🎙️New podcast: The Replication Crisis Hits Sports Science. 72% of sports science studies could NOT be replicated. Effect sizes dropped 75%. Nearly 90% of researchers wouldn’t even share data. We explore bad incentives, a crisis of trust & how to fix it 🎧 podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/m...

If we leave the acquisition of morphological knowledge to children's reading, what information is there in books to be acquired? @kathyrastle.bsky.social has answers (open). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

** New resource ** We analysed the characteristics of words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people. Properties of each word (frequencies, etc) are now available in an interactive website. cyp-lex.rastlelab.com

What can children learn about morphology when they read for pleasure? We analysed the words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people to find out! Read the blog post here: www.rastlelab.com/post/what-ca...

Just came across a super cool study on lexical elaboration measured using data from bilingual dictionaries: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... There is even an interactive app that lets you explore how various concepts are elaborated across languages (relative to English): charleskemp.com/code/lexical...

Column, on the prime minister who had room to manoeuvre and chose to besiege himself instead. Again. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My study @surreypsychology.bsky.social @modilab-surrey.bsky.social is now live. Looking for typically developing children and children with #DCD / #Dyspraxia. If you are a #School in Surrey, we can come to your classroom, please get in touch! Please share widely 🙏

*New paper* out in npj Science of Learning! @kathyrastle.bsky.social and I take a deep dive into the fascinating intricacies of morphology and introduce a new account of how readers learn about the internal structure of words. Read it here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Very important work led by the brilliant Anastasiya Lopukhina shows that widely publicised claims about subtitles helping children learn to read need to be tempered - just published in PsychScience: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Abandoning everything you stood for, just to not make fascist billionaires and anti-science crusaders uncomfortable - well done, @royalsociety.org - it takes talent to be SO utterly pathetic and cowardly. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Our article (with @kathyrastle.bsky.social) on vocabulary in the English Lit GCSE is now out in The Use of English @englishassociation.bsky.social. We're very proud of this work and hopeful it contributes to GCSE reform for the benefit of pupils nationwide. Also available at doi.org/10.31219/osf....

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

i've written a blog post about why I think we should reject generative AI in the university: languagemechanics.neocities.org/no-gen-ai

It takes a special kind of ignorance to think that conducting research on how to teach kids to read, or how to support young people with disabilities, should be viewed as 'waste' that needs to be cut. Utterly shameful. apnews.com/article/ies-...

This Friday 4pm is my professorial inaugural "From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong" (w/ BSL interpretation). There'll be a lot of iconicity in it! If you're interested, you can register for the webinar under this link: www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/edac...

New blog post! Sometimes, when reviewing a manuscript, it's really unclear to me what precisely the authors are trying to do -- which makes it hard to evaluate the work properly. So, here's some advice for how to ensure that readers don't get lost. www.the100.ci/2025/02/17/r...

Now almost 450 signatories to my open letter calling on the @royalsociety.org to stand up for its values & deal with the widespread concerns raised by Elon Musk's Fellowship. Please consider signing & sharing: forms.gle/miDciq35oxyw... List of signatories here: occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Latest blogpost on Musk/Royal Society debacle: deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/02/seve... I look at the reasons that have been given for inaction, and find them wanting. @royalsociety.org

Very good summary of all the insane stuff unfolding in the US- solidarity to all my colleagues over there

This amazing book is a must-have for schools!

And a brilliant symposium beforehand!

Worth a read for those outside HE to get a flavour of the mess that ChatGPT etc are causing the whole sector www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Browse a Focus issue from Nature Human Behaviour on menstruation. Authors discuss periods from a multidisciplinary perspective, including addressing menstrual myths, period poverty, and menstrual health management for diverse populations. https://go.nature.com/4iCnUOw 🧪

⚠️ New preprint ! « Social determinants of cognitive aging trajectories across 39 countries » Some people in their 80s have cognitive abilities similar to many 30-year-olds, others are severely diminished. 
How comes?
 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... A short 🧵👇 1/7

New post on the 100% Christmas Interval -- after almost 8 years, it's time that we finally talk about CIs. www.the100.ci/2024/12/05/w...

We should all be worried by the 2024 Literacy Trust report, cited in this piece: just 34.6% of 8-18 yr olds enjoy reading. Reading enjoyment has more impact on cognitive development than having a degree-educated parent. We have never needed English Studies more. @englishassociation.bsky.social

I think the last single author publication I had was my thesis, but in any case, here's another. An integrated framework for the learning, recognition and interpretation of words. 100% Gaskell, for better or for worse: doi.org/10.1177/1747...

Michelle Kaffenberger on our paper on literacy in #LMICs: "findings suggest a critical need to prioritize core literacy building blocks in the early schooling grades to ensure children have the skills needed to engage in later literacy instruction and further learning.' doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Prof Dorothy Bishop resigns from Royal Society over Elon Musk’s continuing fellowship www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Drafts of the first chapters of my brms Book: Applied Bayesian Regression Modelling Using R and Stan are online: paulbuerkner.com/software/brm... Check it out and let me know what you think!

Trying something new: A 🧵 on a topic I find many students struggle with: "why do their 📊 look more professional than my 📊?" It's *lots* of tiny decisions that aren't the defaults in many libraries, so let's break down 1 simple graph by @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social 🔗 www.ft.com/content/73a1...

If you are a Julia user you should be aware of this: yuri.is/not-julia/

**New paper** in Nature Human Behaviour shows that pupils in low- and middle-income countries #LMICs are failing to acquire the most basic skills needed for reading comprehension. Evidence-aligned #phonics instruction needed to meet global literacy goals #SDGs www.nature.com/articles/s41...