1/6 I think that a #DeSci economy that covers all aspects of #academia in one ecosystem (#publications, #peerreview, and #funding) is more valuable and more likely to succeed in the long run than a project that covers only one or two of these aspects. Why? ... 2/6 Because of #networkeffects. All three parts of academia co-depend and influence each other. There are positive network externalities to solving problems in publishing, peer review, and funding to other parts of #academia. ...

1/25 New paper out from my group on the role of genetic luck on education, income, and health! FAQ at bit.ly/3f5TXoV. We investigate the consequences of random genetic differences between siblings in their predisposition for high income... tinbergen.nl/discussion-pap… 2/25 and find that the siblings who "won" the genetic lottery by having a (slightly) higher polygenic score (PGS) for income tend to have more favourable outcomes throughout life, including a higher chance to get a college degree, a better job, living in a better neighbourhood...

1/16 As an economist, I keep asking myself: How bad is #COVID19, who's at risk, and what's the right policy to deal with this? Here are some insights from a pretty amazing, harmonized dataset on overall mortality from 24 European countries up to week 18: euromomo.eu/graphs-and-map… 2/16 Let's look at the trend in mortality over the last few years. I'm showing Z-scores here for comparability across countries: 0 means average mortality, values between -2 and 2 are roughly the 95% confidence interval around the average and >2 means significantly more deaths.

1/4 Interesting: A wet lab study from Germany suggests that some degree of limited background immunity against #COVID19 may exist in the population (~1/3 of their healthy donor sample) due to previous infections with other "common cold" coronaviruses.
bit.ly/3cKIyJE 2/4 The study hypothesizes that this may be a factor related to severity of SARS-CoV-2 infections and may help to explain the high prevalence of nonsymptomatic or mild infections among younger people and kids (because they get a "common cold" more often).

Thread: 1/ An interdisciplinary group of scientists from the German National Academy of Sciences (@Leopoldina) has released a consensus document with recommendations about how to manage the next phases of the #Covid19 pandemic... bit.ly/2Ruiavt 2/ They recommend a stepwise relaxation of the current lockdown measures ASAP, with the goal to return to normality while simultaneously keeping the number of new infections low & without overwhelming the capacity of the health care system...