New evidence showing that educational attainment has a dose-response association with dementia risk throughout the entire distribution of education. 🧪 read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...

If you think the far rights’ proposals to raise US birth rates will work, think again. www.newsweek.com/low-birth-ra...

I was thinking about 9/11 today as I was traipsing around airports. I was surprised by the lack of government attention and the media. 9/11 was a turning point in our history and had wide consequences, e.g., the War on Terror, the establishment of Homeland Security and wars in the Middle East. 1/2

#IAPHS I’m at a population health science conference in Pittsburgh. Researchers from many disciplines have gathered to talk about ways of improving health, bringing in “cells to society” perspectives. So wonderful at a time when HHS has declared war on the health sciences. Science will triumph.

I’m traveling for biz. Staying at the Westin in Pittsburgh. I’m in the bar and just watched the bartender help out a street person fill their thermos with ice water. I love this place even more. Kindness. It still exists.

My head spins when I see vaccine resistance—especially for children. Children’s lives in today’s world are at serious risk because of vaccine resistance. How do I know?Because of a real life counterfactual. Yeah, science

open.substack.com/pub/insideme... Some days I wonder whether Kennedy will start staffing CDC with witch doctors. Clearly, the germ theory of disease has been demoted within CDC.

When the USSR was collapsing, they stopped publishing life tables because life expectancy was rapidly declining between 1974 and 1986. That’s one of the indicators the CIA used to gauge the level of internal rot in the USSR. Makes me wonder whether the US will continue publishing its life tables.

I’d really prefer not to go to Mexico or Canada for my Covid booster. Just saying.

Years ago UT students protested the Texas Lege allowing guns on campus. The students started a passive protest, “Cocks for Glocks.” They attached dildoes to their backpacks, bicycles, whatever. The campus was flooded with sex toys to affirm how stupid our Lege was. 1/

Education is now what defines social class in the United States. www.linkedin.com/posts/conrad...

Summer in Austin is now 24 days longer than it was 30 years ago. A longer summer is the case just about everywhere in the US. Maybe that’s why the feds are closing down climate research and disappearing the data.

Here’s an example — among so many — of how the GOP kills great institutions — but is incapable of building them. www.texastribune.org/2025/08/21/u...

Nothing says grandparent love like waygu hot dogs, fancy ice cream sandwiches and pool time. Unless we had a pony. 🤣

My neighborhood has a group chat in WhatsApp. Today they are chatting away about housekeeping services, contact information for their housekeepers, cost, etc, blissfully unaware that they could be placing people at risk of "La Migra." Stupid, rich White people.

Another bad day for science. Kennedy cancelled nearly $600 million dollars in mRNA vaccine contracts, the best defense for fast-spreading diseases like COVID. He’s advocating using the traditional vaccine technology which is 100 years old. The threat to American lives is enormous.

We have just published our outreach video about our dementia studies on the leading video science communication channel, SciTube. nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Existentialism is illustrated with the myth of Sisyphus. Pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll down-and the process begins anew.The modern version can be summarized using cats and cat barf. The cat barfs.Then we clean it up, and then the cat barfs again the next day. Modern existentialism.

Travel hack #1. Always pack delicious homemade cookies in your carryon. I recommend oatmeal cocholate chip and peanut butter cookies. They both pair well with rum. Don’t ask me how I know. Scuba diving in Bonaire

I am numb and feel helpless. The tragedy in Kerrville has done me in. It has touched so many people. All I can think of are the missing, the grieving family, friends and the 1st responders. Thank god for HEB who has reached out to care for the survivors. I love my HEB. They’re the best of Texas.

The new Medicaid work requirements need a motto. The words “Arbeit macht frei” strike a chord.

Remember when we had COVID dashboards that tracked how many Americans died? 1.1 million deaths. Maybe we should have GOP dashboards to track the deaths their policies cause. I’m betting that 1.1 million COVID deaths will only be a drop in the bucket compared to GOP deaths. Adios US life expectancy.

2 cardinals wanted to build their nest in our poolside umbrella. There’s an entire forest by the pool but they wanted the umbrella. Sadly, we had to close the umbrella so that they had to build their nest in the forest. Bird parenting sometimes requires tough love.

One of my grad students went home to Korea to help her family with a health crisis. While there, she decided to schedule an interview with the US Embassy to renew her visa. But the embassy is now canceling scheduled interviews. What an awful situation.

I think Trump should require his cabinet and all GOP members of Congress to attend his birthday parade. Even better, they should all be required to stand for the entire parade. Bonus? Free tacos for everyone!!! Oh, and don’t forget to wear your Russian flag lapel pins.

