Ffp3 respirators work and yet we have no masks or gappy surgical in healthcare. Don’t staff and patients deserve better protection!

Increasingly, this is clearly not a world in which you want to be long term unwell or chronically disabled in if you can avoid it. And you can do much to avoid it—by wearing a good mask. #COVID

Not wanting to get COVID isn't because folks like me are afraid of getting sick. What I don't want is to wind up disabled. The acute stage of the disease - the few days/weeks you feel unwell - totally sucks, but that's not the main issue. 100s of thousands of studies demonstrate how bad COVID is.

I recommended Sophie Corser's work on reading today, & decided to treat myself to an article I hadn't read yet in Irish Studies Review. I'm moved by its closing account of reading under the conditions of precarity. OA here for your reading pleasure/labour: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Covid can leave lasting mark on the brain. New study adds to literature showing long-term damage to the central nervous system following SARS-CoV-2 infection #LongCovid news.griffith.edu.au/2025/12/16/c...

Qesser is 20 years old, and is on the brink of death, all because she protested genocide by pouring some paint on a plane. The UK government has learned nothing since Margaret Thatcher let Bobby Sands and the nine others in Northern Ireland. Starmer and his party are shameful. #PalestineAction

Qesser Zuhrah and Amy Gardiner-Gibson are on day 46 of their hunger strike. Heba Muraisi is on day 45. All are at a high risk of death. In 1981 - the last time there was a hunger strike like this - Martin Hurson died after 46 days.

Vacancy: Assistant Professor of Celtic, with a specialism in Old Irish, University of Cambridge. #MedievalSky www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

*chef's kiss*

The 'For Scotland' page: docs.proton.me/doc?mode=ope.... Just written (again) to my sadly useless Labour MP.

It's terrifying that today might be the day a hunger striker dies - allowed to die by the state, for demanding a fair trial: www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025...

Seems like a small thing, but that’s three cohorts of undergraduates deprived of what can be a horizon-altering experience, all because of the pathetic whims of a venal chancer.

YES!

"We envision a resistance that is...a repudiation of the efficiencies that automated algorithmic education falsely promises: a resistance comprising the collective force of small acts of friction." "How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...

While this is to be lauded, it always frustrates me that masking is *initiated* when levels are high. The best time to mask in hospitals is always; the second best time is when it is patently obvious that prevalence of flu / RSV / Covid is low but *increasing*. www.derryjournal.com/health/face-...

If "coronavirus significantly alters the brain long after recovery," THEN WE ARE NOT RECOVERED!!! The magical thinking of "well, I can't see it, so it's not there" has turned most of us into absolute morons. Can you see cancer? If so, why do we need mammograms and colonoscopies?

It’s a sad indictment of Britain’s ignorance of nature that Sycamore Gap petitions - for a tree that mattered to humans but not nature - received tens of thousands of signatures but a petition to protect entire peatland habitats is stuck at 1,500 actnow.peatfreepartnership.org.uk/end-peat-sal...

Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things

hence: arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/w...

This remains one of the most important articles to understand what is happening to higher ed. Open access! academic.oup.com/ser/article/...

Today's #UnexpectedEbayFind in this button badge featuring "Peter Puddock", the one-time mascot of Edinburgh's Royal Commonwealth Pool (aka The Commie) 🐸🎀🏊, created as a result of a 1987 competition by Edinburgh District Council...

In honour of Rob Reiner, have David Moore's thread on the best sword fight in movie history and exactly how nerdy it is.

And faculty

Our deadline is approaching! A reminder that you have until Monday 15 December to apply for our £750 bursary. Good luck everyone!

“It's wild to me to work with and live among people who think of themselves as thoughtful, progressive, "with it" people, and I do not understand how we have discussions about ableism and public health and intersectionality and Palestine every day and somehow they are in denial of Covid…”

AI has actively made life worse for literally everyone - tech is now more expensive - you cannot trust most media of reality anymore - programs barely function - energy prices - literal psychosis - your voice can be literally stolen for evil - more spyware but hey, you can avoid paying an artist.

more power to any Dean who makes the case that their discipline-specific standard for AI is refusal, and AI refusal will be what they integrate into the curriculum

'It's hurts when I remember, you were sometimes good to me... And they tell me I should hate you, say you put me through it, Lord I know I used to but I just can't do it'. Pretty sure this total banger of a song is also about cult-membership of modern academia. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSKl...

