Dan Simberloff is perhaps best known for his work that is foundational to the field of invasion biology. He recently wrote the book “Ecological Explosions: The History of Biological Invasions and Invasion Science”, which explores the history and evolution of the field. 📖

A new study finds city lights suppress dormancy more powerfully than urban warming. In late-fall enclosures near porch lights, 41% of mosquitoes skipped dormancy and fed. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Banded mongooses scent-mark to keep rival groups apart. Our new paper in #EcologyAndEvolution finds those same marks create indirect pathogen contacts 16x more frequent than direct contact. Social defenses become transmission highways. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Can ecosystems malfunction? Only when we co-opt them for our purposes. The anthropocentric commitment is ineliminable. New essay in Aeon on the hidden philosophy behind "ecosystem function." aeon.co/essays/why-w...

New AAM-AGU report on climate change and infectious diseases, from attribution science to public health preparedness. I was part of the colloquium behind it. A good roadmap for where this field goes next. asm.org/reports/role-of-climate-change-on-emerging-and-reemerging

New AAM-AGU report on climate change and infectious diseases, from attribution science to public health preparedness. I was part of the colloquium behind it. A good roadmap for where this field goes next. asm.org/reports/role-of-climate-change-on-emerging-and-reemerging

The test-negative design has real statistical limitations. It also recovers the right answer when checked against randomized trials. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

COVID infected 17% of the Diamond Princess in a month. Hantavirus: 5% of the Hondius in five weeks. The biology explains why this outbreak won't scale. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

What if the biggest predictor of zoonotic disease isn't which species carries it, but how much we trade it? New Science paper quantifies pathogen sharing in traded species. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Marine parasites are increasing but still vastly understudied. New book from Jeb Byers, @johnwares.bsky.social, and @blakeslee-lab.bsky.social covers coral disease to parasite evolution across 18 chapters. Out June 5 from Oxford UP in the EEID series.

How does a rodent-borne virus end up on a cruise ship? Three dead, six suspected cases of hantavirus aboard the MV Hondius. The ship left from Andes virus territory. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

What happens when publish-or-perish meets AI? A journal's editorial team measured it. Submissions up 42%, writing worse, and the editors had to double their staff to cope. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

New #Flu #Biotech. Airway organoids from ten wildlife species, two flu strains. All produced infectious virus — in one primate it acquired mutations shifting toward avian receptors. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Rich Sutton's much-cited essay "The Bitter Lesson" is usually read as a verdict on human cleverness: scale wins, our theories of thinking lose. Read it again. The corollary is that minds are richer than our models of them. That's not bitter at all. jdrakephd.substack.com/p/the-bitter...

The National Science Board has had staggered six-year terms since 1950, by design. On Friday all 24 members were fired by email. The next board meeting is May 5. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Add enough environmental noise to a mosquito-borne disease model and epidemics that R0 says should happen simply don't. But at intermediate noise, you get the biggest outbreaks. New paper in PLOS Comp Biol with Kyle Dahlin, Karin Ebey, and John Vinson. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

How does a shrimp virus end up in human eyes? A new study in Nature Microbiology traces the path. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Complex epidemic models are hard to interpret. We used conditional SHAP + a neural network surrogate to identify what drives multi-strain dynamics and how those drivers interact. New paper in Scientific Reports. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An AI agent replicated a landmark economics paper live for the Federal Reserve for $11. Then the economist behind the demo asked whether the same tool was quietly de-skilling him. My conversation with him: www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

We tested 30 models for forecasting flu hospitalizations across 48 states. One auto-tuned model with a single covariate beat ensembles of 64. The key: forecast growth rates, not counts, and use national trends to predict state-level dynamics.

An AI system ran a full scientific study end-to-end, and one of its papers beat the median human submission at a major ML workshop. The economics are the real story — a draft paper for a few dollars in compute, landing on institutions that were not built for it. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Remote islands protect plants from disease. But isolation also favors large-leaved species — and big leaves are easy targets. Two forces, working against each other. New piece in Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

(Potentially) unpopular opinion. Too long for BlueSky so please read on Substack. jdrakephd.substack.com/p/in-praise-...

Hi folks - I've mostly migrated to substack. Would love to see my friends here follow me over there, too. It's the main place I'll be posting about ecology, environment, health, epidemiology, academia, and related topics. jdrakephd.substack.com

New paper out today 🧵 Flexible methods for species distribution modeling with small samples (Ecography, OA). nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

This #openaccess work was a collaborative effort with Robbie Richards, Ben Carlson, @jdrakephd.bsky.social, and Cory Merow. All code and data are freely available on Github (github.com/bmaitner/sma...) or Dryad (doi.org/10.5061/drya...).

After experimenting for a few months, I've decided mostly to migrate over to Substack. I hope those who follow me here and previously followed me on Twitter will forgive the disruption and click below to follow me there.

