Life would be easier for many scientists if the general public would get past the stereotype that all science is just about "surprise" and novelty and completely unknown things and that studies don't matter if they match your lived experience 😭 there is massive need to document well known things into the scientific record and establish specific evidence examples for them in ways that will be legible and useful for policy, public action, etc....!
@grimalkina I agree it’s a tough one, especially when there’s a lot of money to be had in lowering public trust in scholarship and many (overworked) scientists are dis-incentivized to engage with (or respect) the public.
My work on this is public engagement and the protection of scholars at risk, but even work on both fronts feels very insufficient given the kind of money and power on the side of merchants of doubt
@grimalkina unfortunately, the novelty/surprise framing is also deeply integrated into funding, award, and promotion structures too.
Note: I remember being pretty surprised to see in this analysis of scientific articles and news stories that on average, journalists actually tend to temper rather than exaggerate scientific findings. I would love to see a more in-depth analysis
I don't really have anything to back this up but I really feel like so many people getting multiple Covid infections have affected the way a lot of people process and react to things.
@elplatt@BlackAzizAnansi here's an article from February in the New England Journal of Medicine that looks at cognition & memory in a large community sample.
Out of ~113 thousand participants, people who recovered from COVID had small deficits in global cognition compared to those without COVID, and larger deficits were correlated with longer recovery times. This included memory, reasoning, and executive function.
Good news — the EPA updated the air quality index on May 6th.
Good news: AQI now includes a wider range of conditions that make people sick.
Complicated news: since AQI is based on health impacts rather than an absolute measure of pollutants, anyone basing research or analysis on AQI should expect the definition of a one unit difference in AQI to change.
Time to update my own monitoring/early warning system
Now that the EPA has updated the AQI calculations, we're going to need to update:
Wikipedia
Open source air quality code
Open resources on air pollution & health
Do you know anyone else working on this? I would love to connect
This is a good thing. I have an workplace accommodation that relies on AQI rather than absolute pollutant levels. As a result, I don't have to re-negotiate my accommodation, and it can now incorporate updated science about the health risks.
@zalasur does your monitor get automated software updates? And/or is the calculation done in the cloud?
If either of those is true, check with the maker to see if/when the definition will be updated. Otherwise, you may need to apply a software update yourself.
The good news is that the underlying mechanisms for computing particulate counts, etc aren't changed — just the formula for converting them to AQI.
#Mastodon forms new 501(c)(3) non-profit entity with new board of directors in the United States to facilitate tax-deductible donations and in-kind support:
Good to see that Mastodon has a 501(c)(3)! Also,, even if not all the board is elected, there's a lot of value in what Wikimedia and Global Voices do, with at least some board seats open to election from staff and the community.
With regular elections, the board gets to see and hear from the evolving set of hopes, concerns, and constituencies that are of interest to the community every time an election arises.
Yet another disheartening example of cooperation between US groups and authoritarians elsewhere, as Guatemalan prosecutors (under US sanctions for undermining the rule of law) collaborate with American politicians & media —— raiding an aid organization that's providing essential services to Guatemalan children
The sad part of this story is that Guatemalans have a real mistrust of foreign NGOs that say they are helping children — thanks largely to a decades of Americans paying money to adopt trafficked Guatemalan indigenous children.
Rachel Nolan wrote about this for the Guardian in 2024: "At the height of the adoption boom, one in 100 children born in Guatemala was placed for adoption with a family abroad."
@cyberlyra@josh@commscholar my sense from reading risk/disaster STS is that scholars aren't very hopeful that the study of accidents/disasters is making anyone safer — it's mostly informing insurance payouts and helping firms take calculated risks. Is that too cynical?
One of his arguments is that the science of risk often backfires by emboldening firms & governments to take more risks, rather than to prevent disasters or prompt the imagination of alternative models.
It's one of the concerns that keeps me up at night, as someone working on tech safety/accountability.
Thanks Janet! I note that John Downer has an upcoming project on "Transparency Regulation Toolkits for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI)" which should be very interesting if he brings this lens to it
Every little free library is a microcosm of the indispensably-beautiful and important aspirations and tricky problems of Wikipedia, with an extra layer of mildew and insects
@luis_in_brief@natematias If you build a little free library I fully expect it to have a governance structure, content moderation policies, bug tracker (for actual insects), and a sustainability model