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

heck yeah, look at that

Eight people detained for allegedly protesting in support of Palestine are currently undertaking the largest hunger strike in UK prisons in over 40 years. The strikers need international solidarity to show the world they are not alone.

So, El Fasher looks like one of the worst single event atrocities to happen this century so far, but the evidence has come in such a trickle it seems to only now be getting verified

4/ And here's the national 'respiratory' sickness picture for kids, from dashboard.sprint-kids.ca. Big humans (especially politicians and public health officials) are supposed to protect little ones, FFS. This is all AIRBORNE. Ventilate, clean the air, #MaskUp, get vaccinated. #cdnpoli

Most people are foolishly unwilling to admit it, but we are all in the ongoing pandemic of Covid-19 together: unrestrained airborne contagion is a collective danger, posing an extreme threat to the essential well-being of everyone who breathes the air that we all require to sustain life. #COVID19

14. The narrative that "masks don't work" not only denies physics, but is clearly biased towards fatalism, individualism, and libertarianism. How convenient to have something you don't like rubbished by "experts"...I mean, come on folks... 15. We don't mostly need "mandates"...

This is where droplets and close contact has let us all down. Gaps, or worse no masks, can't filter virus-laden aerosols. Virus-laden aerosols that can be exhaled by the symptomatic and asymptomatic, remaining in the air for hours, allowing them to travel further than six feet from their source.

“Jiang and colleagues conclude, carefully but clearly, that their findings ‘redefine SARS-CoV-2 infection as a condition of long-lasting immune compromise’ and highlight lymphocyte dysregulation as a key immunological feature of Long Covid, particularly in people with cardiovascular disease.”

Jonathan Fowler from UNRWA: "The weather conditions are horrific.. not enough supplies are being allowed in.. we remain banned by the Israeli authorities from bringing anything into the Gaza strip" Two more babies have died from exposure in Gaza.

I forgot that in 2019 I started a whole website about Ludovic Mann, #TheManntheMyth. I had plans to do a podcast & update this regularly. If this gets to 100 followers (from current total of 23!) I’ll revive it and start adding content! #LudovicMann themannthemyth.home.blog

‘We’ve got a library with no books, no readers, no digital content, no front-facing staff & absolutely no clue!’ ‘I can’t pay my rent with prestige,’ ‘They started running the library as a shopping centre,’ ... posters... appeared ... a few years ago: ‘If it happens in the library, it’s research’

When will this crisis get any attention whatsoever!? A THOUSAND ACADEMIC STAFF AT ONE INSTITUTION SERVED REDUNDANCY RISK NOTICES! And that's not counting what's surely being visited on professional services staff too. This is an economic catastrophe, to say nothing of the intellectual catastrophe!

I'm seeing a number of commentators aggrieved about flu reporting in the press, saying the wave is just early, not particularly big, so why is the NHS panicking? Here's the problem. They can only say this by ignoring the covid wave we've just had. 1/3

Indianapolis Star, November 22, 1918

Thanks BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast Programme for the opportunity to talk about why following the science, wearing a mask, & cleaning the air to help avoid you & others getting horribly ill with flu is a better idea than not doing that. Starts approx 7.05 minutes in www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Precisely this justification was used to convince a colleague of mine to agree to a contract with an academic press that included licensing her work to an AI firm. “They’re gonna do a crime regardless so maybe make a couple bucks” is what not even trying looks like. She declined.

Korean study finds how COVID-19 affects memory, suggests a possible treatment. Korean researchers found the COVID S1 spike protein disrupts nerve cells, harming memory and causing anxiety in mice. Metformin restored nerve function and reduced toxic proteins, suggesting a possible treatment.

Reminder: you should absolutely start wearing the best mask you can find in public spaces, even if you stopped before. We have no public health at the top level & repeat infections have ravaged immune systems. If someone gives you a hassle, say "even if it's just a cold, I DON'T WANT THAT EITHER!"

It’s such a mindfuck to see articles & TV shows trying to sensitively reflect on the ongoing COVID pandemic—but doing so only in the past tense, or as if it were a horrible event that ended in 2022 & is all behind us now & we just need to deal with the psychological after effects. It ain’t over.

🎆Job Klaxon!!🎆 Folúntais: Scoláireachtaí Uí Dhonnabháin @scs-dias.bsky.social @dias.ie. Spriocdháta 5 Eanáir 2026 2 O’Donovan Scholarship vacancies at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Deadline 5 January 2026: www.dias.ie/2025/12/05/v...