Our new paper in #HealthSecurity argues that epidemic intelligence needs a #systems-of-systems framework—integrating #epidemiology, behavior, supply chains, policy, and ecology—rather than siloed models that talk past one another. Includes an #H5N1 case study. www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A challenge in epidemic forecasting is that ML models overfit while mechanistic models miss changing transmission conditions. Our new JR Soc Interface paper tests whether physics-informed neural networks—which embed an epidemiological ODE system inside a neural net—can address this.

Biological modeling is organized inquiry, but how should we think about the process? My new paper in #EcologyLetters argues that we should model like experimentalists: define treatments, measure responses, validate, perturb, repeat. 👉 doi.org/10.1111/ele.... Do you agree?

New essay out in #Science: why is the human fatality rate from the current #H5N1 outbreak so much lower than in past outbreaks? I explore three possible explanations—and what they mean for pandemic risk. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Newly expanded version of my guide to scientific writing -- known as the “15 steps” -- published in PLOS Computational Biology. Special thanks to Éric Marty for creating a fantastic visualization. Check it out: journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... #ScientificWriting #PLOSComputationalBiology

Excited to share that I’m joining @bigbiology.bsky.social this season as a recurring guest host. Marty Martin and I teamed up on my first episode with @jaapderoode.bsky.social, and it's just dropped. Hope you enjoy it. #diseaseecology

“Globalisation, global change and emerging infectious diseases” with @jdrakephd.bsky.social How do globalisation and climate change influence the rise of new pandemics? Join in person or online – open to all. Register: www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/events/globa... Stream: youtube.com/live/80kXZlQ...

Biological modeling is organized inquiry, but how should we think about the process? My new paper in #EcologyLetters argues that we should model like experimentalists: define treatments, measure responses, validate, perturb, repeat. 👉 doi.org/10.1111/ele.... Do you agree?

Why are flu vaccination rates stuck? We studied how “medical mindsets” (naturalist/technologist, minimalist/maximalist, doubter/believer) affect vaccine hesitancy. These attitudes matter and could help tailor communication to boost uptake. Read about it in #Vaccine 👉 doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

What if we take a systems approach to thinking about transboundary animal diseases? Our framework, just out in #TrendsInParasitology, suggests common vulnerabilities and opportunities for intervention. #TADs authors.elsevier.com/a/1lshW5Eb1x...

New essay out in #Science: why is the human fatality rate from the current #H5N1 outbreak so much lower than in past outbreaks? I explore three possible explanations—and what they mean for pandemic risk. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Newly expanded version of my guide to scientific writing -- known as the “15 steps” -- published in PLOS Computational Biology. Special thanks to Éric Marty for creating a fantastic visualization. Check it out: journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... #ScientificWriting #PLOSComputationalBiology

How do human-wildlife interfaces and seasonality interact during disease emergence? Our team has created a model, inspired by the #spillover of #Ebola, to better understand the interplay. Read more about our research: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Science philanthropy is alive and well. Schmidt Sciences has just announced eight new awards through its Schmidt Polymaths program. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Ever read a paper & think, "wow 🤩 that was well written"? Learn how to write your own *wow* paper with @midas-network.bsky.social trainees on Thurs 9/25 @ noon ET. We'll hear from @jdrakephd.bsky.social on strategies for crafting & communicating a good story. 🔗 georgetown.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Interesting work by Kris Parag and Sandor Beregi using model predictive control for timing NPIs. 👉 Read my Forbes piece: www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Universities everywhere are now grappling with policies on the use of AI in research and writing, raising fascinating broader questions about how AI might (or should) figure in scholarly work. What are your thoughts—beyond the usual tropes (“AI isn’t an author,” “the human is responsible,” etc.)?

Full details of #H5N1 infection in a San Francisco child last year—with no known source—were just published in the MMWR. Case report → www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes... My take at forbes.com → www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Trying something new: a Substack. It’s called Drake’s Dispatches. Occasional essays, columns, and notes on science, health, environment, and other stuff. First post is up: jdrakephd.substack.com

What stands out to me is not only the scale of the mobilization, but the silence it has met. When the top 0.1% of scientists, engineers, and physicians are compelled to act collectively, you would expect their message to command attention. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

We finally have a proper breakdown of the 70 human cases of H5N1 in the USA thanks to Melissa Rolfes and other CDC scientists. Great paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... My thoughts here: www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

An ambitious new report, commissioned by #TheLancet, seeks to reframe #OneHealth to be an even more encompassing framework. I spoke with co-chairs Andrea Winkler and John Amuasi about their process. The report: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... My interview: www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

A rare Salmonella strain has reemerged in the US, traced to pet bearded dragons. 27 cases, mostly infants. Same strain as 10 yrs ago. My take in Forbes on what this means for public health—and for the reptile trade. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...