Read Jim's whole thread! I also want to add some historical context. During the 1918 pandemic, there was so much confusion because many scientists still thought that a bacteria, not a virus caused the flu (because, as Jim notes, we couldn't even see viruses under a microscope yet).

Hans Bethe, the scientist who worked in both the Manhattan Project & USA H-bomb programs, wrote in 1983 a 40 page history called "The Story of Los Alamos." It seems not to be publicly available online except where I have made it so, free for all: osf.io/thjpk #NukeSKY 1/n

In researching this piece, I was genuinely shocked and deeply concerned at just how many people with ties to the Brownstone Institute have been given scientific roles by this administration.

The @nytimes.com Lost Science series continues. Here's my Q&A with a scientist who was studying how wildfire smoke threatens human health when the EPA decided that her research was no longer a funding priority. Gift link: nyti.ms/4jhpw14

"The new administration has also wasted no time in dismantling Biden-era reforms designed to strengthen environmental protections for public rangelands."

"By the mid-21st century, flood events are expected to be more frequent predominantly in the eastern United States" agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... "urgent need for flood mitigation measures" tl.dr --> Floods in the East. Drought in the West

I loved this. And I want to note the whole “there were no autistic people before …” discourse has an answer here: just the people were sent away in the incarceration (yes “care homes” like this), and if they fled, they were just abandoned by society, usually to die.

You don't think it works on you. But it could. With enough time, enough money behind it, it might. This is your brain on propaganda. Andrea Pitzer on transphobia, and an end to manufacturing hate.

Here are all the US copyrighted works entering the public domain on Jan 1 next week: web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...

Dismantling the American Research Enterprise — The government's self-sabotage could not come at a worse time www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...

The thing that bothers me about our post-pandemic COVID discourse is how much of it isn't about how to do things better next time, it's playing Monday morning quarterback. It's not about learning, it's about spending years trying to win arguments that people had online from March 2020.

This is genuinely horrifying. Fact-free far-right agitprop given accolades by credible media across the political spectrum.

The US military faces a tight squeeze! With fewer people using *checks notes* Ohio-class nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines, it's lost more and more money. $1 trillion in the 12 months ending September alone.🤡 NYPD faces a tight squeeze! Fewer people want to be beaten down. Losing $12B.🤡

A moving story about covering Trump's destruction of the federal govt by @washingtonpost.com reporter @hannahnatanson.bsky.social, including tales of despair and suicide. #federalworkers #Psychsky #government #politics #DOGE

Gotta admit I am having trouble reading the new Netflix Privacy Policy onscreen

The American right, including Jay Bhattacharya, is trying to weaponize free speech by crying censorship. But freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach. To fight back, scientific institutions should say that junk science is junk. New post from me: 1/

The nearly 80-year-old law that could hamper RFK Jr.’s drive to remake vaccine schedule Legal experts say Kennedy needs to follow established legal procedures to prevent any policy changes from being dismissed by a judge. www.cidrap.umn.edu/c... Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr cc

I wrote about the ways propaganda takes root, how attacks against trans people in the US and UK reflect different mythologies of protection, and why combating disinformation at the local level might be a more effective way to dismantle these frameworks than abstract online arguments with strangers.

These declines are MASSIVE. And the comparative silence in media coverage is absolutely DAMNING. “Why are ppl always so afraid of crime?” THIS is why. When crime goes up, media trips over itself to report it. Falls to pre-war (!!) levels? Just CRICKETS.

A spectacular look back at Kitzmiller v. Dover, from Witold "Vic" Walczak.

"Candor, innocence, simplicity, unconsciousness, childishness—choose the label that will apply when it is revealed in a few years that the U.S. government has never actually gotten its hands on an alien." A review of the Sept. 23 Congressional UFO hearing - fotocat.blogspot.com/2025_12_23_a...

Coming on January 6 to American Experience on PBS: “Bombshell: The Fight to Control the A-Bomb’s Story,” about how the US news media worked with the government to manipulate the official narrative about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and how a few journalists refused to play along.

Math/money problem with the new Wegovy GLP-1 weight loss pill. www.scientificamerican.com/article/wego... The pill is $149/month for 1.5 mg. But in the clinical trial showing success, the daily pill was 25 mg. That's 16.7 HIGHER. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.... So is that $2488.30 per pill? 🧪 #medsky

“Good Old Boys From Good Old Families”: Rural Criminal–Legal Involvements and the Reproduction of Social Inequality onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... "But if you come from a different—from out of town and act stupid and get caught, you are in trouble."

