Catherine Sheard

@sheardcat.bsky.social

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#NewPI @ University of Aberdeen

professionally: macroevolution, especially birds & languages

personally: drinks too much coffee, plays too much D&D

she/her

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Catherine Sheard

Covid is SURGING right now & NO ONE is paying attention. Freaking French Cyclists have mandated masking... if Olympic-level healthy athletes want to avoid it, what chance do you think YOU have to avoid Long Covid or WORSE?!?! Masks work against all variants! www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour-de...

I keep seeing surprised posts "Huh, I went to [insert event, conference, club, on an airplane, the Sphere] and got COVID!" Meanwhile CNN is running headlines saying "COVID-19's Back." Friends, it never, ever went away and I'm still masking in indoor spaces for your protection as well as my own.

Tour de France reintroduces mask mandate amid COVID-19 concernswww.cyclingnews.com New measure follows spate of abandons due to coronavirus

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Catherine Sheard

This is astounding. Over about 10 years the use of the livestock drug diclofenac wiped out nearly 50 million vultures. The result was spread of disease among humans causing an estimated half a million deaths. Just tragic all around. www.science.org/content/arti...

Loss of India’s vultures may have led to deaths of half a million peoplewww.science.org Find could offer lessons for conserving key species in other places

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Catherine Sheard

13yo and I are amusing ourselves at breakfast by looking up “raccoon” on google translate and seeing how many languages were like “yup, that’s a bear doing its laundry” - German: Waschbär (washbear) - Danish: vaskebjørn (wash bear) - Bulgarian: миеща мечка (washing machine bear)

My GP medical practice lists their telephone number and their hours of operation. Sounds simple, right? I call the number. I'm told it's an outdated number. Please call a different number. I call *that* number. I'm told this line is only open until 12:15, please call back later. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Did you know that over 75 million people speak the language known as West African Pidgin? That's more than the population of the UK. 😀 And yes, it is a 'real' language (whatever the heck that means). www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/w...

The BBC in Pidgin? People Like It Well-Well (Published 2017)www.nytimes.com The British broadcaster, once a bastion of “received pronunciation,” has learned that if it wants to reach new audiences, it needs to try new approaches.

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Catherine Sheard

Something policymakers still refuse to understand is that if you get COVID twice a year, you could be sick for ~4 weeks. And that's before even factoring Long COVID. That's a lot of lost productivity, and is a huge survival threat for people with lower income.

Animal behaviour researchers! Sally Street (Durham) is conducting a study on perceptions of other species, and would love to get a few more participants. There are cute animal pictures! durhamuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Animal Perceptionsdurhamuniversity.qualtrics.com Short experiment & survey: perceptions of animal behaviour

There was a fascinating phenomenon over the weekend on that other place where a former postdoc posted a screenshot of their google scholar page and acknowledged (some of) their privilege in achieving that. And then academic twitter lost their collective minds.

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Catherine Sheard

Well this is grim

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Catherine Sheard

For those who don't know: this is James Timpson of Timpson key cutters/shoe repairs/dry cleaners. His company employs ex-convicts and even runs work training programmes in prisons. Genuinely inspired choice.

Oh, now that *is* interesting - James Timpson as minister for prisons, parole and probation. Dare we actually hope for something that might reduce recidivism?

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Catherine Sheard

EARLY VIEW in IBIS Body mass, diet, foraging strata and foraging behaviour predict variation in the propensity to join mixed-species flocks across birds | onlinelibrary.wiley.... Guy Beauchamp, G. Giselle Mangini | #ornithology

Data checking can be so entertaining sometimes. Q: What's the average litter size? A: 0.8 offspring. Q: How often does this (mammal) species give birth? A: Once every 468 years.

if nothing else this is the first graph I've seen today that acknowledges, y'know, that Northern Ireland exists, sooooo

The people have spoken. Sort of.

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Catherine Sheard

Cool Thing for today: an official Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) dub of Star Wars: A New Hope debuts in Winnipeg next month, August 8, and will stream at some point on Disney+! www.youtube.com/shorts/OPVVb...

Ojibwe Dub of Star Warswww.youtube.com

so over the weekend, on the Other Site, I posted something totally inane and included a gif, because why not. Today(!), I noticed that instead of the gif I thought I had included on that tweet, I had instead clicked something TOTALLY RANDOM AND WEIRD omgggg. sigh.

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Catherine Sheard

"The new report provides an evidence-based critique of a recent independent review in the U.K., known as the “Cass Review,” that has become central to U.S. litigation." This article is important in itself, but also as a reminder that "postcolonial" US law remains entangled in English legal thinking.

