Leighton Pritchard
@widdowquinn.bsky.social
Computational biologist. Views/opinions mine, not my employer's. Repost != agreement. Not green, just pleasant. Fabian. =﹥÷
I can’t see DMs because of the Online Safety Act.
I can’t see DMs because of the Online Safety Act.
Pinned
‘What’s in a name? Fit-for-purpose bacterial nomenclature’: meeting report
Rapid and economical DNA sequencing has resulted in a revolution in phylogenomics. The impact of changes in nomenclature can be perceived as an absolute necessity of scientific rigour, coupled with th...
doi.org
About 18 months ago we held a @microbiologysociety.org meeting in Glasgow to discuss the thorny topic of #microbial #taxonomy and #nomenclature - and now you can read what we talked about :D
#microbiology #controversy
doi.org/10.1099/ijse...
#microbiology #controversy
doi.org/10.1099/ijse...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
PSA: tips to protect yourself from scams on Signal.
Every major comms platform has to contend w phishing, impersonation, & scams. Sadly.
Signal is major, and as we've grown we've heard about more of these attacks--scammy people pretending to be something or someone to trick and abuse others. 1/
Every major comms platform has to contend w phishing, impersonation, & scams. Sadly.
Signal is major, and as we've grown we've heard about more of these attacks--scammy people pretending to be something or someone to trick and abuse others. 1/
November 11, 2025 at 6:13 PM
PSA: tips to protect yourself from scams on Signal.
Every major comms platform has to contend w phishing, impersonation, & scams. Sadly.
Signal is major, and as we've grown we've heard about more of these attacks--scammy people pretending to be something or someone to trick and abuse others. 1/
Every major comms platform has to contend w phishing, impersonation, & scams. Sadly.
Signal is major, and as we've grown we've heard about more of these attacks--scammy people pretending to be something or someone to trick and abuse others. 1/
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
At the end of October, alongside Liberal Democrat colleagues, I wrote to the Government calling on them to provide long-term certainty for Ukrainians living in the UK under the Ukraine Schemes.
I also sponsored a Parliamentary Motion on this: buff.ly/QthdK1q
I also sponsored a Parliamentary Motion on this: buff.ly/QthdK1q
November 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
At the end of October, alongside Liberal Democrat colleagues, I wrote to the Government calling on them to provide long-term certainty for Ukrainians living in the UK under the Ukraine Schemes.
I also sponsored a Parliamentary Motion on this: buff.ly/QthdK1q
I also sponsored a Parliamentary Motion on this: buff.ly/QthdK1q
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
FGeneBERT: function-driven pre-trained gene language model for metagenomics academic.oup.com/bib/article/... 🧬🖥️🧪 github.com/jane-pyc/Ope...
November 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
FGeneBERT: function-driven pre-trained gene language model for metagenomics academic.oup.com/bib/article/... 🧬🖥️🧪 github.com/jane-pyc/Ope...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
Self-hosting is a fun way to cut big tech platforms out of your life, but if the cops come knocking you need to know how to defend the privacy of you and your users. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
How Cops Can Get Your Private Online Data
Can the cops get your online data? In short, yes. There are a variety of US federal and state laws which give law enforcement powers to obtain information that you provided to online services. But,
www.eff.org
November 10, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Self-hosting is a fun way to cut big tech platforms out of your life, but if the cops come knocking you need to know how to defend the privacy of you and your users. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
The whole point of insurance is that most people don't make a claim. It doesn't work otherwise.
Tell me you don’t understand risk pools without telling me you don’t understand risk pools
November 10, 2025 at 3:07 PM
The whole point of insurance is that most people don't make a claim. It doesn't work otherwise.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
Excited to share our latest work, where we create Salmonella mutants deficient for cohorts of SPI-2 T3SS effectors. These strains can be used to efficiently identify particular effectors that contribute to SPI-2 phenotypes doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Salmonella multimutants enable efficient identification of SPI-2 effector protein function in gut inflammation and systemic colonization - Nature Communications
Intracellular Salmonella enterica uses a type III secretion system to secrete more than 30 effector proteins into host cells. Here, Newson et al. generate six mutant strains deficient in different set...