We want to highlight the incredible science reporting being done at the local and regional level. Please submit your work for the Victor McElheny Award, which comes with a $10,000 prize. ksj.mit.edu/mcelheny-awa...

I've Survived Two School Shootings. I Implore You to Speak Up. — As a future physician, I believe all clinicians have a duty to fight against gun violence www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco... by Zoe Weissman

HHS Moves to Restrict Gender-Affirming Care Based on Dubious Report Shredded in Peer Review www.importantcontext.news/p/hhs-moves-... A review of the report HHS relied on calls it “a dangerous incursion of politics into science and medicine.”

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured asteroids crashing into one another in a nearby planetary system around a star some 25 light-years away

GLP-1s are about to become so much more ubiquitous.

The people who profited most from the cancel culture/free speech panic were less interested in actual freedom of speech than establishing their own control over public discourse. You don't even have to take my word for it. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

As we close out the year, wanted to share this running list of FDA leadership departures one last time. Some new names on there include digital health director Jessica Paulsen, and director of clinical policy in the chief medical office Shari Targum. www.statnews.com/2025/04/03/f...

Philly Inky: Cashing in on addiction recovery Recruiters flew people from Kensington to California for what they described as free luxury rehab. Critics say it’s a scam. share.inquirer.com/8EJAVO

It's Festivus, so I'm going to air some grievances. 1. If you're going to write a year end story about how scientists responded to authoritarianism and *NOT* include @standupforscience.bsky.social in the write up or cite that the photo you used as your header is from one of our rallies...that's bs.

"It is going to get so much worse." For the first of two end-of-the-year episodes of @pandemia.bsky.social, I talked to @drdemetre.bsky.social about what happened in 2025 at the CDC and how he thinks about the future of vaccines and public health in the US. A quick 🧪🧵

44 years ago Bad Brains on stage during their Christmas show at CBGB, which they played on December 23, 24, and 25, 1981. Photos by Glen E. Friedman #punk #punks #punkrock #hardcorepunk #badbrains #cbgb #history #punkrockhistory #otd

In the span of four days, we’ve built a coalition of over 80 lawmakers — including several Republicans — to stop the dismantling of NCAR. I’m grateful to them for their efforts as we work to secure language protecting NCAR in the upcoming CJS appropriations bill. We will not back down! 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Judge James Boasberg said the U.S. denied due process to the Venezuelan men it deported to a prison in El Salvador after President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. n.pr/3YaVn9X

EXCLUSIVE: I received a copy of the letter sent to developers today halting construction on all 5 offshore wind farms being built in America. What’s new here is the close “coordination” with the “Department of War” in determining the “risk” poised by these wind farms. And the threat to “cancel.”

A free press cannot function if the government is able to exercise veto power over critical reporting simply by refusing to engage. The public has the right to question how CBS will ensure the independence and integrity of its journalism going forward.

Long profile of Director Bhattacharya in Science. Lots of perspectives. www.science.org/content/arti... 1/13

"Researchers found that withdrawing support for rapidly advancing mRNA vaccine technology could result in over 49,000 preventable deaths annually among patients diagnosed with four major cancers..." Pro-death administration.

The vandalism continues www.cnn.com/2025/12/21/p...

The Associated Press has an excellent story about how FCC boss Brendan Carr bullied a Bay Area AM radio station for the crime of reporting on local ICE activity. facing existential collapse it immediately demoted journalists end replaced political coverage with safe public interest cack:

Bob and I were among the hundreds of researchers that were supposed to conduct the 6th U.S. National Climate Assessment. Now it looks like they're gonna produce it with a few people and Grok? Communities need rigorous and accurate information about climate change. This will put communities at risk.

Society of Professional Journalists: Code of Ethics www.spj.org/spj-code-of-... "Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. Give voice to the voiceless"

"The project—[Bari Weiss's] and that of her backers—is to establish herself and her cohort not as new-right media, but as the new liberal media, staking out the leftmost acceptable position within the new right-wing paradigm." (This is a gift link, from October) defector.com/bari-weiss-s...

The lack of empirical evidence in the “anti-conservative bias in higher education” panic is really striking. We’ve had more than a decade of elite consternation about this so-called crisis based on a handful of anecdotes.

“Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.”

The U.S. reportedly plans to overhaul the country’s childhood vaccine schedule. The move could set public health back decades, experts say