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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️

@obialik.bsky.social

5K followers 150 following 4.5K posts

Sediment, climate change, and impostor syndrome | Science and SFF for the win | Writing for a living and fun | Opinions are my own (or the characters' in my head). Academic stuff: https://obialik.weebly.com Non-academic writing: https://ombialik.weebly.com

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · Jun 19

BECAUSE MY MOM SAID SO

Meet Ismat and follow them as they try to navigate their identity, workplace romance, their mom, and somehow also thwart a conservative conspiracy.

itch.io: obialik.itch.io/because-my-m...
Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSG7WBLY
B2R: books2read.com/u/31oj9W

🌈📚🪐 | 📚💙 | 🌈🚀💫

Ad for the book BECAUSE MY MOM SAID SO, featuring the book cover (by the amazing Carla Negrini https://www.carlanegrini.com/) with some important bits of information on the book like: LBGTQ+ cast, Spy thriller, Nothing goes according to plan, Figuring out romance and Stopping a conservative coup.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 4h

One thing I have to highlight from this interview is going back repeatedly to the research-product leg time. The things they talk about are based on work done in the 1980s, but were useless then without the infrastructure. We got to the point we can do machine vision only by it being sustained.

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 4h

Ping me when that one's coming out, I'd love to read it (did I just accidentally volunteer to review it?).

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 4h

It's built upon @geopeteal.bsky.social's CarboCAT, which I rather liked back in the day and was a surprisingly powerful (although suboptimized) way to experiment with the growth of carbonate systems.

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

An area of the model grid showing how the neighborhood of 24 cells around a central cell is defined. In the cellular automata model, persistence of a factory/lithofacies or occupation of empty cells by a particular factory depends on the count of same-factory cells within a 24-cell neighborhood.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 4h

If you want to get into the actual system, you can find more information here: mindthegap-erc.github.io/CarboKitten....

Introduction · CarboKitten

Documentation for CarboKitten.

mindthegap-erc.github.io

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 4h

I don't know how many of you model carbonate (sedimentary) systems. But if you happen to, you should check out CarboKitten, which recently came out of Emilia Jarochowska's group at Utrecht University. 🧪⚒️🌊

(preprint with description here: egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...)

Overview of different visualizations supported by CarboKitten. Panel (a) shows a stratigraphic crosssection, including an indication for unconformities, (b) a topographic overview including two intermediate time steps, (c) the production curves used, (d) sedimentation rate as a function of time (Wheeler diagram), (e) dominant facies as a function of time, (f) the sea-level curve given as input. The combined plot is arranged such that spatial data is on the top row, while time-dependent information is shown at the bottom with matching y-axes.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 6h

It's worth checking out Geoffrey Hinton on @weeklyshowpodcast.bsky.social explining from the ground up to Jon Stewart how neural networks (and AI) work if you want to have a very clear and systematic look under the hood from the person who came up with some of it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrK3...

AI: What Could Go Wrong? with Geoffrey Hinton | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

YouTube video by The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️

Nature @nature.com · 22h

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Pewter Howitt share economics prize for work that underlines the importance of investing in research and development.

go.nature.com/4hj9NNV

Economics Nobel prize won by researchers who showed how science boosts growth

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Pewter Howitt share economics prize for work that underlines the importance of investing in research and development.

go.nature.com

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 11h

Does this qualify as #SciFiScience? Probably... organic nanoparticles delivered mRNA therapy to restore gamete production (specifically sperm) in organisms with genetic defects, allowing to birth of viable offspring. 🧪

Link: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

LNP is delivered to both germ cells and Sertoli cells.

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Reposted by Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️

Ligus @greyauk.bsky.social · 1d

Call out for scientists! 👇🚨

We are still looking for scientists who would like to work on a deep sea art project.

A view artists are still looking for a teammate to create gorgous art and to celebrate the deep sea.

🦑 🐟 🐡 🐙 🦀 #SundayFishSketch

Deep-Sea Biology Society Arts @dsbsoc-arts.bsky.social · Jun 25

🎨🔬 CALLING ALL ARTISTS & DEEP-SEA SCIENTISTS!

💡 Open to ALL artists & scientists
 🗓 Deadline: August 31
 📍 Apply via the short form in our bio / link below!

🔗 forms.gle/SftLbez3ML2j...

Are you inspired by the mysteries of the deep? We're launching a new initiative ArtSea Matchmaking that pairs artists and scientists for creative collaborations rooted in deep-sea science.
Together, you'll co-create compelling work that bridges disciplines and reaches wider audiences through exhibitions and outreach.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

I saw this title, and had to check out the paper as my first take was that it might be about some terrible practices in research. But no, it's just about how research discusses modern slavery (still interesting and important).

