New lab preprint: if ML struggles with extrapolation, let's expand the diversity of training data with gene synth, DNA shuffling, and ML gen.... also lots of #FluorescentProteins #ProteinEngineering #MachineLearning #SyntheticBiology 1/n
The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.
A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.
Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.
This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
IOC as dumb as ever
Our lab will be boycotting biotech vendors that have contracts with ICE (e.g., Fisher, Agilent), and telling them why. If you google “vendorname usa spending”, you can see purchases for specific depts including ICE on usaspending.gov. Please talk to your labs and email your vendors!
Wenn ihr das Geld erübrigen könnt (man kann auch zusammenlegen). Jedes Kit hilft!
Ukraine2Power hat ein Überlebenskit für 80€ (Gaskocher, Heizdecken, Hand/Fusswärmer, Thermoskanne, Powerbank) zusammengestellt.
Konto: We Aid gGmbH
IBAN: DE 52370205000001838801
Kennwort: Ukraine2Power
Danke 🙏
Like the genetic code, bitcoin, or national borders, our methods for evaluating science are a "frozen accident": things that were formed from historical circumstances rather than careful design, and that persist not because they are optimal, but because replacing them is extraordinarily difficult.
French president Emmanuel Macron wearing blue sunglasses, photographed against a blue background.
The sunglasses you didn't know you needed
Pacific 01 S, by Henry Jullien
www.instagram.com/henry_jullien/
In den vergangenen Tagen wurde auf verschiedenen Social-Media-Plattformen über die Vorankündigung diskutiert, dass die DFG zukünftig unter bestimmten Rahmenbedingungen die Nutzung von KI in der Begutachtung ermöglichen wird. Mehr⏬
Also einfach probieren bevor pauschal ablehnen!
Für life sciences gibt es den Tool von @qedscience.bsky.social . Es funktioniert eigentlich super: man erhält ein strukturiertes und sehr relevantes Feedback. Ich verstehe also die ganze Aufregung nicht: KI-Tools werden immer besser und als Hilfsmittel für die Begutachtung bereits sehr hilfreich.
Have you registered yet? Early bird registration and abstract submission are open until January 31.
mosbacher-kolloquium.org
A carol for peace.
Together with the Embassies of Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, representatives of the Ministry of Culture, and Ukrainian artists from the National House of Music and Open Opera Ukraine, performed Shchedryk
(Carol of the Bells) in the heart of Kyiv❤️
immaterielles Kulturerbe "Verspätung der Deutschen Bahn"
Confused by all the histones that are cropping up in organisms that are decidedly NOT eukaryotes? check out our review - fantastic work by team NucEvo in the #Lugerlab
The Expanding Histone Universe: Histone-Based DNA Organization in Noneukaryotic Organisms - www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Nothing to see in flow through is also not typical….but also probably easy to fix with the right prompt
Welcome address for the EMMaH graduate ceremony
Introducing slide for the partner universities
The degree documents on a table
The first Erasmus Mundus graduates of the EMMaH masters with robes, hats and degrees
Yesterday we celebrated the graduation of the first Erasmus Mundus cohort of our international master program EMMaH - Euro-Asian Master of Medical Technology and Healthcare Business in Lille.
Congratulations to all our new graduates and good luck for your future endeavors!
"Wer wird eingeladen? Wen sehen wir als „sichtbar“ und „erfolgreich“? Und wessen Leistungen übersehen wir systematisch, weil sie mehr Zeit brauchten, um dorthin zu kommen?"Tolle Reflexion @mariehuber.bsky.social zu Karriere und Kindern in der Wissenschaft seriousjourneys.substack.com/p/alleinerzi...
It’s clear we need alternatives or at least ways to improve the situation. So, together with a really special and talented team we worked to develop this idea into “qed” a platform where you can get CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on your own work or CRITICALLY assess other people’s papers.
Die AfD Sachsen-Anhalt fragt gezielt nach Listen postkolonialer Seminare und Lehrstühle. Wie die Universitäten beginnen, sich gegen die Angriffe zu wappnen.
In labs, hands-on expertise is often lost because it's not written down. We leverage multimodal AI agents to capture & share expertise by analyzing video and speech to generate protocols, detect errors, and guide researchers. #AI #TeamMassSpec
📄 Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 1/🧵
On the left - western blot of B16F10 cells wt and KO for CDK8. Our in house produced antibodies give a lot of unspecific bands. On the right same probes with antibodies preincubated with fixed CDK8 KO cells - there is a specific band and faint unspecific bands, which can be probably eliminated with increase of amount of KO cells.
Neat trick if you polycolonal ab's suck. Incubate them with fixed cells with a KO of your protein of interest, then spin. Protocol here: www.med.upenn.edu/markslab/ass...
I was amazed how well it worked on first try (I'm sure that I can completely eliminate unspecific bands)
#WesternBlot #cellsky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
For anybody doing proximity-dependent biotinylation have a look at this reference preprint from the @gingraslab.bsky.social . Ten enzymes benchmarked in various conditions, it appears #ultraID is the enzyme of choice for combined specificity, speed and low background🧪
Oh man, Hamburg has so much to offer than Currywurst!
Black and white portrait of a young man in a shirt, looking directly at the camera with a slight smile.
An elderly person with glasses and a cap smiling inside a busy bus.
12 September 1924 | A Hungarian Jew, Tibor "Ted” Bolgar, was born in Sárospatak.
In June 1944, he was deported to #Auschwitz from where he was taken to other camps. He was liberated during a death march from Muhldorf.
Today he turns 101. Join us in wishing him a happy birthday.
Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:
Well that's amazing.
Mr Béthune in front of the city hall of Béthune
The city hall of Béthune
View of Béthune’s belfry and church tower
Some historic houses in Béthune
First time in the fair city of Béthune since 1991, glad to be back in the town that bears my name and recommended visit if visiting north of France!
Spent quite some time earlier this year to find Saturn with my old small telescope. Wanted to show my kids how cool the rings look. Was quite proud to find in spite of challenging background luminosity and then discovered that the rings are hardly visible this year….😔
This is cool. CryoEM showing COPI coat containing GOLPH3, together with functional data suggests the mechanism for cargo retention/transport.
The mechanistic basis of cargo selection during Golgi maturation
Taylor, Zubkov, Ciazynska et al.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
