Trump's fantasies about medicine: autism and ADHD. I made a YouTube video: The MAGA wing of the Republican party just make up things -it's almost as though something being NOT true is sufficient reason to advocate it, in order to sow chaos. youtu.be/iTZ-rrfL36U

“If you think Tylenol is bad for babies, wait until you hear about rubella virus” @angierasmussen.bsky.social rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/the-poison...

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty. If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐 There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

Nah. Sorry. Grit in the wheels is grit in the wheels. The notion that you make life Kafkaesque for everyone all the time, in order to protect them "in case" is jejune at best. The US has no unified system and they're bundling people into unmarked vans and sending them to El Salvador with no trial.

#bbcLauraK Impressed that Starmer pointed out that Brexit has prevented returns of people who cross the Channel in small boats, and that he is beginning to point out the dangers of electing a pro-Putin party in the UK. Perhaps he is veering away from his out-Reform-Reform policy?

Putin's People Party gets caught in the act again www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

And here we are. Another damn’d thick, square book. A real wrist-sprainer. UK edition (pictured) has endpapers showing Crick and Brenner’s blackboard and colour plates. Both U.K. and US editions have sections heralded by a double page photo as here. Loads of illustrations. Out in November!

Lisa Nandy was all over the place earlier today on the wireless; none of her arguments made any sense; and I'm in favour of an ID system!

Could there be a connection between a squashed million-year-old skull and the Denisovans? I look at whether a provocative new study can be squared with what we already know from ancient genomes. I think there's a way. www.johnhawks.net/p/the-proble...

Zach has made a lot of genius things over the years, and this is at the top of the pantheon.

open.spotify.com/episode/0Ry2... Another banger from @iandunt.bsky.social and @dorianlynskey.bsky.social

Alcohol can actually improve your memory (sometimes) metro.co.uk/2016/02/... A Metro article inspired by The Idiot Brain (my debut book), which makes it definitely correct. #Brains #Memory #Article

It's all getting videotastic over at Origin Story towers and we've put a lot of work into making it super professional. Producer Simon is absolutely smashing it on these videos.

Trudeau named not reforming the voting system as his big regret. Starmer shouldn't repeat his mistake. The stakes are now much higher than just who wins the next election. When there's such a disconnect between how people vote and who wins seats, trust in democracy is at risk.

Autism is back on the front pages. Why not read the book that my excellent @manchester.ac.uk @manchstm.bsky.social colleague Dr Bonnie Evans has published on the history of autism? It's open access and you can read it online for free. www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781...

1) According to The National, Reform will not scrap "EU settled status", but this does not mean that EU citizens living here will all be safe. Let me explain: www.thenational.scot/news/2548678...

RFK Jr: “Research on vaccines and autism has been suppressed.” PubMed: “Here’s over 1200 research papers on vaccines and autism… …including this first one which is a meta-analysis showing that vaccines are not associated with autism.”

I reviewed Steven Pinker's new book on common knowledge. Tl;dr: "A book can be bad without its thesis being untrue".

Does Tylenol cause autism? (A comprehensive neuroscientific response to the recent US govt report) [Summary] No, of course not! What's wrong with you? [Full answer] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-[1/237]

What did I say about the BBC being terrible at science reporting? You don't both sides this issue, you report that one side are cranks and treat them as such.

Experts aren’t “sceptical”. Experts are saying it’s unadulterated bullshit being peddled by a lunatic and his army of criminals and quacks. Get it right, BBC.

This is truly terrifying.

Will anyone rein in these tech emperors?

I explain here why I’ve finally left X for good. It’s like a perverted version of the Miranda rule “Anything you say WILL be held against you.” So, in Trump’s America, it’s increasingly advisable to stay silent.

I thought @emilythornberry.bsky.social was very good on Channel 4 news re Trump visit. Hit just the right tone. She was as honest as she could be in the circumstances about the difficult line the UK is trying to walk.

In the early days of quantum chemistry, before we had computers to calculate the shapes of electron orbitals, one man invented a mechanical machine that simulated their shapes. My latest column for @chemistryworld.com www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/the-...

Looking for a streaming service that is not beholden to fascists, ideally is European, and which allows me to use my account in more than one location/country. Any suggestions?

I watched Kimmel's three most recent monologues, convinced I had missed the thing MAGA was outraged about. But it looks like this is it. It has to be more than this, right? There's just no way this is it.

I wrote something about feeling like a guest in a country that is my home. bestforbritain.substack.com/p/my-place-o...

A welcome, if belated, awakening to the disconnect between Musk's actions and the stated values of the Royal Society?

We often worry about the wrong things. People killed annually by Sharks 10 Elephants 100 Hippos 500 Snails 10,000 Dogs 25,000 Snakes 50,000 People 475,000 Mosquitoes 725,000 🧪

open.spotify.com/episode/3XAW... Another splendid Origin Story from @dorianlynskey.bsky.social and @iandunt.bsky.social with many fascinating parallels drawn between then and now.

Watched Thursday Murder Club (by that @richardosman1.bsky.social ) on the telebox last night and it's rather splendid. K has read the books of course, but I didn't really know what to expect.

I just sat with a group of two-year-olds who were playing pass the parcel - with a lot of help from their enthusiastic parents. The bafflement on the children's faces was a sight to behold. It was as though Donald Trump and his political appointees were attending a seminar on moral philosophy.

If the revisionism continues at this pace, some commentator will have turned the man who had half my family murdered into a "misunderstood watercolour painter" by the time the NYT goes to print tomorrow

One thing is for sure: if MAGA takes control of universities and further restricts academic freedoms, that’s going to be the end of American universities as a force for progress and innovation. What you’re going to get is the equivalent of Deutsche Physik.

I'm thinking of starting a petition against hot taps that turn the wrong way. Who's in?

How does train Internet work (on the rare occasions it does)?

🚨🚨Yes, we all knew that the poor trade deal with the US was a result of the EU being extremely frightened about the prospect of US dropping military and intelligence support to Ukraine. It, however, seems to drag out some inevitable choices for Europe in terms of collective defense and security. 🧵

I’m trying to say this carefully as I have religious family, love them dearly, and people’s personal beliefs are their business, but the US is what happens when you let expressions of personal beliefs in implausible woo be taken seriously as part of public political and policy discourse.

More Brexit joys: applying online for ETA for 86yo German MiL. Application made; €s taken but no email acknowledgment of submission. To chatline; defeated the bot & got a human; "wait 1 day". Nobody there today of course cos weekend. Found portal to submit query to HO. "Response in 3 working days" 🤬

"The numbers arriving so far this month have been the lowest in August since 2021" - The Times mentions in the 24th paragraph of its front-page splash something which few people in the print, broadcast and online newsrooms of the UK are aware of www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Cc @alisonmoyet.bsky.social

Today's money-saving tip: This is basically Matt's most recent book - just not spun into 300 interminable pages. And every one of his substack blogs. Every. One. All of it is these three inane ideas, all of which are basically personal grievances. There you go. Saved you a tenner and 10 IQ points.

RFK Jr demanded a vaccine study be retracted — the journal said no www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Truth 🤢🤮