I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇

Meeresforscher Andrew Sweetman macht einen sensationellen Fund. Dafür wird er von Naturschützern bejubelt – und von Bergbaufirmen diffamiert. @eis.bsky.social hat Sweetman besucht.

This is such a moving piece. If your interested in #Ebola — the damage it causes, the trauma families and communities and responders face during and after an outbreak — please read it. www.statnews.com/2026/05/20/e...

The contrast between the number of media requests I got when rich people on a cruise were facing a deadly, but contained outbreak versus now that some of the poorest people in the world are facing a deadly and devastating epidemic is just so so stark and it just really annoys the hell out of me.

Here is a brief thread on this preprint from @virusesimmunity.bsky.social's group studying a volunteer cohort of people with self-reported "post-vaccination syndrome", recently covered in the NYT. I think there are a few reasons to be skeptical of the headline takeaways of this preprint.

Important thread. "Science suffers a dramatic disadvantage when it comes to storytelling because it is bound by fact. Evidence is slow. It is also often nuanced, jargoned and hard to explain to non-experts. It demands caveats." We science journalists have to be more creative in how we tell stories.

New deep dive from me into the anti-science movement, it's structure, tactics, and impact on science and society. Some data analysis, unique testimonies, new infographics and also a first attempt at outlining broadly-agreed upon actions how to fight back. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/protagon...

Dr. David Morens - who is 78 years old and served his country for nearly 50 years - used Gmail, which he shouldn't have done. However, "[he] was stripped and handcuffed [by] a half-dozen federal agents carrying guns and wearing tactical gear [..] and jailed". www.science.org/content/arti...

To be clear about what just happened: The Trump administration sent armed FBI agents to abduct a 78-year-old doctor and former federal public health worker from his home and stripped him because the brainwashed right-wing base, hopped up on a literal conspiracy theory, wants scalps.

How big AG contributes to climate change denial and delay: changingmarkets.org/report/the-n...

Congratulations to @theresluethi.bsky.social for her prize in the Science category at the Swiss Press Awards! She won it for her article exploring the (undue) success of COVID lab-leak hypotheses in the media and public sphere Her article: www.tagesanzeiger.ch/covid-warum-... #covidorigin 🧪

If in London, don't miss the Hurvin Anderson exhibition at Tate Britain.

In March, invited by Jay Bhattacharya, Matt Ridley gave the inaugural "Scientific Freedom Lecture" at NIH, on a lab leak origin of COVID-19. There was a lot to debunk; here is Part II: pandemonium.hypotheses.org/1108 🧪 #covidorigin

In March, Matt Ridley gave the inaugural "Scientific Freedom Lecture" at NIH, on a lab leak origin of COVID-19. The talk was so full of misrepresentations, omissions, falsehoods and lies that I will need several blog posts to debunk it. Here's Part I: pandemonium.hypotheses.org/995 🧪 #covidorigin

This is an actual post. This is not funny. This is beyond desperate. This is a deeply unwell man who doesn’t belong anywhere near the levers of power. Every member of his cabinet and Congress is complicit in not demanding his removal now.

I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and now every time a Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Gilead has a drug that could prevent HIV with just 2 injections a year. MSF said "we'll buy it name your price." Gilead said no. Let that sink in. Pharmacological innovation without access for those who need it does not accomplish its potential. www.eatg.org/hiv-news/pre...

'Moonlit Sea' - Koho, ca. 1930's. #FullMoon #JapaneseArt

Short form content has its drawbacks but @popdetective.bsky.social has been absolutely on fire with YouTube shorts this week. Check them out! youtube.com/shorts/3tbZh...

Read @flodebarre.bsky.social's original analysis: pandemonium.hypotheses.org/898. While the original WeChat post is bonkers, it points to unreleased data from the market, including: 1️⃣ Potentially infected animals in "Stall A" - the hot-spot inside the market. 2️⃣ +Serology of vendor from Stall A.

As a new study calls into question one of the central planks of the "lab leak" hypothesis, I review the long history of pandemics and describe how researchers have long puzzled over their origins. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/opportunit...

NYT: Scientists Get a Glimpse of How New Pandemics Are Made Researchers have devised a new tool for discerning between naturally occurring viral outbreaks and those resulting from lab accidents by Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com @nytimes.com nyti.ms/4uoaA6w gift link

The night sky is ours. All of ours. Our children’s. Their children’s. We should be doing more to preserve the view of the stars for all. We give this up for some ludicrous to churn out wasteful nonsense to feed rich maniacs’ grift, it’s not coming back…

I have devoted much of my weather & climate career to engaging with journalists--including 200-300 news media interviews per year, many of which involve recurring conversations to facilitate timely & contextually accurate coverage. This recent collapse has been stunning and deeply disconcerting.

