Tonight I “graduated” from a 5 year Future Leaders programme that was the brainchild and project of
@FabAcademic
. I thought about emailing you Prof, but I think it’s good sometimes to say things publicly too. 1/N
I am extremely grateful for
@CityofCT
right now! Apparently a developer broke a water pipe yesterday. They have had teams working all night and in the rain today to restore everyone’s water.
@Akshay_Mandl
@RainaBrands
Actually we always want to know about career gaps, it’s important to understand when people have dips in productivity what it means, so we do not make incorrect inferences. That is the whole point.
@FabAcademic
@SudeshSivarasu
It’s thanks to your investment in me that I launched my own research center, and have hired a brilliant woman who I know could step in and take over my programme if I were to leave suddenly. You asked me to replicate myself Prof and I’ve done it! 6/N
@FabAcademic
@SudeshSivarasu
But it will come. Slowly at first, and then all at once. I’m confident of that. Thank you Prof 🙏 and I apologize if my thread count is a disaster , I maybe should have sent an email 💃😝9/9
@FabAcademic
@SudeshSivarasu
You’ve helped secure a really solid long term future for research at UCT and if I can summarise the message we all had it is that we felt seen by you. You saw us and our potential and for that I am so grateful. Thank you. 7/N
It’s not my story to tell but
@FabAcademic
is why UCT has a mass spectrometer and a programme that is the only one like it on the continent. Your programme leveraged how many thousands of ventilators in covid made by
@SudeshSivarasu
and team. 5/N
You took a bunch of early(ish) career scholars and you backed us. I would have loved to have seen you tonight to close off this project with you. Just one more selfie is always needed. But since you weren’t there I want to share with you some things. 3/N
Each and every one of us could track the power we experienced when meeting with you, either 6:45 am or 7:15 am were our choices. Each of us was lifted, leveraged, supported and launched by the investment and belief you showed in us as scholars and future leaders. 4/N
@FabAcademic
@SudeshSivarasu
I hope the programme will grow in its strength and that I can serve it well as an alum. It will always be your project and we owe you that credit and gratitude for the new perspective you always brought to things at UCT, sometimes change is too slow and we are impatient. 8/N
@amirtibon
@Ellielifestyle_
Your whole thread broke me but somehow this last afterthought about your dog really made me cry. TG you are all alive. I hope you can find some emotional peace in the days that follow.
I’ve just emerged from sitting shiva, a week of intense mourning for my sister who passed away suddenly and with no warning. The day before I was to see her after a long painful gap. I don’t think I’ll ever be ok.
@DawieMokoena
If you were paying attention you would know that she was long an influencer and that is part of what made her so effective as VC! who do you think made education fashionable?
@FabAcademic
I was emotional driving home and thinking about making such a programme but not getting to see it through. I wanted to reach you and tell you that what you did here had impact! Profound impact. ❤️
New Zealand just approved a new measure allowing for paid leave after miscarriage. The legislation is believed to be among the first in the world, applying to couples who lose a baby at any point.
@martinmbauer
His meaning is pretty clear - it is not that the SM predicts consciousness, it is that there seems to have been no consciousness in the universe until relatively recently and everything that is conscious is made of quarks and leptons/SM particles. No predictions here.
The world is so connected. Nationalism will burn you eventually. Not enough vaccine coverage in Africa will eventually harm the rest of the world. Look out for the next variant coming to a store near you.
Covid cases are surging 20% week-on-week in Africa. "The sobering trajectory of surging cases should rouse everyone into urgent action," says Dr. Moeti, the WHO Africa director. "We’ve seen in India & elsewhere just how quickly COVID-19 can rebound and overwhelm health systems."
@OdedRechavi
There are now lists being circulated by mothers of which universities are safe and which are dangerous for Jews. Kids are withdrawing applications. The reactions to 7/10 may yet shape American universities in the coming decades similar to how WWII did.
Physics friends, registration for (Virtual)Strings 2020 is now OPEN. For the first time in its history, the annual Strings conference will be: (i) Completely ONLINE, (ii) Completely FREE & (iii) Hosted by an African university. Register now at
Well, 2 days of
@Schwarzenegger
emails in my inbox and I’m delighted! They are written entirely in his voice, I can hear him as I read, the advice makes sense, is uplifting, scientific and lovely! I’m delighted and enjoying telling my kids what The Terminator has to say!