Changing trains in Vienna today and what did my little eye spy? Why a sign with a street name honoring one of the great philosophers of science, Karl Popper. It was clear that I wasn’t in the United States, LOL.

I am in Melk, Austria. This evening I listened to a local choir at the Melk abby sing Edelweiss. There were a lot of Americans in the audience. The symbolism of the song for refusing to fight for the Nazis wasn’t lost on many of us. More than one tear was shed as we thought about our own homeland.

FDA may limit future COVID-19 shots to older people and those at risk of serious infection - CNN. Homestly, what did you think would happen if one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration was head of the FDA while another was director of NIH?

About to embark on a river cruise on the Danube. Met some of our fellow passengers tonight. The Canadians are wonderful. Our fellow Texans? Gulp. Ummm, not so much.

I’ve been In Austria since last TU & now I’m in Hungary. Symbols of the Hapsburg empire are everywhere. It’s fascinating to see how the old coexists with the new. Eg, a Hyundai dealership located in an 18th century former palace. And the Europeans could teach Americans a lot about quality of life.

Headed to Austria on Tuesday. Going over, I will leave facial recognition on my phone so that I can prove that I’m not an American MAGA terrorist. Coming back, facial recognition will be off so I have a better chance of not being detained by my own country if they want to look at my social media.

I had my last lab meeting of the semester today. 7 grad students plus a faculty colleague. We all laid out our publication plans for the summer. What was amazing was their attention to addressing big population health problems. Despite the current chaos,they are our future. So proud of them

I went to the HOA meeting for our Austin ‘hood today. 30 homes. The ‘hood has become divided into “Bros” & “professionals.” Let’s just say that the Bro generation, funded by trust funds and family wealth, is younger and clashes with the older generation. Think Swasticars and Depoloreans. 1/2

The MOSAIC program at NIH has been canceled. A colleague just called to say that his project was terminated today. So devastating for early career scholars launching their careers. Unbelievably cruel. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Thought I’d share a very important message. It’s national infant immunization week — except in some DHHS offices in DC. Ignore our government. Listen to the Nerdy Girls. They really do have your best interests at heart. m.facebook.com/story.php?st...

This bowl used to be full. Now, the bunny and egg populations are declining. Like what happened during the pandemic—excess mortality. That’s what happens when the granddaughter doesn’t visit at Easter and the Easter Bunny brings quality chocolate. And then there were only 4….

Just so folks understand that the current administration has weaponized grants to Ivy League universities. This has nothing to do with research. It has everything to do with control and destroying science.

Honestly, why don’t they just close down NIH and be transparent about their goal of destroying biomedical research and harming Americans’ health. It’s not like it’s a secret anymore. wapo.st/44uaqzG

The new plans for NIH (as will lead to crashing life expectancy and population awash in managing chronic conditions. None of this…absolutely none of this…needed to happen. This tells you all you need to know about the value of human life to the current administration. Enraging. wapo.st/42gLz0Z

Stunning and blatant racism in the NIH scientific review process. What does it say when the administration no longer needs to cloak its racism? wapo.st/4jtCPdw

We are close to seeing the data from NIH funded studies disappear from archives that receive federal support. A colleague’s data housed in an archive had her meta data flagged as not being in compliance with the Admin’s priorities. Very scary. Smells like a police state and scientific censorship.

Every day in every way the Trump administration is harming Americans’ health. Here is just another of example from an enormous list of examples. apple.news/AR4UocpprS6G...

I won’t be held responsible if harm comes to the next person who asks me when I plan to retire. Just saying.

What’s going to replace car and truck ads on national TV once the tariffs kick in? Ads for soybean burgers? Vacation ads for Arkansas?

No penguins were harmed in this protest.

Friday continues to be NIH Kill a Program Day. Today MOSAIC (Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity) was ended. I guess we know the vision for who should be in the health sciences.

Dr. Diana Bianchi, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was fired this morning at 10AM EDT. Part of the NIH “reorg” (whatever that means)? Or the start of an NIH leadership bloodbath. Guess we will find out.

Something that people seem to have forgotten is the symbiotic relationship between America’s support for research and economic dynamism and leadership. The legacy of strong governmental support for research has had a resounding positive effect on the U.S. economy. Well, those days are over.

As I write tenure letters for American faculty being recruited to positions outside the US.

The US is disappearing grad students & faculty researchers who hold green cards. For us academics, this means colleagues and students are at risk every time they cross the border. Due process is gone. Transparency is gone. Just curious whether this marks the the US’ complete transition to fascism.