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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦

@tirscienceblog.bsky.social

300 followers 460 following 290 posts

Blog about the human side of #science, by Brooke Morriswood (formerly Cam Biochem, CIMR,MRC-LMB,Yale, MFPL, UniWue, now #MedComms). Commentary, silliness, & how-to guides for improving young scientists’ soft skills. https://totalinternalreflectionblog.com

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Dec 22

Looking for help? TIR has a whole category of "How to..." postings focusing on soft skills in science: writing papers, giving presentations, starting a lab, asking questions in seminars, critical reading, etc. Suggestions for future postings welcome... totalinternalreflectionblog.com/category/how...

How to… – Total Internal Reflection

Posts about How to… written by Brooke Morriswood

totalinternalreflectionblog.com

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · 16d

Congrats Izzy! 🥳👏

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Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦

Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 18d

Again Bouie from the top rope

Here I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 address at Cooper Union, where he defends his opposition to the expansion of slavery. Responding to Southern critics who insisted that the Republican Party was a conspiracy to abolish slavery, Lincoln said that the truth of the situation was that there was nothing either Republicans or the entire North could say, short of outright submission to the slave South, that would calm Southern anger or assuage the South’s paranoia:

What will convince them? This, and this only: Cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them.
We can say something similar of our time. Neither Trump nor the MAGA right wants to discuss or deliberate; it wants to dominate. American politics is no longer a fight over policy; it is a fight over the character of the nation itself. The task of this moment, then, is to defend the old vision of a more perfect union — of a more democratic and egalitarian American republic — not hope that one can avoid the fight by having the right conversation.

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · 19d

#COYS 🤩🏉 Club rugby is back 😊

A screenshot of the game tracker for Northampton Saints vs Saracens in the PREM Rugby Cup. Saints won 49-34.

Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 22d

Lovely to see David Stephens highlighted in 100 years of cell biologists at J. Cell Sci., alongside Linda Amos, Peter Medawar, Juan Bonifacino, and others
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

‘First Persons’ through the decades – 100 years of notable scientists in Journal of Cell Science

Summary: JCS highlights the lives and careers of 10 notable scientists from around the world who published first author papers in our journal over the last 100 years.

journals.biologists.com

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Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦

Academic Abuse @academicabuse.com · 24d

Hi, I’m Julie Cruse. I created AcademicAbuse.com – a dashboard of data, resources & tools to help survivors of academic abuse survive and safely speak out. (1/9 🧵)

🪜 🎓 📜 🍎 ♀️ 👩🏾🔬 👩🏼🔬 👩🏾🎓 #PhDSky #Blackademia #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #MeToo #HigherEd #PhDChat #TimesUpHigherEd

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · 26d

Not just that. It’s good and appropriate that success shifts one’s baseline expectations, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of an anchor point. YOU HAD A BOOK PUBLISHED!!! 🥳🎉👏 That’s amazing (and I’m still jealous 😅)

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · 27d

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mold to suffer the Sclerotiniaceae of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of toxins and by opposing, end them 🤪

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 7

I hear you.😊For me, this was one of the best things about becoming a parent. Letting go of an absolute need to have success in academia may make you more likely to be successful,because you no longer fear the consequences of failure to the same degree👇 totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2019/04/18/k...

Kids and Kardashians

Starting a family is something that’s often presented as a risk in career terms. In fact, it may actually turn you into a better risk-taker.

totalinternalreflectionblog.com

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 6

Ironically, the very post announcing this detail only has a Twitter/X share button, not a Bluesky one 😳😂

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 6

Wonderful but unsurprising news: #Bluesky is trumping Twitter/X for the dissemination/discussion of scientific research 🥳🎉🍾 Let’s all keep it up! Since the scattering of the #ScienceTwitter community it’s great to feel things coalescing here 😊

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Research posts on Bluesky are more original — and get better engagement

Bluesky posts about science garner more likes and reposts than similar ones on X.

www.nature.com

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 5

Friday night’s over, folks! Have a good weekend. Turnstile for tonight’s end credits 🤩

youtu.be/a95G2GzB3t0?...