Cosmology and Astronomy friends, please share widely and join us on Friday 25th 2pm SAST to celebrate the phenomenal
@carolune
Friday 25th November in the UWC Life Sciences Auditorium at 2pm SAST (with live streaming: ). 1/3
@HowardFeldman
@CyrilRamaphosa
@MYANC
The government has taken the wrong side on basically every international issue now for ages while absolutely destroying everything that works in SA. It’s time for serious change!
@SeamusBlackley
Ah, so sorry. Happens to us all it seems. I have been told to think scientifically when I explained the intuition behind Bayesian statistics, and how it works. Apparently building intuition for problems is hippie woo for moms, not science.
Finished my PhD 13 years ago! This was still valuable to listen to, start to finish. Students - listen to this! Find the rest of the series. This is valuable advice from the top.
This thread is unbelievable! CUNY students being subjected to propaganda and radicalisation and when one student calls out the speaker for getting the facts wrong, speaker gets irate, mumbles that the student is correct but that it is irrelevant and then the student gets booted!
I attended the CUNY 4 Palestine Teach-in on Tuesday on Palestinian Liberation and the Right of Return as Inseparable Anticolonial Demands. Today you will be seeing Anaheed Al-Hardan, Kaleem Hawa, Corinna Mullin and Saadia Toor
These people are Anti-Semitic Nuts!
🧵Thread 🧵
Here is a funding opportunity to join my department at the University of Cape Town as a postgrad student - fields include everything in pure and applied maths and also cosmology, gravity and astrophysics with me!
@uctmathsoc
@UCTpostgrads
@UCT_Research
Seeing scientists share thoroughly debunked fake news is possibly the straw that gets me off this platform for awhile. It is just not healthy to experience this much disappointment in people all at once.
And is currently on fully paid leave (with all benefits) while the pandemic rages on, and the president thinks about forming a committee to organize a workshop to discuss the general area of the problem, followed by a billion rand commission of inquiry to be resolved in 2030.
Ok, so help me understand:
A sitting Minister of Health appointed a company, headed by a petrol pump attendant, to filch money intended for saving lives, so his son could open a hair & nail salon??
Ok, just checking...
Elsevier’s scientific publishing arm reported profits of £724 million on £2 billion in revenue - a 36% profit margin—higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon- where authors generate the “product”, pay open-access fees, reviewers peer review for free & institutions pay to access 🤯
I wonder if any senior woman has gone unscathed? I don't like to speak publicly about these things but since I did not want to move cities, I instead started my own group & it has taken years, but wow my life is transformed and I see the benefit multiplied for my students.
A story (triggered by the latest UCL Physics ‘news’):
Many years ago I resigned from a (permanent) lectureship in another UK Physics department. The Physics & Maths departments were phenomenally supportive but HR refused to address issues. (1/3)
@astroboy_moreno
It’s a fallacy to believe that belief in astrology comes from a lack of access to intellectual spaces. It’s insulting even, and far more elitist. You should reflect on why you assume intellectual spaces end a belief in astrology.
The most positive I have gotten out of Twitter is undoubtedely
#Arnoldspumpclub
. Aside from
@Schwarzenegger
being brilliant and delightful, the advice is spot on scientifically and all positive. It is so worth singing up for the newsletter.
@OdedRechavi
It’s incredibly painful, I am with you. Today I found 2) people who know they are signing letters with false “facts” but they think it doesn’t matter because of the feelings. I could never trust papers with their names. Eye opening!
The most high performing academics I know are not particularly fit people and don't waste much time exercising.
It's just that "lift weights" is easy advice to give and follow, while "find a way to engage emotionally with your work to the point of obsession" is not.
2 postdoctoral positions available in my research group
@HEPCATgroup
at
@UCT_Research
! Colleagues, Tweeps, please share widely and encourage suitable people to apply !
My OhD student submitted her thesis today, I could not be more proud. She started in my orbit as a first year undergraduate student and despite many forays out in the world she always found her way back to me.
"Duplicative language". My PhD student had his degree delayed by a year because he reused a paragraph from his Masters introduction in his PhD introduction, including citing himself. UCT clearly FAR more rigorous than Harvard.
The NYT asked Harvard faculty:
“Few of those who saw the accusations as potentially serious were willing to speak on the record. But some who said they were troubled also noted that students were often punished, sometimes harshly, for similar infractions.”
