Don't Tell Anybody, But Beneath the Surface Scum of X, the Unparalleled Utility of Twitter Lives On
Just use the platform actively instead of passively.
This is just a quick update about that platform called X. It’s been greatly degraded and brims with bile and fakery (it’s not alone, sadly). But beneath the polluted surface X remains an essential part of my journalism and an effective portal for finding and connecting solution seekers and the wider public.
I’d love to hear about positive experiences elsewhere, but I’ve found Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon and the rest are still little better than Slack - places where like-minded people who mostly already know each other can gather to trade likes or gripes.
Meanwhile on X I see daily examples of queries answered or ideas tested or enriched. I’ll keep adding bright spots here.
March 15 | Lisa Thalheimer, a United Nations University researcher focused on human mobility in a changing climate, based in Bonn, Germany, posted this query: “Hi network, I'm looking for a researcher or academic who focuses on mental health / well-being based in Ethiopia. Any suggestions?”
Within 24 hours she received an invaluable response from Dereje Regasa, a researcher in Ethiopia focused on coping strategies among people displaced by conflict.
I’m sure that call and response will generate more input and potential collaborations. And onward we go toward a better world. Focus on active uses of X like this, or sit back and let the polluted part flood you with content designed to stroke your ego or piss you off. The choice is yours.
Related: Three years ago, I had a fantastic Sustain What conversation with Thalheimer and other scientists and policy folks working to enhance mobility in a world facing sweeping changes of all kinds.
Original March 11 post | Here’s just one example via my friend Jaquelyn Gill (@JacquelynGill) up the road at the University of Maine in Orono. She’s a paleoecologist and posted a query about an object that had the look of a big fossil tooth, sent to her by her sister from Colorado. Within moments she had her answer.
The key, as I’ve said over and over again, is to use X actively and avoid the feed, which is designed to take you down - literally. Build and use lists of useful accounts! Here are mine. Use it like a search engine, purposefully.
Last week, hiking on a wonderful trail adjacent to Acadia National Park, I took a fresh photo of a remarkable conifer that has long fascinated me, posted it on X asking what causes this kind of growth.
I tagged a couple of folks who might know or know people who’d know. Dustin Mulvaney (@dustinmulvaney), a professor in environmental studies at San José State University, almost immediately described “candelabra” redwoods with the same growth pattern and pasted a link this example from the Save the Redwoods League:
That left open the question of how these shapes emerge as these different tree species grow. Along came Tom Kimmerer (@tomkimmerer), with a wonderful explanation of “apical control” and more examples. As his website describes, he is forest scientist who works to nurture woodland pastures in Kentucky and Tennessee and is the author of Venerable Trees - History, Biology and Conservation. He’s working on a second book, A Time For Trees.
Here’s Kimmerer’s unrolled X thread:
The form of a tree is the cumulative expression of hormone-driven apical control, in which buds (actually meristems) at the top of the tree create a downward flow of auxins that inhibit growth of lateral buds. If not for apical control, all trees would look like this.
This tree's apical buds were damaged many years ago, causing the loss of apical control and releasing some of the lateral buds, allowing them to grow out and, then, upward away from the gravitational vector. The tree eventually built a new crown and recovered apical control, but once the lateral branches began growing upward, the upper crown could not reassert apical control. This is an important survival mechanism in trees with damaged crowns. We see it all the time, just not often so dramatic. The question is what caused the original damage?
It is not possible to be certain of the proximate cause of bud injury. The most likely cause is damage to the upper crown buds from insects (especially bud weevils) or pathogens. Trees are complicated, but we do understand the basic physiology of growth and survival.
He added a coda with two images: “Here is a good example of how trees use the complex apical control system to rebuild after damage. This magnicent bur oak, 400+ years old, has a beautiful crown form [top], but a closer look shows that the original crown was destroyed by lightning”:
Thanks, Jacquelyn, Dustin and Tom for illustrating how the soul of Twitter is alive and well on X.
Let me know your experiences, pro and con, exhilarating and infuriating, on this or the other platforms.
Read on and listen to these Sustain What webcasts for more tips and examples showing how to thrive online - even on, yes, X….
