Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Jun 24

As a mathematician it’s not often you get a field trip, but today’s office was a definite improvement. First day of a collaboration with colleagues @forestresearchuk.bsky.social and been wandering round trees discussing disease spread.

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · May 23

As a former J visa holder, solidarity to all the students, postdocs and researchers suddenly finding themselves cut adrift.

chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · May 22

It's F and J visas

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 30

Out on strike today. Didn’t make it to the @sheffielducu.bsky.social pickets as taking child to hospital (all fine) but looks like great turnouts as ever. Asking for a time-limited ruling out of compulsory redundancies really seems like a small ask, and yet here we are.

Sheffield UCU @sheffielducu.bsky.social · Apr 30

Our members out in force today! 👊

Picket line outside the Jessop west building in the sunshine

Picket line outside the geography and planning building in the sunshine

Picket line outside the arts tower in the sunshine

Picket line outside firth court in the sunshine

2

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 24

The cover of Help after it's been put through the abstract thought machine in Inside Out.

1

Reposted by Alex Best

Nik Cunniffe @nikcunniffe.bsky.social · Apr 23

Fully funded PhD project (UK applicants only) "Developing strategies for the control of ergot on-farm" #planthealth #plantpathology at @niab-uk.bsky.social and @camplantsci.bsky.social www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/postgraduate... Note the short deadline. @bspp.bsky.social

1 8 2

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 22

I've known about this a little while now but was v nervous about tempting fate before everything had got the sign off!

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 22

V happy to announce my 1st grant in a looong time! "Integrating spatial structure & seasonality into forest disease models" (EPSRC small grant). I'll spend 12 mths modelling disease spread through forest pops, incl working with @forestresearchuk.bsky.social to specifically model Dothistroma in pines

An image representing disease spread through a stand of trees. Image shows a 15x17 grid of cells. The bottom row are all black. The other cells are a mix of red and blue, with a trend of red cells towards the bottom and blue towards the top. Title of 'Month 55'.

Photo of a field of small pine trees. Trees are planted in clear lines. Small strip of sky at the top.

1 5

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 17

On a related note, I wonder what the record is for papers published and still not promoted from L to SL? I suspect I'm getting close.

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 17

Pleased to see our paper out on modelling how host-parasite coevolution might play out if the host can itself simultaneously evolve constitutive and induced defences. This project came out of a side conversation during my Fulbright scholarship (y'know, back when those weren't being slashed...)

Journal of Evolutionary Biology @jevbio.bsky.social · Mar 27

Host defence to parasites can be constitutive (always present) or induced (only activated after infection). How do these coevolve with each other and also with parasite growth? @bestieboy.bsky.social, Sarah Guth and Mike Boots investigated using theoretical models:

academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Apr 17

Pleased to see our paper out on modelling how host-parasite coevolution might play out if the host can itself simultaneously evolve constitutive and induced defences. This project came out of a side conversation during my Fulbright scholarship (y'know, back when those weren't being slashed...)

Journal of Evolutionary Biology @jevbio.bsky.social · Mar 27

Host defence to parasites can be constitutive (always present) or induced (only activated after infection). How do these coevolve with each other and also with parasite growth? @bestieboy.bsky.social, Sarah Guth and Mike Boots investigated using theoretical models:

academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

The coevolution of parasite virulence and host investment in constitutive and induced defence

Abstract. Given their ubiquity in nature and their importance to human and agricultural health, it is important to gain a better understanding of the drive

academic.oup.com

4 38

Reposted by Alex Best

Kayla King, Ph.D. @kayla-king.bsky.social · Mar 31

Come join us at beautiful UBC! The King Lab is recruiting a Post-doc Fellow to develop mathematical theory on infectious disease evolution and emergence, together with Ben Ashby (SFU) #zoonoses #biodiversity www.zoology.ubc.ca/kinglab/join...

Join Us! | King Lab

Are you interested in joining the King Lab? More information here!

www.zoology.ubc.ca

1 87 76

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 27

It gives me a lot of joy to see this paper. I am not an author and it does not cite me. But the lead author was part of my first ever group of undergraduate tutees. To have seen Abby all the way through her undergrad and now publishing research - especially in my broad field - is something special.

SMB - Society for Mathematical Biology @smbmathbiology.bsky.social · Mar 10

Here's a recent #BulletinMathBio paper by Abby Barlow, Sarah Penington, and Ben Adams on Epidemiological Dynamics in Populations Structured by Neighbourhoods and Households.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Epidemiological Dynamics in Populations Structured by Neighbourhoods and Households - Bulletin of Mathematical Biology

Epidemiological dynamics are affected by the spatial and demographic structure of the host population. Households and neighbourhoods are known to be important groupings but little is known about the e...

link.springer.com

1 7

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 24

Seeing this in the news reminded me how when Mrs B (then my girlfriend) first visited my family in Norfolk we said we’d go to Sea Palling for the day and she thought we were going to see some relative she’d not heard about called Pauline

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Holiday home owners threaten decades-old way of life for Norfolk fishers

Incomers claim use of a field for storing boats is creating too much noise and district council has sided with them

www.theguardian.com

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 21

Really sorry to see this Flo. Some people are idiots. Solidarity.

3

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 20

Hard agree with this. I was lucky enough to just get my first research-focussed grant in 10 years. The thought that this could just be whisked away again on a whim by anonymous higher-ups is pretty awful. Full solidarity with all US colleagues going through this right now.

Dr Ellie Murray, ScD @epiellie.bsky.social · Mar 19

It is *so* hard to get NIH funding.

I can’t imagine how awful it must feel to have finally gotten the grant that lets you do the meaningful research you want to do and then have it ripped away.

2

Reposted by Alex Best

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Mar 19

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world.

 I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

38 940 2.6K

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 19

In the last 3 weeks I have had 6 review requests. What is going on?

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 4

How are we mean to keep up with all this crazy shit. Or is that the whole plan?

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · Mar 4

ahhhhhhhhhh

A tweet from Trump that reads “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter”

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Mar 3

Wow it's been an intense start to the year. Starting to level off now thankfully and will have bits of news to share shortly.

First update - it was the Yorkshire Area brass band contest at the weekend and we was robbed.

2

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Feb 4

This goes against everything I've seen about good practice in HE teaching. Since many students have significant anxiety that would be aggravated by 'cold calling', we're encouraged to never do this. Plenty of ways to get good engagement without resorting to this I think.

Thoughts?

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Feb 4

Eldest's high school are proudly sending out weekly summaries of their key teaching techniques. Last week was 'cold calling' - teachers will randomly choose students to answer questions and *all* students should expect to be called on. /1

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Jan 9

How does your email find me? Wearing an oodie and a heated blanket, that's how.

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Dec 19

A student actually came and shook my hand at today's last lecture of the semester. Where do I put that on my cv?

2

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Dec 13

I hear some of you sometimes get grants. What’s that like then?

1 4

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Dec 6

See (somewhere nearby) ball, hit ball

From memory this was a hit and an RBI so I'll take it

1

Alex Best @bestieboy.bsky.social · Dec 6

We're doing projectile motion today and I feel the students have suffered enough through the semester that they get to see an embarrassing picture of me as a visual aid

A man hitting a baseball, with a silly look on his face

1 1