I realise this is the definition of a needle in a haystack, but I'm looking for someone who is taking an orphan drug for a rare disease (eg something like Gaucher disease or Fabry disease). If you know anyone, please do put me in touch!

@hertfordcollege.bsky.social in Oxford looking stunning tonight. Clear skies - will we see the aurora?

A flaming Oxford sky at @hertfordcollege.bsky.social tonight

#breastcancer A reminder. If you, your family or your patients are interested in understanding the potential side effects of common treatments for breast cancer the PREDICT breast web site has got you covered. Please repost. side-effects.breast.predict.cam

It’s just over a week before I start as Principal of @hertfordcollege.bsky.social. The College is fundraising today for its new library and the comments people are leaving about why they have donated show what a special place Hertford is: hertford.givingday.co.uk/donor-wall It will continue to be!

The earliest I’ve ever seen a hummingbird hawk moth in the UK, feeding on primroses this morning! Spring!

OpenSAFELY is open from today! Huge thanks to all who supported this vast collaboration: whole population GP data; in a productive platform; innovative privacy protections; unprecedented support from professions, privacy campaigners; &c Now it's over to users! www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/02...

V useful piece dispelling myths about NIH policy on open access upstream.force11.org/cost-of-conf...

We love it when people use our open API and build features they would like to see on Octopus. @andreasthinks.me has created Octosphere - a way to connect Octopus with the decentralised system behind BlueSky, the ATmosphere. It’s a prototype, but shows what can be done: octosphere.social/dashboard

This was a huge effort from the Winton team: several years of reviewing all the side effects information available, and working with patients on how best to display it. Thank you to everyone who helped put it all together. It’s so nice to know that patients have this info now and can better prepare

A genuinely fun event to take part in! @berndpulverer.bsky.social had to defend the current publishing system whilst @alexandrafreeman.bsky.social got what seems like the easier job of arguing for complete reform… but the audience voting gave it a surprise twist!

Proud to have been involved in the design of Predict (Breast & Prostate) to make sure that its results are clear and easy for patients and professionals to understand. Fantastic to see how many people it has helped.

If you’ve seen - or produced - some good, balanced information to help people make decisions in the last year then submit it now!

It is now possible to embed video within the main text of your Octopus publications. We heard that this was important for, e.g., video methods, artistic performances, sign language and behavioural studies. Your video has to be hosted on Vimeo first. That is because of privacy and cookies settings.

We all need trustworthy information that isn’t trying to persuade us but to help us make up our own minds. It’s amazing how rare this is: communication done for the audience’s sake rather than for the communicators’ own purposes. If you’ve seen a good recent example - nominate it!

We've got our 2025 statistics now, and it's clear just how well-read publications on Octopus are - it's a fast-growing platform. (Bots removed from the data) Lots of new features in 2025 - such as being able to find UK government research priorities and link your work to them. More features soon!

New preprint from COS and @ip4os.eu: a summary of a small circle meetup on open science held at the Metascience Conference in London (1 July 2025). It captures key themes of the discussion—open science priorities, policy developments, and what's on the horizon. Read more: osf.io/preprints/me...

Join our Replicability Project: Health Behavior! We have 55 replication studies underway, our target is 65-70. We are only recruiting for secondary data replications--i.e., using existing data to test the original question. Here's a list of studies we think could be feasible. If interested...

If you’re a cryptographer and you got one of these, send me an email.

Research needs cross-disciplinary working. A nice mention of Octopus.ac in: worksinprogress.co/issue/why-sc... This is also why Octopus now automatically pulls in all the UK government’s Areas of Research Interest as Problems, and alerts government depts when researchers link ideas to them…

I write a newspaper column about Scottish history, historians and heritage. I’m keen to feature more Early Career Researchers. Their work might not otherwise be publicised to a wide audience. Do you know anyone who might like to be in the column?

Since AI slop is again all over Scientific Reports, a thread on the economics of grey-zone publishing. Why does slop keep getting published? What does it mean for science? How can we stop this? Background readings: Understand the strain: tinyurl.com/2b6wxx5r Stop the drain: tinyurl.com/3jfscscy

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Very excited to be taking up the position of Principal at the wonderful @hertfordcollege.bsky.social in Oxford next March. It’s a forward-thinking and friendly college, and a place where we can really focus on supporting the best research and the best learning environment. Which includes a cat!