A damning joint report by Yale Law School and Yale Medicine finds the UK's Cass Review "levies unsupported assertions about gender identity, gender dysphoria, standard practices, and safety of gender-affirming medical treatments, and it repeats claims that have been disproved by sound evidence.”

Report Addresses Key Issues in Legal Battles over Gender-Affirming Health Carelaw.yale.edu A new report from The Integrity Project provides an evidence-based critique of a recent independent review that has become central to U.S. litigation regarding health care for transgender youth.

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Catherine Sheard

This is a wild amount of money that we are talking about. The average post doc salary in the UK is circa £40k. The NHS surcharge of c. £1k per year, up front, makes me understand why folks have been struggle to recruit in the UK. www.theguardian.com/education/ar...

Top scientists turning down UK jobs over ‘tax on talent’, says Wellcome bosswww.theguardian.com Next government urged to lower upfront visa costs that are 17 times higher than international average

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Catherine Sheard

einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter: (1) your haters are trash (2) you’re a baller, a true queen (3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️

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Catherine Sheard

Last night was a shitshow, but I'd still vote for the one who struggles to finish a sentence but has done more for climate than anyone in recent memory over the convicted felon who cannot utter a truthful sentence. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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Catherine Sheard

Virtual #Evol2024: If you have to miss a talk that looks interesting to you (bad for your time zone; another speaker at the same time; non-conference life conflict; etc), most speakers have OKed their talks being recorded. After they're processed, you can replay previous sessions from the lobby.

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Catherine Sheard

Just FYI we’re entering a summer Covid wave right now (especially western regions in the US); you can see it in the CDC wastewater plot here (and anecdotally a bunch of my friends are suddenly testing positive). www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVI...

Wastewater COVID-19 National and Regional Trendswww.cdc.gov CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System, U.S. National trends

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Catherine Sheard

Breaking: All Americans ages 6 months and older should receive one of the new Covid-19 vaccines when they become available this fall, scientific advisers to the CDC said on Thursday. www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/h...

New Covid Shots Recommended for Americans 6 Months and Older This Fallwww.nytimes.com As the virus continues to mutate, scientific advisers to the C.D.C. are urging Americans to roll up their sleeves again for annual vaccinations.

My experience of #evol2024 so far -- whoops!

Electricity company (EC) letter: Hello, we overcharged you. Call this number to get a refund. Me: Hello! I would like my refund. EC: Oh, that refund's not for you. Me: Oh? EC: It's for the occupier. Me: I am the occupier. EC: No, the occupier is the person responsible for the bills. Me: I am???

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Catherine Sheard

🏳️‍🌈 Summer Camp for Trans and Non-Binary Kids 🏳️‍⚧️ It's hard for me to even imagine how life-changing and life-affirming it would have been to go to a trans summer camp growing up.

Our Story - Harbor Camps for trans & non-binary youthharborcamps.org Harbor Camps was the first-ever summer camp established for transgender and non-binary/gender-nonconforming youth. Harbor Camps was founded in 2009 by Nick M. Teich, PhD, LCSW, as a nonprofit organiza...

I am reviewing the most BEAUTIFULLY written manuscript holy cow. Whoever you are, I want to write science like you, please and thank you. (Earlier today I was reviewing a different manuscript, which I'm like 80% sure was written by AI. Swings and roundabouts.)

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Catherine Sheard

Since Victoria was on throne there have been numerous studies, hundreds of articles and statistics, millions of kids... Yet still it's supposed to be news to learn that - would you believe it? - growing up in poverty has a negative effect on your life.

Poorer high-ability UK children fall behind peers at school from age of 11

Poorer high-ability UK children fall behind peers at school from age of 11www.theguardian.com Study finds critical period between ages of 11 and 14 is when ‘things seem to start going wrong’ compared with wealthier group

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Catherine Sheard

Here’s a miracle solution: stop fuckin doing it

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Catherine Sheard

Every academic article has a corresponding author whose email address is listed on the first page. If an article is paywalled, just send a short, polite email requesting a PDF from the author. 95% of the time you’ll receive it within a day. People like knowing their work is being read!

ok i have another quote tweet prompt. what's something, big or small, related to your job or hobby, that most people don't know that you would like to have them know? it can be a concept, a piece of history, some vocabulary, or something else.

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Catherine Sheard

New injection is 100% successful at preventing HIVwww.cnbc.com