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Excited to share our latest work, where we create Salmonella mutants deficient for cohorts of SPI-2 T3SS effectors. These strains can be used to efficiently identify particular effectors that contribute to SPI-2 phenotypes doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
'The reproducibility crisis in preclinical mouse research has been increasingly attributed to hidden variables in microbiota composition (...) Our findings directly (demonstrate) that taxonomic variation between vivaria and wild populations underlies significant divergence in metabolic outputs'
A global survey of taxa-metabolic associations across mouse microbiome communities
Yilmaz et al. provide a global atlas of murine microbiota and their species variants
across many vivaria and wild colonies. By integrating strain-resolved metagenomics,
metabolomics, and structural an...
www.cell.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:25 PM
'The reproducibility crisis in preclinical mouse research has been increasingly attributed to hidden variables in microbiota composition (...) Our findings directly (demonstrate) that taxonomic variation between vivaria and wild populations underlies significant divergence in metabolic outputs'
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
The era of ‘handwritten submissions only’ with secret tests* is inching closer.
*like Flann O’Brien’s book-handling service - must have four words misspelt, one sentence that lasts a whole paragraph, and a too-long-word crammed into a too small space. Judgement of veracity made by AI, of course.
*like Flann O’Brien’s book-handling service - must have four words misspelt, one sentence that lasts a whole paragraph, and a too-long-word crammed into a too small space. Judgement of veracity made by AI, of course.
November 9, 2025 at 5:31 PM
The era of ‘handwritten submissions only’ with secret tests* is inching closer.
*like Flann O’Brien’s book-handling service - must have four words misspelt, one sentence that lasts a whole paragraph, and a too-long-word crammed into a too small space. Judgement of veracity made by AI, of course.
*like Flann O’Brien’s book-handling service - must have four words misspelt, one sentence that lasts a whole paragraph, and a too-long-word crammed into a too small space. Judgement of veracity made by AI, of course.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
What happens now is that every dropped piece of trash, every inch of graffiti, every broken down subway train, every disappointing sandwich, every rat in Central Park, and every single crime gets blamed on Zohran Mamdani... by racists who never go near NYC.
My tip as a Londoner. Shrug and carry on.
My tip as a Londoner. Shrug and carry on.
November 5, 2025 at 8:20 AM
What happens now is that every dropped piece of trash, every inch of graffiti, every broken down subway train, every disappointing sandwich, every rat in Central Park, and every single crime gets blamed on Zohran Mamdani... by racists who never go near NYC.
My tip as a Londoner. Shrug and carry on.
My tip as a Londoner. Shrug and carry on.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
🧵 This piece captures a core problem of the hollow democratic state: politics has become performance, optimised for visibility, not understanding.
Farage is winning because politics has been reduced to clickbait.
It’s a shallow spectacle that favours clowns and con-artists.
As @jemmaforte.bsky.social says here - politics has been “repackaged into junk food.”
But there are ways for the left to fight back 👇🏻
It’s a shallow spectacle that favours clowns and con-artists.
As @jemmaforte.bsky.social says here - politics has been “repackaged into junk food.”
But there are ways for the left to fight back 👇🏻
The political entertainment industry
📝 A guest essay...
writesbright.substack.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:57 AM
🧵 This piece captures a core problem of the hollow democratic state: politics has become performance, optimised for visibility, not understanding.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
The UAE where hugging in public can get you arrested, where human rights barely exist, where foreign workers are routinely abused, where critics of the regime routinely disappear, where an Indian nanny was shot by firing squad in March & where marital rape is not a criminal offence but being gay is.
November 3, 2025 at 8:38 AM
The UAE where hugging in public can get you arrested, where human rights barely exist, where foreign workers are routinely abused, where critics of the regime routinely disappear, where an Indian nanny was shot by firing squad in March & where marital rape is not a criminal offence but being gay is.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!
🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution
🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)
📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de
⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025
🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...
Do get in touch or share 😊
🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution
🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)
📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de
⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025
🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...
Do get in touch or share 😊
Aktuelle Ausschreibungen
Aktuelle Ausschreibungen
www.uni-kiel.de
November 3, 2025 at 9:03 AM
My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!
🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution
🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)
📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de
⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025
🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...
Do get in touch or share 😊
🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution
🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)
📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de
⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025
🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...
Do get in touch or share 😊
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
X, Grok, Musk cannot be trusted to provide reliable, accurate information. British government and MPs should not be on the platform.
I know this won't surprise anyone here but Musk's reprogrammed artificial intelligence is spreading misinformation about yesterday's attack on a train
November 2, 2025 at 10:21 PM
X, Grok, Musk cannot be trusted to provide reliable, accurate information. British government and MPs should not be on the platform.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
PathogenSurveillance: an automated pipeline for population genomic analyses and pathogen identification www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Code: github.com/nf-core/path...