🚨 5 years on from when the COVID-19 pandemic confined many to their homes, how has remote working changed the UK workplace, and what is its future? We are publishing our report tomorrow at 00.05 #WFH

Applications open: New Generation Thinkers 2026 AHRC is partnering with BBC Radio 4 to offer five early-career researchers the opportunity to work with programme makers, appear on air, and gain first-hand experience of how ideas make it to broadcast. Apply by Jan 2026

I experimented with directing AI to make a little trailer for my friend Tim Owen’s new historical novel. For those who like historically accurate tales of monks and mysteries in C12th England, the book’s an ideal Christmas treat! Available here: tdowen.co.uk m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7ZU...

Thank you to @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social and all the others who are supporting bird-safe design as part of planning. @rspb.bsky.social and @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social are pushing for it too.

Thirty million birds killed in the UK every year through strikes — with many more injured and unseen. A country that calls itself a nation of bird lovers must do better than this. #ProtectNature #BirdSafety

This really is a shame. In times like these we really should be commissioning more engaging, informative evidence-based shows, not fewer.

I shall be speaking today on amendment 246. You know that sickening thump when a bird flies into a window? It’s thought around 30m a year die that way in the UK. Bird safe glass and tweaks to design can reduce that by over 90%. Bird safe building design is mandatory in many places - but not UK!

Science projects are designed & funded on the scale of years, so what happens if you need to finish prematurely? @mhagenauer.bsky.social &co discuss solutions for quickly documenting partially finished projects & publishing ‘as you go’ in an uncertain environment @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ovd1jH

🧠🥼🧬🧪🔬 Last year at @sfn.org I ran a workshop on "Opening the File Drawer" with Ben Kolber, Stacey Winham, Paul Sternberg, & Alex Freeman (@alexandrafreeman.bsky.social). We've shared the resources that we compiled for that workshop in this new paper. ❤️ @comm4rigor.bsky.social @ummni.bsky.social

Hi! We need lice for our diversity and adaptation project. Specifically, we need lice from zebras, camelids (camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, guanacos) & aardvarks. If you or someone you know might have lice, I'm happy to discuss our inclusive collaboration plans! sites.google.com/nhm.org/anop...

Did you miss the ASAPbio September 2025 Community Call: Experiments in publishing with PubPub & Octopus, where we heard from @alexandrafreeman.bsky.social and @gabestein.com? Don't worry, we've got you covered! Watch the recording📽️ on YouTube and read a brief summary 📄on our blog.👇

In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.

Join us on September 18 for a panel discussion on various experiments within science publishing! We will hear about their publishing experiments from @meganhoch.bsky.social from @arcadiascience.com, @gabestein.com from PubPub, and @alexandrafreeman.bsky.social from Octopus. buff.ly/pfwTgVE

🆕 Following recent press speculation that the UK may soon agree to pay more for drugs used within the #NHS as part of a trade deal with the USA, we asked experts @markgdayan.bsky.social and @sallygainsbury.bsky.social to explain the situation. 💊

🤖 What could workplace AI and other tech developments mean for 🏡 home working? Join us on Monday 30 June as we explore this subject with: - Prof Efpraxia Zamani @efpraxiaz.bsky.social‬, Durham University Business School - Prof Carl Frey @carlbfrey.bsky.social‬, @ox.ac.uk‬ Internet Institute

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on. slate.com/technology/2...

"Have you thought about applying the @opensafely model, for data privacy and efficiency, to non-health data?" YES WE HAVE Behold the new... OpenSAFELY-Schools!! schools.opensafely.org

Cheltenham Science Festival was ace again this year. Thanks to all those who gave us such great feedback on our Citizen Science project on nappies. 300,000 nappies per minute become waste globally. Please help us by joining the project here: www.bigtoiletproject.org

We are reviewing the current state of scientific publishing, and we want to hear from researchers on their perceptions of publishing in the current context and how it might develop in future. Complete our short survey now:

Possibly the best thing I've read about ChatGPT yet. h/t @melaniemitchell.bsky.social amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

Yesterday, Monday 2 June, the #HouseOfLords voted through a change to the #DataBill on the transparency of copyrighted materials used to train AI models. Lords members scrutinise legislation and hold the government to account. Find out more ⬇️ www.parliament.uk/business/new...

If a screening test that is done over consecutive years has a false positive rate of 10%, by occasion 7 the prob of a false + is 0.522, therefore prep pts to ‘expect a false +’ Maths lesson at #bcs2025 by the superb @kityates.bsky.social #cardiosky #medsky

Made a cocktail for my wife and she put it in the freezer, inadvertently creating a new superorganism please hel—*glurk*

Interested in sharing your work with Octopus? Join us for tomorrow's webinar, where we'll talk through all the new features we've been adding to Octopus to make it easier to create publications: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/f6985a...