Sleepwalking into a new age of gender inequality. "Women make up just 12 per cent of AI researchers and female founders receive only 2 per cent of venture capital funding. We are not the ones building this new world. But we will have no choice about living in it." www.ft.com/content/60e2...

Today's must-read: time.com/7358059/econ...

Conspiracy theorists often see themselves as critical thinkers, yet they may fall for obvious disinformation when it aligns with their beliefs. It happened last Spring with a claim that the origin of the 2024 Marburg virus disease outbreak in Rwanda was a lab leak. ▫️1/6 🧵

Just added this to my WordPress site, so it's free to read. homunculusmusic.wordpress.com/2026/02/14/e...

"Young people are quickly becoming so dependent on A.I. that they are losing the ability to think for themselves. And rather than rallying resistance, academic administrators are aiding and abetting a hostile takeover of higher education." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...

Unser Dokufilm #Blame kommt jetzt ins Kino, so vielleicht ist es ein guter Zeitpunkt mal ein paar Termine hier zu posten. Der Film wird von "Rise and Shine Cinema" vertrieben und es gibt alle Info auf deren Webseite: riseandshine-cinema.de/portfolio/bl... Okay, so hier ein paar infos: 1/

Hot News from @naturehealthglobal.bsky.social Re. the documentary Blame: Nominated for major award, released in theaters in Germany/Switzerland, & US PREMIERE at the Sedona Film Festival in April 2026!!! 🧵 naturehealthglobal.org/update-blame...

We all live in Jeffrey Epstein's world now. That's what we can't face. It's our world. Where sexual desire for children is protected, victims receive no justice & the President of what used to be called the free world is Jeff's friend. This is Jeff's World now. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

“The U.S. Supreme Court said that you could detain people based on their race, their accent, or the language they spoke … There is nothing to preclude ICE from doing that while you’re standing in line getting ready to cast a ballot,” Stacey Abrams tells Anne Applebaum. theatln.tc/qkeYrlaM

Die Fragen, die man sich vor der #Halbierungsintiative stellen müsste: Was können private Medien (nicht) leisten, die auf Reichweite und Klicks zielen müssen? Und was sind uns die Öffentlich-Rechtlichen als Infrastruktur für Demokratie und Föderalismus wert? www.derbund.ch/srg-halbieru...

Tooze: polycrisis meets sodom and gomorrah adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

Perhaps it was coincidental timing, but nothing underscores the collapse of the Washington Post like firing most of the Pulitzer prize winning #climate reporters the very same day as their opinion pages publishes a BS screed by climate misinformer Bjorn Lomborg.

An open letter Jeff Bezos and Washington Post leadership:

This work sits at the core of machine learning’s breakthroughs, which rest on the fact that AI is only as good as the data it is trained on. In India, this labour is increasingly performed by women, who are part of a workforce often described as “ghost workers”. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

@sammyroth.bsky.social reporting that the Post cuts include 14 climate journalists: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/washington...

"Those who were laid off include Caroline O’Donovan, the Post’s beat reporter covering Amazon"

“It’s like someone who slices your Achilles and then asks you why you’re limping.” nymag.com/intelligence...

“After thoughtful consideration, I have decided to withdraw my Symphony No 15 ‘Lincoln’ from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. .. the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony." www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

Please spread this far and wide, as stories don't get much bigger than this. When the government blocks even the intelligence services from telling us we're heading for environmental catastrophe, you know we have a problem. A very big problem. Thank you. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The actor, Edward Norton, calls for a General Strike! "What they are doing in Minnesota with the strike needs to expand. We should be talking about a national General and Economic Strike."

"One can object that there are elements of classical European fascism that are not found in Trumpism ... Trump is building something new on old principles. He is showing us in real time what 21st-century American fascism looks like."

BBC faces ‘profound jeopardy’ without funding overhaul, Tim Davie says

The story is not that there are two conflicting versions of what happened. The story is that the federal government is lying about what happened. There is plenty of evidence. Your job, our job, is to sift that evidence and describe what actually happened ffs.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti. "Please get the truth out about our son."

🧪 💉 Bill Foege is an absolute #PublicHealth legend And furious to the end about the destruction of US public health “Kennedy’s words can be as lethal as the smallpox virus,” he wrote… “I had no idea I would be this angry at the age of 89.” Ht @boghuma.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...

“Heute haben Patienten mit schweren Brand­verletzungen deutlich bessere Chancen, zu überleben. Selbst wenn sie nahezu keine unverbrannte Hautstelle mehr haben, schaffen wir es, das Leben jeder zweiten Patientin zu retten” sagt Clemens Schiestl von Kispi Zürich. Wie das möglich wurde: 👇