Jan Gogarten
@jangogarten.bsky.social
1.2K followers 900 following 89 posts
Evolutionary community ecologist interested in disease emergence. Work with environmental DNA, primates, bacteriophages. Like bicycles. Heading a junior research group at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health.
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jangogarten.bsky.social
Hello! I am new + while I know some of you from real life or the giant dumpster fire around which we formerly shared tweets, I wanted to make a little introductory post (skeet?). I am a disease ecologist + evolutionary biologist broadly interested in disease emergence + community assembly.
Reposted by Jan Gogarten
michaelianblack.bsky.social
We're already at the hiding people from the secret police phase?
Reposted by Jan Gogarten
davelevitan.bsky.social
EXTREMELY COOL BAT STUFF: A study out in Science today found that the greater noctule bat, Europe's largest, hunts and catches *migrating birds* while in flight. In at least one case, a bat climbed to more than 1200 feet, then chased a robin downward FAST until it caught it near the ground.
Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight
Despite billions of passerines seasonally migrating during the night at high altitudes, only three bat species have been found to consistently tap into this rich prey resource. However, it remains unk...
www.science.org
Reposted by Jan Gogarten
jangogarten.bsky.social
The NSF GRFP was a huge help for me along my academic journey - and I had to apply multiple times to get there. These last minute changes to eligibility are cruel and if you are impacted - please do sign.

laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
Petition to NSF to Restore Eligibility for the 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program Competition
laurenkuehne.github.io
Reposted by Jan Gogarten
helmholtz-hioh.bsky.social
New study by the Institut Pasteur de Bangui and HIOH examines CAR #mpox outbreaks via genomic #epidemiology. High frequencies of independent spillovers highlight the need to strengthen systematic surveillance & identify animal sources to prevent future outbreaks www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Three researchers preparing samples for high-throughput sequencing in the laboratories of the Genomic Surveillance Platform of the Institut Pasteur de Bangui.
jangogarten.bsky.social
I hope there is a good way though to create a easily accessible and useable collection of all the efforts people are making - would be great to see :)
jangogarten.bsky.social
These sorts of data on the other hand are perhaps less likely to be used by most of the data generators - so there might be less uptake to upload and figure out the process? Not sure though what the psychology is.
jangogarten.bsky.social
Mandates to make sequence data available also did wonders and perhaps that’ll work down the line, once uptake has shown it to be a community resource people bought into. I feel like sequence databases worked well in part also because sequence generators were also publishing using other’s sequences.
jangogarten.bsky.social
And acknowledging all the work data generators are doing to drive meta analyses forward seems fair somehow. Even if just for the ,here is this resource introduction paper’ for a database. Bringing field people and lab folks into these efforts from the ground up might help if they weren’t already.
jangogarten.bsky.social
But I guess the idea of doing all of this is that folks can use the data to do publishable things with them - and I imagine you will have an idea or two for meta analyses too ;) All that to say, publications are a key metric for many and might be a better motivator than 20$ but just an idea.
jangogarten.bsky.social
‘Their work’ not ‘they work’ - baby induced exhaustion :)
jangogarten.bsky.social
What about offering co-authorship in exchange for people’s efforts generating, curating, and sharing the data that is the building block for all sorts of analyses? So much time and effort goes into they work - I think that would be much more likely to generate interest than 20$ - and seems fair?
Reposted by Jan Gogarten
hansonmark.bsky.social
If I could change one thing about #ScientificPublishing I'd ask funding bodies to stipulate all work they fund be published in non-profit journals.

The knock-on effects would alleviate most of the strain on #AcademicSky.

This isn't hard. It's big, but actually, it's pretty easy.

1/n
The strain on scientific publishing
Abstract. Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. The total number of articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has grown exponentially in recent years; ...
direct.mit.edu
jangogarten.bsky.social
P.S. Perhaps @ankerofficial.bsky.social have a double check of all the AI interactions down the line to make sure the right call was made... and they would have reached out anyway to correct things if I hadn't had that weird gut feeling. But I kind of doubt it...
jangogarten.bsky.social
We need a warning - hey this is only an AI - if you feel it is broken just scream "HELP MY AI IS HALLUCINATING" and we'll put you in touch with Ethan. Ethan is great - and helped solve my problem quickly and well. We need more Ethans in customer service and less #AI. /End rant.
jangogarten.bsky.social
Doesn't this open companies up to a huge legal risk because AI is doing the job so badly? And most weird about the whole thing - they never let me know I was dealing with an AI until things fell apart. Their AI was trained on lots of email interactions of customers with humans - it mimicked these.
jangogarten.bsky.social
I wouldn't be satisfied with my team if they dropped the ball like this. Is it just because AI is so cheap to spin up that a few lawsuits down the line are worth the risk of using it? Or do companies not realize how badly these machines deal with complexity and the risk they are taking on?
jangogarten.bsky.social
This interaction left me deeply unsettled. How can a company use AI to tell people if their device is safe to keep in the house or might catch fire spontaneously. If it can make these kinds of errors - shouldn't that disqualify it from making decisions?
jangogarten.bsky.social
And only at that stage did the AI decide a human should get involved because it realized it dug a hole... they put me in touch with helpful service rep, Ethan, who let me know that their AI had just made the whole check of my serial number up. My device was part of the recall and not safe. Oops.
Dear Jan Gogarten,

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the recall of your Anker PowerCore 1000mAh. We are sorry to hear that you are not able to submit the recall due to the shipping address issue. Sorry, AI's response misled you. Your A1263 product is included in the recall scope.

Unfortunately, we are not able to send the replacement to the provided shipping address due to the shipping limitations for the battery. 

May I know if it is possible for you to provide a Continental U.S. physical address for the replacement? If not, we suggest you place an order in our Amazon store. We will issue a $30 refund on your new order in the same way as your original purchase. You can provide the order number to proceed once the order goes through.

Thanks for your time. If you have other concerns, please let us know.

Reference TicketTNJ624485021 if contacting a CSR
Ethan
jangogarten.bsky.social
So on a whim, I decided to follow up, despite customer service's assurance my product was safe. I asked for a confirmation of my serial number, which they said they used to make the decision my device was safe. A quick double check, because of a weird gut feeling.
Hi Anker,

Are you sure? Could you let me know what the SN number on the device was as I can't read it. 

Jan
jangogarten.bsky.social
But on walk with the baby, I wondered how they deciphered my serial number from the crappy photo I sent - or did they get the get info from my order number? Had I actually been talking to a human (like I asked to) or was their AI just generating typical text for these kinds of scenarios?
jangogarten.bsky.social
And they responded, no my powerbank isn't part of the recall and it is confirmed to be safe based on the SN/Order number provided. And at first I thought - okay great - this saves me time and is better for the planet (yay no new battery needed). End of story - let's get back to changing diapers!
Dear Jan Gogarten,

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the recall of your Anker PowerCore 10000 power bank (Model, A1263).

We understand your concerns. You can rest assured that only a small number of batteries may be affected by this issue. Your device is confirmed to be safe based on the SN/Order number you provided.

We appreciate your understanding.

Ticket#TNJ624485021