I won’t bury the lede here: I’m leaving Twitter, as of later today. (1/) I am very unhappy about this. I’ve met a lot of great people on this platform and it’s been a valuable source of news and communication over the years. I’ll miss it terribly, and I've been debating this for weeks. But I can’t stay. (2/)

True - it’s because the general public hasn’t had to think about wavelengths, filters, and assigning colors in images like this. The constant question is “Is that what it really looks like?” /1

https://twitter.com/michael_gilman/status/1548296578493923333

Even if you’re imaging across just the visible light spectrum, the images are always going to be long exposures. Like those shots of the Milky Way in the desert sky: you’re never going to see pink nebulae arching across the sky with your naked eyes. /2

I've been asked to talk about how I ended up doing what I'm doing for #YoungScientistNetworking, so here's the story! I've been at this a while, so it's sort of a long tale by now. (1/20) I grew up in a small town in NE Arkansas, and was always interested in all sorts of science (astronomy, biology, chemistry and more). I knew that my path wa going to take me somewhere else, but I had no idea where. (2/20)

I appreciate Eric saying this after some of us sort of jumped on him about this issue last night! Paxlovid is a good example of where small-molecule synthesis falls on on the difficulty scale when compared to things like mRNA vaccines - here's a thread (1/13)

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1474019309349265414

The mRNA vaccines are intrinsically hard to manufacture - RNA biotechnology on scale is practiced in only a few countries around the world, and the nanoparticle formulation is particularly challenging to scale up and to get right. (2/13)

I recommend this thread on the Lieber case and conviction - several interesting details. My own thoughts are in the next few tweets (1/10)

https://twitter.com/antonioregalado/status/1473427128960139276

You can come at this story from several directions. One is the position of US universities as a destination for hard-working and talented people from around the world. This is a huge benefit for the country, and if we mess that up we are idiots. (2/10)

Since I keep getting inquiries about the idea of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) problems with the coronavirus vaccines, here are some fresh data (1/5) In May, the US had 18,000 deaths from Covid-19 infections. First: if the vaccines weren’t working, you’d expect these deaths to show roughly the same proportion as that of vaccinated and unvaccinated people in general. (2/5)

@christymaginn (1/x) There are several bottlenecks to vaccine production, all jostling for the #1 position. One is equipment. Mixers for the mRNA lipid nanoparticles, e.g. Some types of filtration material (not patented!) are in very short supply as well, and there are others. @christymaginn (2/x) Another bottleneck is in key materials like the lipids needed for the mRNA vaccines. Supply of these has been ramping up, but there's still only so much of these things in the world, and their synthesis is labor-intensive.

(1/8) The UK authorities are now trying to spread out the two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as well, in order to get more people the first shot now. A similar situation to what I wrote about yesterday: blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archi… I see why they’re proposing this, of course. The UK is in bad shape, with the new coronavirus variant spreading quickly. And we have evidence that the first shot really does seem to be immunogenic. BUT. . . (2/8)

Absolutely wonderful news from Moderna: 94% vaccine efficacy, zero severe coronavirus cases, no severe adverse events, and one-month stability under standard refrigeration.

We’re winning. Hang on, hang on, hang on and stay safe. We’re going to win. Here are the details: investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/…

You may have seen claims from people promoting hydroxychloroquine that there are numbers from Italy that prove that it's a prophylactic treatment against COVID-19. These numbers are complete fiction. (1/5 There are at least two mentions in media sources (one from an Italian newspaper, one from an interview in the Israeli press) about the Italian Rheumatology Society monitoring their patients who are taking HCQ for coronavirus cases. (2/5)

(1/x) A little history and politics. Folks looking for a science/chemistry thread can skip this one! (2/x) The Roman Republic took quite a while going off the rails. But eventually (80 BC) a powerful politician and general (Sulla) took over in what can only be described as a military coup, to restore order.

(1/x) Noted without further comment, this passage from Alexander Hamilton, in a letter to George Washington from August of 1792. The fuull document can be found here:
founders.archives.gov/documents/Hami… (2/x) "When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour. . .