thedispatch.com/article/meas... This is what losing herd immunity looks like... Also, remember that measles is more dangerous for older, unvaccinated individuals.

Wishing all my Bsky friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May this festive period bring you peace, joy and rest. Adam The photo is of me visiting a coffee plantation in North Thailand in January 2025, something I had always wanted to do. Thank you to all for making it possible.

From today's #DailyNewsDigest📰: "The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Finally, the withdrawal from Erasmus was such a moronic waste. www.theguardian.com/education/20... EU’s Erasmus scheme to reopen to UK students for first time since Brexit at cost of £570m

"We have, perversely, entered into a period of politics defined by what I call “Pareto punishment”: I don’t care if this development makes me or the people I care about any better off in real terms—as long as it hurts or humiliates the other side. " Sad yet true. thedispatch.com/article/pare...

One of the best, if not the best, commentaries on the current political situation. Subscribe if you can! substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Sorry to hear that.

The current mindset regarding pandemic disease — there is no point in trying to stop it — has never truly met a pandemic scourge. COVID was deadly (at 3%) but if we were to meet an airborne communicable virus with a 30-50% kill ratio, we would change our tune. #AvianInfluenza, #H5N1 is here...

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

An excellent text on AI in higher education (an American perspective, but still valid for other countries). www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

please remember pro-AI colleagues are addicts or sell outs or both > One might think this hypocrisy is anecdotal, but it’s institutional. Faculty who once panicked over AI plagiarism are now being “empowered” by universities like CSU, Columbia, and Ohio State to embrace the very “tools” they feared.

www.forestresearch.gov.uk/news/help-pr... @forestresearchuk.bsky.social @planthealthscot.bsky.social

The agency also announced plans to relax a rule requiring companies to report all products containing PFAS and has proposed weakening drinking water standards for the chemicals. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

The EPA has approved two new pesticides with "forever chemicals" that will be used on food. The agency has also announced plans for four additional approvals. The approved pesticides will be used on vegetables such as romaine lettuce, broccoli and potatoes.

Absolutely spot on. @drrachelclarke.com @profaliceroberts.bsky.social Lockdown Redux open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

My alma mater, Leicester University, is dissolving its Geology Department leading to the loss of 14 staff. Palaeo is being completely axed, despite Leicester's long and storied history in this area (and its current strengths). Please sign this petition!!: www.change.org/p/save-geolo...

The latest research confirms AMOC weakening together with a tipping point that is getting closer and closer. Governments are starting to notice with Iceland the first to declare it a national security threat. drtomharris.substack.com/p/amoc-weake... #climatechange #amoc #adaptation #tippingpoint

I am sure I have some spare ones.

"In the first six months of 2025, there were 57% more farm bankruptcies than during the same period last year, according to United States Courts." www.cbsnews.com/news/us-farm...

Astonishing video, worth watching in full.

The pandemic was a mass-disabling event and one of the reasons it has largely vanished from day to day political discourse is that those in power don't want to acknowledge the long term care needs it produced.

1. In the wake on Mamdani’s win, we’ll see a lot more far right anti-urban sentiment. Here’s a thread on its roots and evolution. The idea that the city is evil and corrupt, and the countryside innocent and pure, goes back a long way: to Theocritus in Alexandria, and to the Old Testament. 🧵

How not to apply for a PhD? On my reply to an AI-generated request: statisticallyinsignificant.blog/2025/11/04/a...

Does it also apply to #REF2029 preparations?

Few experiences are more stressful, spooky, uncanny & disruptive for the Neurodivergent than international travel. Here's why it's the stuff of nightmares, & how the travel industry can change that. (& may be starting to.) This felt good to write, at last. www.businesstraveller.com/insights/fea...

One very special aspect of being an academic is seeing younger colleagues graduating with a PhD or MSc. Being able to help them in their journey to achieve their life goals is such a privilege. Thank you to my November 2025 graduates at @unistrathclyde.bsky.social

This @royalsociety.org report has not received nearly the attention it deserves. Key finding: "most current approaches to economic assessments of impacts of #climate change do not reflect the severity of consequences that are suggested by the latest physical climate science & evidence on impacts" 😬

My next post on AI and browsers: statisticallyinsignificant.blog/2025/10/23/a...

“CDC is over. It was killed. This administration only knows how to break things. They have made America at risk for outbreaks and attacks by nefarious players. People should be scared,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.” Among those RIFd: —leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases; —leadership of global health center —leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4

They have fired the staff of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, who are disease detectives that respond to outbreaks around the world. I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous it is to dismantle our disease surveillance infrastructure.

As usual, a great pleasure to be at the @planthealthscot.bsky.social annual conference. A poster on Ips typographus, and a talk on #AI in #planthealth #PlantScience

New (very short) post on my blog on AI: statisticallyinsignificant.blog/2025/09/30/a...

What a feeling - just submitted to @ukri.org a large £3m grant application with 5 universities/collaborators. It is my third application this year, first as a PI, total value £7m. @unistrathclyde.bsky.social

It's this time of the year. It will be a delicious breakfast tomorrow. #fungi #mushrooms

theconversation.com/we-risk-a-de... An article describing how AI is changing the scientific publication landscape. A combination of AI writing and predatory publishing leads to a deluge of "resmearch" - or rather "research slop".

oh noooo

An autumn in Scotland – Chopin, 1848 bylines.scot/society/an-a...

Here are some of the false or misleading claims RFK Jr. made during yesterday’s hearing: ca.news.yahoo.com/fact-checkin...

Science Under Siege: A Talk With Peter Hotez and Michael Mann open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

Well, you're the FDA Commissioner, so tell us. What do the data say? No? Here, I'll help you. Thread [1/5 ] CDC: deaths within 42 days of mRNA vaccination were below background (expected) rates in every age group, including ages 6 months–17 years www.cdc.gov/acip/downloa...

www.eldestapeweb.com/sociedad/cie... #Treemortality Forests in Patagonia are experiencing high levels of tree mortality most likely linked to increasing temperatures and severity of droughts

On genAI bubble: "Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." F. Herbert, Dune

One week until the @bspp.bsky.social #PPATH25 conference: www.bspp.org.uk/conference-i... See you all there, and please come to our special session on the Artificial Intelligence revolution in plant pathology research! #PlantScience

🤣

I love looking at this graph, showing it to my students, and sharing it on social media, even though it unerringly brings out the trolls. This is the efficacy curve of Pfizer's mRNA COVID vaccine. This, people, is what ended the emergency phase of the COVID pandemic. Despite what RFK Jr says.

Low sensitivity and specificity are a big problem with AI-powered tools. The application determines whether such levels can be tolerated. But if it sends the wrong message, better not to implement. My blog from the COVID era: statisticallyinsignificant.blog/2020/09/22/f...

These are incredibly useful tips for all teachers and professors starting a new academic year...

Today, 31st August, marks the 80th anniversary of Stefan Banach's death. One of the best mathematicians of the 20th Century, who formalised Banach spaces and co-authored one of the most amazing theorems, the Banach-Tarski paradox. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_...