Unpacking Modern Slavery in Research: Definition, Operationalisations, and Intellectual Linkages

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

And if you're not familiar with Ecklar's work, some of her #filk albums are available on @archive.org. The Female of the Species is in Horse Tamers Daughter: archive.org/details/filk...

Horse-Tamer's Daughter : Julia Ecklar : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Horse-Tamer's Daughter (1983)

archive.org

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

And she knows, because she warns him, and her instincts never fail, that the female of her species lives on longer than the male. 🧪

(Yes, I couldn't resist the temptation of borrowing from Julia Ecklar's The Female of the Species)

Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sex differences in ALE (Adult Life Expectancy) for taxonomic orders and families.
(A) Mean (white dots) order-level ALE differences, where horizontal bars show the 95% confidence intervals calculated from the weighted SEs across nine mammalian and 15 bird orders. Only orders with more than five species (gray points) were included. (B) ALE differences for 100 primate species. Red and blue bars show the 95% credible intervals, while the white dots show the posterior mean ALE difference. Color represents whether the mean ALE difference favored females (red) or males (blue). Opacity indicates the strength of evidence for those differences (zero overlap of ≤0.05). The tiles indicate whether the species is monogamous (yellow) or not (purple). Animal shapes were obtained from phylopic.org. (C) Posterior distribution of ALE differences for different populations of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas, including the chimpanzee populations from the Taï National Park (Côte d’Ivoire), the Gombe National Park (Tanzania), and the Budongo Forest (Uganda) and the gorilla population from Mbeli Bai (Republic of Congo). The shaded areas under the curves show the 95% credible intervals.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

This jab from the Blade vs. Buffy @deathbattle.gg is too good not to share (also, I don't have enough people on my WhatsApp who will get it).

While Blade knows of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and according to Marvel's Midnight Suns, it is his favorite show, let's be real, he hasn't read the novels.

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, why has no one made that expansion?!

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

I had to check that this is said in the context of a joke, because the trend has been rather bad in the last few years (let's not even get to how some master's program are doing)

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 1d

No, it's a cool card game we need to try at some point.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

Well... 300 days of sun per year and maximum summer temperatures of 22°C sounds nice, but seven months a year with night temperatures below 10°C... 🥶

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, I was lazy and did all the graphing in Excel, for something quick and not too much data, it's perfectly adequate. If you're willing to put in the time, you can do some really cool stuff in it. But for hardcore stuff, I do use dedicated software.

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

I do want to keep developing a community here and get to know more new people. Always happy to see people responding and engaging with what I post, and I do hope you'll keep at it!
6/6🧵

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

As I was organizing the data for that, I also unfollowed a few people, not because they posted anything offensive, just because I realized I am not very interested in what they're posting or because they dropped off the platform. 5/6 🧵

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

Many of the users I follow as small accounts, mostly people I know IRL that aren't always very active here (or not at all in some cases) and not going to prune. Some are big accounts I follow for contant, organizations, etc.
4/6 🧵

Log scale whisker plot of the number of followers, followin,g and posts among the users I follow.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

As to who are these people? Most of them are scientists, mostly Earth scientists, but also a number of writers and artists, sci-com people, and other cool niches.
3/6 🧵

Types of users I follow on BlueSky
Publishing professional 9
Writer 22
Publisher 1
TTRPG related 4
Comic books related 3
Artist 8
YouTuber 3
Scientist (Geo) 89
Scientist (Bio) 18
Scientist (Marine) 17
Scientist (Humanities) 4
SciCom/outreach 5
Organization (Earth Sci) 2
Other sci/tech 3
Other 4

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

I'm mostly following users writing in English (our Lingua Franca), although some of them also post in other languages. Hebrew being the most common, but I was a bit surprised French was the second (mostly @cerege.bsky.social people); I was expecting it to be German. 2/6 🧵

Languages of users I follow on BlueSky, it comes down to more than the number of users I actually follow, as a chunk of them are bilingual or multilingual (and some are also bi, but that’s a different story).

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

Today, my counter switched prefix as I crossed over 5K followers (thank you, all of you - you're phenomenal!).
I'm still working on building a community here, and for the occasion, I thought I'd have a look at who I'm following (also, I didn't have time to analyze 5000+ profiles). 1/6 🧵

Number of users I'm following and breakdown between those who follow me back (105) and those who don't (45)

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 2d

I don't know if I'll survive the climate over in Washington, but the welcoming atmosphere is appreciated.

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