Adam Retchless

Biologist currently focusing on genomic epidemiology, public health, pathogen evolution, and bioinformatics.

I intend to keep this account professional, with occasional tangential topics or other things that strike my fancy.

Opinions are my own. 'Boosts' are FYIs, not endorsements.

Profile picture is Benjamin Franklin.

#microbiology #viruses #vaccines #evolution #covid #RSV #PublicHealth #pathogens #science

profession: microbiologist
location: GA, USA

Last Notes

2026-07-22 10:23:44 GMT

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thanks for the recs. They are huge ghibli fans, but we've held off on watching some with more mature themes

2026-07-22 01:56:56 GMT

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I watched it recently with my pre-teen for the first time. They got a kick out of it, but are not very sophisticated movie-wise and are very into swords-and-sorcery stories. I thought it was historically interesting, but otherwise the only somewhat interesting thing was Broderick's comedic antics. @npub15z7…ncl9

2026-07-18 11:29:10 GMT

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The separation between voters and the political elite was less important at first because voting was initially limited to rich white men. But the property requirement was changing fast, and some influential leaders (like John Adams) were afraid of letting less wealthy men vote, so that concern about how to keep power among the elite probably did play a role in the Constitution.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/winning-vote-history-voting-rights

2026-07-17 15:09:42 GMT

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My recollection is that the Senate was meant to be more "isolated from the passions" of the people, while the House was more responsive. Even with direct elections of Senators, it's still considered the 'senior' house, with longer, staggered terms (3 election cycles) and larger constituencies.

2026-07-15 11:38:51 GMT

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in the old days, senators were always appointed by the state governments. This is probably a holdover when the Constitution was amended. There are different laws in different states.

2026-02-22 13:14:21 GMT

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I still listen to music from Boca Chica, a band from Pittsburgh that I lost track of when I left town. Some members were friend-of-a-friend. It looks like they have not put out an album in over 10 years, but my kids now have their music on a MP3 player.
They got some national attention at one point..
https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2009/10/second_stage_boca_chica.html

2025-08-24 14:07:27 GMT

From the BBC: "YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without telling users or asking permission. As AI quietly mediates our world, what happens to our shared connection with real life?"
As a scientist, this is extremely disturbing. The day-to-day tools that we use to collect and share information are being subtly corrupted by manufacturers who are more concerned with marketing than science. We now have to worry about another layer of integrity checks.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250822-youtube-is-using-ai-to-edit-videos-without-permission
#scicomm #data

2025-04-20 13:17:46 GMT

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Would this be the purview of ICSP International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes)?
https://www.the-icsp.org/
For the genome sequence, my understanding is that GenBank is based purely on what the submitter says (as opposed to RefSeq, which is curated). But NCBI may have more info.