Been seeing a few people getting hit with the Nature paywall, so fun fact: Using the analyst code/data packages above, you can computationally reproduce these papers in their entirety, free and open on osf.io. (they're also free and open on MetaArXiv osf.io/preprints/me...)

Wow

This is rather concerning

In 1869 when Mendelev published his periodic table, there were no academic chemistry journals on the USA.

Fantastic new paper on reproducibility in Nature. This kind of large scale, coordinated social science research is very important for driving robustness. While it's more expensive, it's much cheaper than funding hundreds of useless studies.* www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fascinating thread (and paper). Raises a wider question - namely, did the Conservative Party's enthusiasm for austerity ultimately lead, every bit as much as its increasing obsession with Europe and immigration, to its being replaced by Reform UK as the pre-eminent party on the British right?

Following from @sarahowen.org.uk earlier this week another MP having to abandon their public presence due to threats and attacks. Its not a coincidence, I suspect, that its another woman. Something is badly broken

New in the American Economic Review: migration doesn't hollow out the home economy — it builds it up. More than 75% of the long-run income gains from migration are domestic. The home economy itself grows. Here's what we found: 🧵

‘It is a story about how America invented a manufacturing philosophy, exported it to Japan, forgot it, relearnt fragments of it through a handful of companies & then re-exported the whole synthesis to Asia.’ Article ostensibly about Apple but really the quality movement! www.ft.com/content/0800...

Sir Brian Langstaff has closed the infected blood inquiry today. His letter to ministers includes a really fascinating appendix commentary on his view on public inquiries going forward: www.infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk/sites/defaul...

extraordinary FT scoop via @lucyfisher.ft.com captain of a UK nuclear-armed submarine has stepped back from his role this week after being investigated over his relationship with Joani Reid, the Labour MP whose husband has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China www.ft.com/content/93be...

The UK Home Office decision not to police non hate speech is a direct result of a regulatory mess where social media platforms.... I can't be bothered to even name it.... fail to ensure basic compliance and regulators are unable to regulate properly.

Battery innovation is fascinating and is just as important as the collapse in the price of solar. It should get much much more attention.

Just back from a wonderful trip to Korea. Setting what is happening in Asia and especially Korea is incredibly impressive. But it makes me think the UK and European innovation systems are broken. And badly broken.

New numbers on the growing gap in AI adoption between the U.S. and Europe, from the recent paper "Mind the Gap: AI Adoption in Europe and the U.S." by Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln and coauthors. The paper also documents a large degree of heterogeneity across EU countries. Link: www.nber.org/papers/w34995

Bad immigration economics assumes every extra person is one less seat. Good economics notices they also bring a seat, a side dish, and demand for the bloke selling drinks. The first story is fear; the second is how economies work.

Never underestimate wine moms.

An updated on Wellcome LEAP's $50 million FORM programme. deevybee.blogspot.com/2026/03/upda... #autism #microbiome

...< braddelong.substack.com/p/crosspost-... > 2026-03-28 Sa 5/END

So very highly recommended...

Here is the full Rycroft report on foreign interference in the UK www.gov.uk/government/p...

Any Danish academics who see me at the bar at a conference, come and say hi and I'll buy you a beer.

One of the things I've been keen on is bringing academic insight into the policy sphere. So I'm really happy we are placing 7 academics in Whitehall to help think about sustainability matters www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/the-bri...

Reading Michel Foucault on 19th century natural history... marveling at how much he got wrong and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as to why so many historians still cite him.

Wow, they actually said it!

📣 New job at Oxford's Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM)! 📣 The Departments of Politics & IR (DPIR) and Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI) are hiring an Associate Professor of Causal and Experimental Methods. Come work with me and amazing Oxford peeps! Deadline NOON April 27th.

This is a great job in a wonderful organisation.

Statistical Rethinking 2026 is done: 20 new lectures emphasizing logical and critical statistical workflow, from basics of probability theory to causal inference to reliable computation to sensitivity. It's all free, made just for you. Lecture list and links: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

If you sit there and do nothing while your child insults people who will be alone with your food before you eat it, you are a bad parent. If you celebrate it online, you are a naive fool with no understanding of how restaurants work, and a bad parent.

It's hard to grasp the pace of the solar and wind build-out: It took 22 years this century to install the first two terawatts of solar and wind capacity ...then it took just THREE years to build the next two! Totals matter short term. Long-term, scaling speed matters more.

Tucker Carlson is now posting about how noble, patriotic British opposition politicians like Oswald Mosley were imprisoned during WWII, suggesting that the same thing might happen to "patriots" like Tucker who dare criticize the current war. www.thejc.com/news/world/t...

Excellent work. This is a long read, but absolutely worth every minute of your time — it explains the uncomfortable truths Ukrainians have to tell, and the modern discourse around it. I encourage you to take your time to read it. #UkrainianView

Nick Timothy is a revolting person.

This is very good

This might help?https://go.bsky.app/L8jnuau

For those of who don't know aka have actual lives, there was a whole bunch of internal politics and machination at a prestigious theoretical journal in Sociology, Theory and Society, which resulted in a political takeover and anyway the new contents seem completely normal so nothing to worry about

We're #recruiting a research assistant to work on a DFG-funded project on #MetaScience at the University of Cologne. Some coding skills in #python required, and interest in modelling the #cognition of #reading! Please spread the word!

half an hour to go until our top webinar on the energy price shock and what it means for households and the public finances.. join @instituteforgovernment.org.uk www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/rachel...

This is outstanding by @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk on the weaponisation of irony and the need for radical sincerity open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

An analysis of published papers on eight widely studied “model” organisms suggests work on them is fading, but not everyone is worried. https://scim.ag/3PaOvIs

My column in The Times today. "Two weeks ago, the Socialist Party and the Greens cut all ties with Jean-Luc Mélenchon over “intolerable” antisemitic provocations. Today? In city after city they are cosying up to the very same party. They call it “technical fusions”. Orwell would have smiled."

This frankly makes me proud to be British. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The industrial policy that helped spawn the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturer traces directly back to the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority asteriskmag.com/issues/13/th...

Meta's VR universe is being shut down because it was rubbish and really obviously rubbish.

My two complaints today about academic work on the history of ideas is that there isn't enough attention to demand and very rarely to changes in selection effects - especially how extreme people (like psychopaths or incompetent clowns) respond and get selected into social positions.

The curse of British progressive politics: we have a Labour party that is preoccupied with winning the support of workers who are retired or dead, a Liberal Democrat party with no interest in defending liberal democracy, and a Green party with no real interest in climate change.

I have a Bluesky joke but you don't have a sense of humour.

75th birthday.

One beef I have with it is that it risks exaggerating the degree to which increased investment can drive growth, as I wrote earlier: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/investment...

And funny!