Saloni

@scientificdiscovery.dev

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Science writer and chart maker.

Researcher at Our World in Data.
Co-founder of Works in Progress.
Newsletter: https://scientificdiscovery.dev
https://twitter.com/salonium
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Are lightning strikes the new rainfall IV? My take on one of the somewhat trendy instruments used in estimating impacts of mobile broadband, electricity, or other electrical infrastructure blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Are lightning strikes the new rainfall IV?blogs.worldbank.org

Achieved a new personal record for typing speed!

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Saloni

Hey, econ folks! Come work with us at Our World in Data. We're looking for someone to lead our future work on economics – especially our core topics: global poverty, inequality, economic growth, and government spending. Join our awesome team! ourworldindata.org/econ-project...

We’re hiring a Research and Data Project Lead in Economicsourworldindata.org We are looking for a new economics specialist to join our Data & Research team.

Seeing a lot of people with 'invalid handles' on bsky 🫣 It usually just requires fixing the bsky DNS record on your domain

We’re hiring a Research and Data Project Lead in Economicsourworldindata.org We are looking for a new economics specialist to join our Data & Research team.

Why don't we have synthetic blood for transfusions yet? According to a new piece, it's within reach, which is very cool. But there are still challenges in scaling up bc of high costs of cell culture for biosynthetic blood & remaining safety issues of chemical blood. www.asimov.press/p/synthetic-...

Where's the Synthetic Blood?www.asimov.press Synthetic blood cells could solve blood shortages, but only if technical challenges are surmounted and costs are slashed.

Very interesting new study adds evidence that the bubonic plague bacteria was common in Neolithic Europe, and perhaps that it could have been responsible for the Neolithic decline. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Repeated plague infections across six generations of Neolithic Farmers - Naturewww.nature.com Population-scale ancient genomics are used to infer ancestry, social structure and pathogen infection in 108 Scandinavian Neolithic individuals from eight megalithic graves and a stone cist, showing t...

Every day of infancy is much safer than it was in the past. I made this chart with historical data from England & Wales. It shows death rates across the whole first year of life, and how they have shifted downwards per decade since 1921. The chart is on a log scale.

TIL that Larry the cat at Downing Street has an official cabinet position en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_M...

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Just finished Chwe’s “Jane Austen, Game Theorist) (h/t @scientificdiscovery.dev) which I very much enjoyed. The book explains how Austen essentially teaches game theory in her novels.>

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Will start a single-issue party dedicated to better data visualization, slogan: "Real legends don't need legends"

I was on BBC Radio 4's More or Less programme, talking about how the gradual roll-out of a 'pregnancy checkbox' on death certificates led to the apparent rise in US maternal mortality rates. Listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less: Behind the Stats, How a tick box doubled the US maternal mortality rates.www.bbc.co.uk We investigate changes to the way the US gathers their maternal mortality statistics

My favourite read this month: this very long read on how AI changed protein-folding science & the big remaining challenges. Also featuring the history of crystallography, protein databank, the CASP competition. Plus some very pretty diagrams. Recommended! www.quantamagazine.org/how-ai-revol...

How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It | Quanta Magazinewww.quantamagazine.org Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science.

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If an effect falls in a forest and no one is there to determine the mechanism, is it even causal? New post in which I try to clarify some things--claims about causal effects are indifferent to mechanisms; heterogeneity does not invalidate average estimates. www.the100.ci/2024/06/26/s...

Sometimes a causal effect is just a causal effect (regardless of how it’s mediated or moderated)www.the100.ci TL;DR: Tell your students about the potential outcomes framework. It will have (heterogeneous) causal effects on their understanding of causality (mediated through unknown pathways), I promise. It’...

Wow. People should consult statisticians more often

I went to a flatnoodle restaurant for lunch today wearing a white shirt, and unprompted the waitstaff gave me a disposable apron so I wouldn't get any stains. I'm very proud to say I didn't get any stains on the apron either.

Featuring my first choropleth map, created with ggplot!

Happy Monday! New article by me: How large-scale efforts have helped reduce trachoma — a painful eye disease that can eventually lead to blindness — and how the world can eliminate the disease. ourworldindata.org/trachoma-how...

Thinking (not seriously) of starting a podcast called "The Rest Is Accurate" Fact-checking all the claims in a bad argument, debunking most of them, and then concluding the ep by saying "The rest is accurate."

She's just like me

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The fuss about Siri and AI brings back memories of the time our neighbours were having a too loud party on their terrace and my wife shouted out the window ‘Alexa - turn the music down’ and it worked.

Bsky-exclusive sneak peek of my next article (including my first chloropleth map!)

I tried watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective recently and it was among the worst movies I've ever seen.

I have to say I have really benefitted from uploading dense jargon into chatgpt and asking it for a plain-language summary, asking it questions to clarify things I'm unsure of, and then finally going back to read the original and actually understanding it.

Reading the book 1493 by Charles C Mann. TIL that Columbus believed the earth was not round but pear-shaped, "like a ball with a woman's nipple."

“Mendel was forced to switch the subject of his experiments to peas by a prudish bishop uncomfortable with animals having sex in the abbey.” Sentences I didn't expect to read. press.asimov.com/articles/mou...

The Mouse as a Microscopepress.asimov.com How the mouse found its way from Victorian novelty to a biomedical mainstay.

A guide on Advance Market Commitments by Nan Ransohoff, who started Frontier, the carbon removal AMC. “AMCs are a generalizable tool that have the potential to help solve a wide range of global challenges. And yet there are still only a few real-world examples. worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to...

How to start an advance market commitment - Works in Progressworksinprogress.co Advance market commitments allow us to buy products that don’t yet exist, giving innovators an incentive to invent and scale new products. This is a practical guide on how to start an AMC.

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Saloni

Great new Bluesky search features! —Use "to:" or "mentions:" as well as "from:" —Specify post dates with "since:" or "until:" (YYYY-MM-DD) —Search for a URL to see if users have posted links to it —Find posts in a particular language (e.g., "lang:ja") with keyword

Here's a guide for advanced Bluesky search! 🔍 Over time, we’ll make these features easier to use directly within the Bluesky app.

Tips and Tricks for Bluesky Search - Blueskybsky.social Let’s dive into all the tips and tricks for advanced Bluesky search!

After an awful experience with mice in my house last year, which was quickly resolved after I called pest control, it seems they've now returned, after chewing through a new hole in the wall. Great. I'll definitely be able to sleep tonight. 🫠🙃😵‍💫😫

New PolicyCures report estimates that if the RTS,S malaria vaccine was developed 10yrs earlier — matching how long it took the R21 vaccine from P3 trials to use — an extra 2 million lives would've been saved d110txtih22jhy.cloudfront.net/The%20Impact... Why didn't we get a malaria vaccine sooner?