Timely research

I'm reading a nature paper that was published yesterday, Origins and evolutionary genomics of the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 influenza A epidemic.

This is a 4-page letter paper. According to the Nature authors' guide, this means the paper provides an outstanding finding whose importance means that it will be of interest to scientists in other fields. Regular articles in Nature is 5 page long and needs to make a substantial advance in understanding of an important problem.

As the title says, the paper is about the recent 2009 swine flu. I'm amazed that scientists put together good work in such a short period of time. Well, informally, I've heard of a couple of immediate rejections on the Swine flu to Nature. This says, there are *lots* of scientists who are quick and good.

What can social network researchers do with the abundance of data and the recent Iran election? This could turn into another great Nature letter paper in a few months.

Twitter FAQ

So it happened that I finally came across something to ReTweet about. My very first use of "RT". For those of you who are not familiar with Twitter codes, here is a brief and useful tutorial on Twitter FAQ.

RT means ReTweet or Repeat.

Copy the message you want your want to retweet and start with "RT @UserName"

OH means OverHeard

When you hear something funny or insightful with your ears (as opposed to reading it on Twitter) and you want to repeat it, prefix it with OH. Generally, this is used anonymously, not for quoting people.

HT means HeardThrough

This is similar to OH in that you use it to repeat things you heard with your ears. A difference is that you can quote the person's name.

Starting with @ sign means Reply

When you want to reply to someone, start your tweet with @UserName.

Hash Tags (#) help to designate topics that people might search for

When you head to conferences, look for hash tags.

#FollowFriday means recommended followers

This is like book recommendations from a friend. You can list your top followers in the form of @UserName after this tag.