becca harrison

STS PhD Candidate • @Cornell animal science alumna ‘14 • public engagement & #scicomm • unapologetic political junkie w/ healthy balance of cute pony photos

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

Scientist friends: Read this. All of this. Multiple times. Every day.

@marklargent #AAASmtg #WarOnScience

[Conor Browne @brownecfm]

Good, because my goal is to make the air in every indoor space in the world completely safe to breathe without any risk of infection from any airborne pathogen, no masks necessary.

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

This is why the smart ones stayed on Twitter.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

@Boilers32 It most definitely was not. I would never have forgotten my drugs.

[Laura Matsue @lauramatsue]

No one is more annoyed by the AI revolution than people who can actually write a sentence. Basically, having any ability to write now is suspect - you will get accused of being AI at some point. It feels like you are being accused of being a witch, of holding a type of rare magic that only the machines are now allowed to have.

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

When people say "I'd do anything for my child," everyone praises them, but when a parent risks crossing a border to save their child from war, poverty, or danger, suddenly they're treated like criminals.

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

We’re obsessed with the idea that poor people might take more than they need, but we never question why the super rich are never satisfied with what they already have.

[Emshay* @DrHawken]

Have we considered not repeatedly infecting them tho

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

ok but calling it Google’s “Debug Project” is genius.

[Bull Theory @BullTheoryio]

BREAKING: Google is planning to release 32 million mosquitoes across Florida and California.

The company has asked the EPA for permission to proceed, with the public given until June 5 to respond.

The mosquitoes are infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which stops them from reproducing and slowly collapses the wild population from within.

Google's previous Debug Project trial in California's Central Valley nearly eliminated mosquitoes from three test sites entirely. A separate trial in Singapore cut dengue cases by 70% within 12 months.

Google has now released over 1 billion mosquitoes across four continents. This new proposal is the largest deployment in US history.

[Biff #SARSisAirborne 🍉 @Biff234523]

🚨💊HUGE news: @US_FDA has finally granted approval to @ShionogiUS’s Xocova (Ensitrelvir), a 2nd-generation antiviral targeting SARS-CoV-2.

The approval is for the indication of “post-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 following contact with an individual who has COVID-19”. However, just like with any drug, it can obviously also be used off-label (e.g. treatment of both acute COVID or Long COVID).

In Japan, Xocova received Emergency Use Authorization for the treatment of acute COVID all the way back in November 2022, received full approval in March 2024, and an expansion to include post-exposure prophylaxis in March 2026.

The post-exposure prophylaxis indications are based on the SCORPIO-PEP trial (https://t.co/Dxv0lhS2CM), where Xocova reduced the incidence of COVID-19 after household exposure by 67%, from 9.0% down to 2.9%.

Mechanically, Xocova is the same class of drug as Paxlovid - a 3C-like protease inhibitor that inhibits viral replication. From our best understanding, Xocova is probably slightly more potent than Paxlovid, but the more definitive advantage is that it comes with less side effects and less drug interactions (which are caused by the Ritonavir component of Paxlovid, added to boost the concentration of the actual antiviral, Nirmatrelvir).

Xocova should be useful for lowering viral load during an acute infection, especially if taken within a couple or days of symptom onset, which may help shorten the duration of acute symptoms. Will it do anything to prevent long-term damage or the development of Long COVID? Almost certainly not, just like Paxlovid, but I’d be more inclined to tell people that it’s worth trying if we’re no longer dealing with the side effect profile of Paxlovid.

Where it makes the most sense to use Xocova, just like with Paxlovid, is as a component of polytherapy for Long COVID driven by viral persistence. The big issue there, however, is that you need a longer course of these antivirals than most physicians are willing to prescribe and/or most insurance companies are willing to cover. And they’re generally not very effective as a monotherapy, you need to pair these oral antivirals with other therapies for better coverage and tissue penetration (eg. monoclonal antibodies and Nuvaxovid, and potentially even a 2nd antiviral like Remdesivir).

All in all, this is a very important and long overdue approval. It’s not a game-changing silver bullet, and notably, nobody should really be expecting to use or rely on Xocova in a way that they wouldn’t be open to using or relying on Paxlovid in the present. But there are plenty of applications for it, and Xocova should absolutely be seen as another Swiss cheese layer / tool in the toolbox for COVID conscious community members and any allied medical providers.

[Coco @cocomarvgrows]

Just when you thought they couldn’t possibly still be blaming “lockdowns”… My friends, I despair.

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

Osaka's outfits aren't really different from the "tunnel outfits" we see in men's basketball, football, and boxing. Much to criticize about how big corporate brands, including ones in fashion, have co-opted sports for marketing. But criticism here seems uneven and at times unfair

[Malika 🧬 @malikules]

atheism leaving my body with every new Pope tweet

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

There’s no way I’m the only person who accidentally turned the TV on 5 hours ago and proceeded to get absolutely nothing done today.

Absolutely no regrets. #RolandGarros

[Bleacher Report @BleacherReport]

DJOKOVIC UPSET BY 19-YEAR-OLD JOAO FONSECA IN NEARLY 5-HOUR MATCH 🤯🚨

That. Was. Insane.

#RolandGarros

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

[and also your air conditioners are gross please clean them.]

[holocene @holo_cene]

it’s ‘i got sick because of the air conditioning’ season!! no you didn’t, you got sick because someone infected you. you can sleep with your fan on all you want, you won’t get sick if you wear a respirator in public spaces.

[Keith Humphreys @KeithNHumphreys]

My graduate school mentor said "You know a university is in deep trouble when it closes a library because it's the only thing everyone on campus agrees is important".

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

ChatGPT has launched a new health and wellness feature called ChatGPT Health that allows users to upload their medical records. Do not do this. Do not upload your medical records to an AI chatbot.

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

Requiring doctor’s notes to excuse sick days is inherently classist in a country without universal healthcare, and it is wild how little that is discussed.

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

@lWontApologize The part people seem to miss about Jessica Campbell’s career, too, is that she didn’t get into coaching via a “normal” path. Male players started hiring AND PAYING HER APPROPRIATELY when they saw the skating programs she was developing. Comparable women’s positions didn’t exist.

[Wholesome Side of 𝕏 @itsme_urstruly]

I’m like the opposite of AI. It took me over half an hour to write a simple email, and I didn’t consume a single drop of water all day.

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

@bonejrp @TSN_Sports That is literally not how revenue sharing works.

[becca harrison @_beccaharrison]

We NEED an option for dealing with pets left locked in cars on hot days that doesn’t include the cops.

Until then, yes, I will sit by your car monitoring your dog’s respiration until you finish your grocery shopping—at which point I will publicly shame you in the parking lot.