment, then, is to defend the old vision of a more perfect union — of a more democratic and egalitarian American republic — not hope that one can avoid the fight by having the right conversation.
September 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
#COYS 🤩🏉 Club rugby is back 😊
A screenshot of the game tracker for Northampton Saints vs Saracens in the PREM Rugby Cup. Saints won 49-34.
September 19, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
richardsever.bsky.social
Lovely to see David Stephens highlighted in 100 years of cell biologists at J. Cell Sci., alongside Linda Amos, Peter Medawar, Juan Bonifacino, and others
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
‘First Persons’ through the decades – 100 years of notable scientists in Journal of Cell Science
Summary: JCS highlights the lives and careers of 10 notable scientists from around the world who published first author papers in our journal over the last 100 years.
journals.biologists.com
September 16, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
academicabuse.com
Hi, I’m Julie Cruse. I created AcademicAbuse.com – a dashboard of data, resources & tools to help survivors of academic abuse survive and safely speak out. (1/9 🧵)

🪜 🎓 📜 🍎 ♀️ 👩🏾🔬 👩🏼🔬 👩🏾🎓 #PhDSky #Blackademia #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #MeToo #HigherEd #PhDChat #TimesUpHigherEd
September 14, 2025 at 7:46 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Wonderful but unsurprising news: #Bluesky is trumping Twitter/X for the dissemination/discussion of scientific research 🥳🎉🍾 Let’s all keep it up! Since the scattering of the #ScienceTwitter community it’s great to feel things coalescing here 😊

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Research posts on Bluesky are more original — and get better engagement
Bluesky posts about science garner more likes and reposts than similar ones on X.
www.nature.com
September 6, 2025 at 9:56 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Friday night’s over, folks! Have a good weekend. Turnstile for tonight’s end credits 🤩

youtu.be/a95G2GzB3t0?...
TURNSTILE - SEEIN’ STARS / BIRDS [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
YouTube video by Turnstile
youtu.be
September 5, 2025 at 11:15 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
This is wild…somehow I had never thought to join the dots to this particular permutation before. The wealth of neurological conditions in inbred dogs, vaccines hesitancy in humans, and vaccine/autism paranoia being extended from children to companion animals. 😂, 🤯, or 😭? I can’t decide 👇
September 5, 2025 at 11:14 AM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
@ourworldindata.org continues to be one of the best things not just on BlueSky, but on the internet (sign up for their data alerts!). Which of these transitions is the more profound: 1800-1850 candles to gas, or 1900-1950 gas to electricity? 🤩🤯👇
ourworldindata.org Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · Aug 29
From candles to electrons: changing lighting sources in the United Kingdom
A bar chart titled "From candles to electrons: changing lighting sources in the United Kingdom" illustrates the shifting share of lighting powered by various energy sources from 1700 to 2000. Different colored bars represent energy sources: candles, whale oil, gas, kerosene, and electricity. In the early 1700s, 90–95% of lighting was from candles. From 1750–1800, whale oil rose in usage to about 10%. 1850 saw a move to gas, which accounted for 78%. 1900 saw an introduction of kerosene, at 15%, with 82% still coming from gas. By 1950 and continuing to 2000, electricity makes up nearly 100%, indicating a major shift in lighting sources. The data source is attributed to Fouquet & Pearson (2006). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.
September 2, 2025 at 4:54 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Fantastic 🧵with all the caveats you need to remember when confronted with #RNAseq hype trains 🤩👇
wildtypeone.bsky.social Wildtype One @wildtypeone.bsky.social · Aug 30
Don't fall into the trap.

Here are 5 corrections to keep in mind when interpreting RNAseq data:

(a thread)
August 30, 2025 at 9:37 AM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Hand on heart, I still regard this as one of the best - maybe THE BEST - #DnB mix I own. #JohnB 😍
The cover of the MixMag free Trance n’ Bass mixCD, mixed by John B in 2002.
August 29, 2025 at 7:08 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Proof (and recognition) that you can genuinely have a revolutionary impact on science without necessarily following the academic career track 😊👏👏👏 Congratulations @richardsever.bsky.social !
August 27, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
cyrilpedia.bsky.social
"But to have only confidence is to become Macbeth*."
@tirscienceblog.bsky.social is right, if for no other reason than the catastrophic cleaning bills

network.febs.org/posts/doubtf...
Doubtful confidence
The most important equilibrium in research isn’t chemical, it’s psychological.
network.febs.org
August 26, 2025 at 3:51 AM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Powerful, typically eloquent, and deeply troubling editorial from @berndpulverer.bsky.social ( @embopress.org ) on the ongoing attacks on #academics and #academia itself in the USA. 👇
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Student hostages in culture war | EMBO reports
EMBO Press is an editorially independent publishing platform for the development of EMBO scientific publications.
www.embopress.org
August 26, 2025 at 5:57 PM
tirscienceblog.bsky.social
Latest cross-posting to the @febspress.bsky.social Network, on why the most important equilibrium in #science isn't chemical, but psychological 👇
network.febs.org/posts/doubtf...
Doubtful confidence
The most important equilibrium in research isn’t chemical, it’s psychological.
network.febs.org
August 25, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
cyrilpedia.bsky.social
'Like a species pushed to the edges of its habitat by an encroaching newcomer, parents can find respite only in the most inhospitable times of day, the moments when you’d rather be in bed, or relaxing. Or sleeping.'
@tirscienceblog.bsky.social
totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2025/08/22/a...
At the ends of the day
One of the hardest things with active parenting is that you’re usually robbed of the hours when you’re at your most alert and creative.
totalinternalreflectionblog.com
August 23, 2025 at 5:14 AM