TURNSTILE - SEEIN’ STARS / BIRDS [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

YouTube video by Turnstile

youtu.be

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 5

Source is legit too. It’s here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37640567/

Sick as a dog? The prevalence, politicization, and health policy consequences of canine vaccine hesitancy (CVH) - PubMed

Canine vaccine hesitancy (CVH) can be thought about as dog owners' skepticism about the safety and efficacy of administering routine vaccinations to their dogs. CVH is problematic not only because it ...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is wild…somehow I had never thought to join the dots to this particular permutation before. The wealth of neurological conditions in inbred dogs, vaccines hesitancy in humans, and vaccine/autism paranoia being extended from children to companion animals. 😂, 🤯, or 😭? I can’t decide 👇

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 3

Agreed 😭 And this is why the chainsaw was such an apt symbol for this wanton destruction - because you can cut a tree down in minutes, but regrowing it takes decades 👇 totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2025/03/05/c...

Chainsaw massacre

There’s a reason why the chainsaw is such an apt symbol for the current assault on American science: because you can cut a tree down in minutes, but growing it back takes decades.

totalinternalreflectionblog.com

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 2

@ourworldindata.org continues to be one of the best things not just on BlueSky, but on the internet (sign up for their data alerts!). Which of these transitions is the more profound: 1800-1850 candles to gas, or 1900-1950 gas to electricity? 🤩🤯👇

Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · Aug 29

From candles to electrons: changing lighting sources in the United Kingdom

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Sep 1

Scrolling up a page to recap something is waaaaay more convenient than rewinding/forwarding to try to relocate audio/video content too 👍

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 30

Fantastic 🧵with all the caveats you need to remember when confronted with #RNAseq hype trains 🤩👇

Wildtype One @wildtypeone.bsky.social · Aug 30

Don't fall into the trap.

Here are 5 corrections to keep in mind when interpreting RNAseq data:

(a thread)

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 29

Hand on heart, I still regard this as one of the best - maybe THE BEST - #DnB mix I own. #JohnB 😍

The cover of the MixMag free Trance n’ Bass mixCD, mixed by John B in 2002.

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 27

Proof (and recognition) that you can genuinely have a revolutionary impact on science without necessarily following the academic career track 😊👏👏👏 Congratulations @richardsever.bsky.social !

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · Aug 27

Very honored to receive the Royal Society Research Culture Award - this represents the work of a great team who've worked non-stop since we launched bioRxiv in 2013 royalsociety.org/news/2025/08... www.cshl.edu/inglis-and-s...

Invisibility cloak pioneer Sir John Pendry awarded Royal Society’s top prize | Royal Society

The Royal Society announces the medals and awards recipients 2025

royalsociety.org

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Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦

Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · Aug 26

"But to have only confidence is to become Macbeth*."
@tirscienceblog.bsky.social is right, if for no other reason than the catastrophic cleaning bills

network.febs.org/posts/doubtf...

Doubtful confidence

The most important equilibrium in research isn’t chemical, it’s psychological.

network.febs.org

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 26

Powerful, typically eloquent, and deeply troubling editorial from @berndpulverer.bsky.social ( @embopress.org ) on the ongoing attacks on #academics and #academia itself in the USA. 👇
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Student hostages in culture war | EMBO reports

EMBO Press is an editorially independent publishing platform for the development of EMBO scientific publications.

www.embopress.org

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 25

Latest cross-posting to the @febspress.bsky.social Network, on why the most important equilibrium in #science isn't chemical, but psychological 👇
network.febs.org/posts/doubtf...

Doubtful confidence

The most important equilibrium in research isn’t chemical, it’s psychological.

network.febs.org

Reposted by Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦

Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · Aug 23

'Like a species pushed to the edges of its habitat by an encroaching newcomer, parents can find respite only in the most inhospitable times of day, the moments when you’d rather be in bed, or relaxing. Or sleeping.'
@tirscienceblog.bsky.social
totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2025/08/22/a...

At the ends of the day

One of the hardest things with active parenting is that you’re usually robbed of the hours when you’re at your most alert and creative.

totalinternalreflectionblog.com

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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 22

New posting! This one's about work and active #parenting, and how that tends to leave little time for other activities...like blogging 😅👇
totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2025/08/22/a...

At the ends of the day

One of the hardest things with active parenting is that you’re usually robbed of the hours when you’re at your most alert and creative.

totalinternalreflectionblog.com

Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦 @tirscienceblog.bsky.social · Aug 21

Sounds amazing, congratulations! Do you think this will be the moment that (notoriously tricky) anti-lipid antibodies will be retired as reagents?

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