Nextflow nf-core pipeline: nf-co.re/pathogensurv...
Code: github.com/nf-core/path...
Nextflow nf-core pipeline: nf-co.re/pathogensurv...
November 2, 2025 at 9:58 PM
PathogenSurveillance: an automated pipeline for population genomic analyses and pathogen identification www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Code: github.com/nf-core/path...
Nextflow nf-core pipeline: nf-co.re/pathogensurv...
Code: github.com/nf-core/path...
Nextflow nf-core pipeline: nf-co.re/pathogensurv...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
I prob not the first but if everyone who wrote a line of code in python gave a the foundation just a dollar they'd never miss the grant - come to think of it I 'll do it today.
November 1, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I prob not the first but if everyone who wrote a line of code in python gave a the foundation just a dollar they'd never miss the grant - come to think of it I 'll do it today.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
“These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'"
The Python Software Foundation rejected a $1.5 million U.S. government grant because it required them to renounce all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com
November 1, 2025 at 2:13 PM
“These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'"
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
I hope people consider donating to them (there should be a donate button or header right on their hone page)
www.python.org/psf-landing/
www.python.org/psf-landing/
Welcome to Python.org
The official home of the Python Programming Language
www.python.org
November 1, 2025 at 10:56 AM
I hope people consider donating to them (there should be a donate button or header right on their hone page)
www.python.org/psf-landing/
www.python.org/psf-landing/
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
unequivocally based. im writing some python tonight just because. go donate to the python software foundation for not being total fucking fascists
The Python Software Foundation rejected a $1.5 million U.S. government grant because it required them to renounce all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com
October 31, 2025 at 10:53 PM
unequivocally based. im writing some python tonight just because. go donate to the python software foundation for not being total fucking fascists
The Python Software Foundation rejected a $1.5 million U.S. government grant because it required them to renounce all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com
October 31, 2025 at 12:44 PM
The Python Software Foundation rejected a $1.5 million U.S. government grant because it required them to renounce all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/p...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
Your daily reminder that the government continues to commercially support an individual who wants to destroy it through fascist violence.
Elon musk: ‘Civil war in Britain is inevitable. Just a question of when.’
October 29, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Your daily reminder that the government continues to commercially support an individual who wants to destroy it through fascist violence.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
NEW
Why 'A House of Dynamite' is a good film about how those with power make decisions
This unconventional nuclear thriller does something rare in movies
By me
Substack:
emptycity.substack.com/p/why-a-hous...
Personal blog:
davidallengreen.com/2025/10/why-...
Why 'A House of Dynamite' is a good film about how those with power make decisions
This unconventional nuclear thriller does something rare in movies
By me
Substack:
emptycity.substack.com/p/why-a-hous...
Personal blog:
davidallengreen.com/2025/10/why-...
Why ‘A House of Dynamite’ is a good film about how those with power make decisions
28th October 2025 This unconventional nuclear thriller does something rare in movies * What follows are some thoughts about A House of Dynamite (Netflix). * This is not a review as such, but the re…
davidallengreen.com
October 28, 2025 at 11:05 AM
NEW
Why 'A House of Dynamite' is a good film about how those with power make decisions
This unconventional nuclear thriller does something rare in movies
By me
Substack:
emptycity.substack.com/p/why-a-hous...
Personal blog:
davidallengreen.com/2025/10/why-...
Why 'A House of Dynamite' is a good film about how those with power make decisions
This unconventional nuclear thriller does something rare in movies
By me
Substack:
emptycity.substack.com/p/why-a-hous...
Personal blog:
davidallengreen.com/2025/10/why-...
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
We’re giving $40 billion to Argentina.
This is $5 billion MORE that the entire USAID budget that DOGE cut.
This is $5 billion MORE that the entire USAID budget that DOGE cut.
October 27, 2025 at 1:34 PM
We’re giving $40 billion to Argentina.
This is $5 billion MORE that the entire USAID budget that DOGE cut.
This is $5 billion MORE that the entire USAID budget that DOGE cut.
Trump would be Amendment 25ed if he weren't still a walking, talking shield for those dismantling the US from within.
“A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe…”
October 27, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Trump would be Amendment 25ed if he weren't still a walking, talking shield for those dismantling the US from within.
Reposted by Leighton Pritchard
“A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe…”
October 27, 2025 at 12:36 PM
“A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe…”