Roughly 15% of known pregnancy end in miscarriage. ~600% increase in miscarriages would mean that no pregnancies end in live births. How can you claim a 4070% increase?? 🫣😩
There has been a 4070% increase in miscarriages and stillbirths since the release of the experimental mRNA vaccines, according to VAERS data.
Please retweet.
Let’s save as many lives as possible.
The brightest stars burn the fastest, I will miss you forever
@carolune
, but find you in the beauty of nature all around, the celestial skies above us and reflected in your awesome sons.
To be entirely clear - 2 Rage attendees went knowing they had tested positive in the week before. Their parents let them go. They chose to go. 848 people got sick there - the second wave seems to have been triggered.
Anatomy of a super-spreader event: "The investigation revealed that two of the Rage attendees had positive SARS-CoV-2 results before the Rage but still proceeded to attend the event." (source: NICD report today)
The idea that men hunt while women stay at home is at the root of many gendered assumptions about the way societies operate, but a review of the data shows this is wrong.
I voted today, so she can have a safe future in South Africa. The next generation need this from us. There is still 40 minutes till voting closes. Vote!!
@_love_holly_
She wrote an article claiming that one of the biggest stars of all of our childhood's has zero chance of achieving the fame of Combs (who even is he?). This article is not the truth, it is gaslighting an entire generation of Tracy Chapman fans!
@ShMMor
Morally bankrupt. Imagine not just thinking this but posting it on Twitter thinking her followers will just love her shaming someone who is suffering though a terrorist driven war.
@rainbowdefault
@dieworkwear
Not a chance! Guy on the right looks elegant, guy on the left, the suit makes creases and shapes that just aren’t very flattering.
I can cosign this as someone who advises MSc and PhD students and as a parent dealing with the bizarre way that schools dish out arbitrary homework, testing and grades.
After advising PhD & Master students for over a decade, there is one thing I find most students need to unlearn: the half-ass work mentality acquired during years of tests and homework. Let me explain (thread 🧵). 1/N
#AcademicTwitter
@JackD157
@SAPoliceService
@MYANC
student protests were no smaller and police had no hesitation firing rubber bullets and teargas at students. Are SAPS overwhelmed? or given orders not to act?
@AstroKatie
Today I got an auto reply saying the person was busy with the usual academic stuff so they would have intermittent email access from June to December ! This after a similar message from Jan to May. Possibly genius, am not yet sure.
@ThomasVanRiet2
On this, I totally disagree. It is more like a parabola. Past a certain career point/age a lot of people give opaque messy talks because they never learnt to make careful keynotes or they never needed to communicate well and so they are not going to start now.
I have never taken follow or unfollow things to heart, but just realised someone I like and respect (thought it was mutual) unfollowed me, and I am left wondering what content I share triggered it. Oh well. I am not taking this to heart either!
I spent much of my childhood worried about nuclear war. Yet I never could have guessed I’d be worrying again, doomscrolling late at night, thinking about all the brave people of Ukraine trying to save their freedom and statehood, our third year into a pandemic.
@ThomasVanRiet2
Have you actually seen the footage of the hospital? It was not blown up at all. Why would you share and sign a document with at best propaganda and at worst explicit lies? Really undermines respect in scientists. For shame!
The University of Cape Town
@UCT_news
has been in my life for so many decades now. My first degrees are from UCT, I am now a senior academic staff member and I love the place, but I finally have to speak out a bit. 1/manyovertime
#UCTAcademicsStrike
Fun fact: "The difference between the masses of the top quark and the electron is equivalent to the difference between the masses of an adult elephant and a mosquito."
@WKCosmo
@cosmicfibretion
@martinmbauer
I feel it’s really broken and was so excited to see you had a list for me to see some light! Shocked I’m on it and crushed it’s so short 😭
Sunday I suffered a very traumatic injury. I dislocated my shoulder in an accident and I’ll be honest, it was bad 0/10 do not recommend. It was an emergency and an ordeal. The ordeal I did not expect.. getting
@Discovery_SA
to pay for it as the emergency AND PMB that it was/is.
My entire Twitter feed went from Titan to coup in Russia in the blink of an eye. All those acoustics deep sea high pressure sub experts are back to being experts on Russian military.
My research group
@HEPCATgroup
has funding for a PhD position and postdoctoral position(s), available to start in 2019! Please check out how to apply here and circulate widely!