In 1924, Calvin Coolidge's 16-yr-old son played tennis on the White House grounds w/o wearing socks. He got a blister and was dead from infection a week later. This is unthinkable today—which is why I wrote this series. Cuz the systems that save us from this kind of fate are in urgent need of care.

Amazon controls over a third of the global cloud computing market. Its customers include Capital One, United Airlines, and the US Army. Today's outage should be a wakeup call: Dependence on a handful of powerful corporations is a threat to economic and national security.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

This is beyond bad. All of our disease defenses are down now. We are sitting ducks. This is #RussellVought #DonaldTrump. They are endangering American lives with their insane crusade. These men are hazardous to your health and dangerous to the republic.

they are destroying US climate science on purpose, and it hurts my heart. but take it from an MIT-trained nerdass: all most of us need to know is that we have to stop burning stuff stop burning stuff for heat stop burning stuff for make car go stop burning stuff for power we have the tools

“We will never know what diseases might have been cured or what advances in technology might have been invented had the lights not gone out in the labs.” 🧪 #giftarticle

Vaccines are safe and effective. RFK Jr. isn’t.

Want to move to Switzerland? We are looking for a postdoc to study airborne viruses: careers.epfl.ch/job/Lausanne... @linseymarr.bsky.social @lakdawalalab.bsky.social @corsiaq.bsky.social @influenzal.bsky.social @chuckhaas.bsky.social

Vaccination rates are falling - and RFK Jr.’s CDC doesn’t want you to know. They skipped their flagship vaccine coverage study and quietly posted redacted data. Transparency should not be optional in public health. zurl.co/Qzn1P

UC-Berkeley has an open-rank faculty position in our incredible Climate Equity and Environmental Justice (CEEJ) research cluster. It is an extraordinary interdisciplinary group working across multiple colleges and departments at the university! More information here: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04842

DOE ASR program manager just sent a colleague an excerpt from the WH DOE budget that was stealthily dropped: “BER activities in environmental system sciences, atmospheric system research, earth system modeling, data management, and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility are terminated."

AXIOS: “.. AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, [Anthropic CEO] Amodei told us in an interview ..” @axios.com www.axios.com/2025/05/28/a...

Following all of the Bluesky accounts of the Academies is as simple as adding the accounts in our starter pack. And there's a few feeds to boot! go.bsky.app/CeBKkMs

Science & the innovation economy are under threat. "We hold diverse political beliefs, but we are united as researchers in wanting to protect independent scientific inquiry. We are sending this SOS to sound a clear warning: the nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated." Read & share ... 👇

People have no understanding of the enormous avoided health costs that EPA has made possible. The Clean Air Act alone has paid for all of EPA's costs by a factor of nearly 100.

The air quality and health models I have used throughout my career have emerged from EPA’s Office of Research and Development. Shuttering it would be a devastating loss. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/c...

This is what many cities in the U.S. looked like before the EPA. Why the heck would anyone celebrate deregulating it?

Measles is caused by the measles, or rubeola, virus. It transmits through the air and is extremely contagious. Its reproduction number is estimated to be 12-18, so each infected person generates 12-18 new cases in a susceptible population. Best way to avoid it: vaccination.

Terminology is important as it can be very confusing to mix up those descriptors and folks think measles was wiped out in human populations. "Eradicated from the US" is not a thing. TYVM for this moment of pedantry.

Our study found that the transmission risk of measles among unvaccinated students is > 70 times higher than properly immunized ones

Why, although I have an active account here, I do not consider this to be a primary vehicle, since like other corporately owned social media, it seems to be succumbing to censorship. I prefer the #fediverse / #mastodon @joinmastodon.org.web.brid.gy www.404media.co/bluesky-dele...

They are also asking other organizations to endorse the statement here: 🧪 allea.org/portfolio-it...

Unfortunately, I think years of dogmatic attitudes in some corners of science along the lines of ‘RCT is the only trustworthy form of evidence’ etc. have helped make space for flawed arguments like the below: www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

"Eating One’s Seed Corn" - a blog post: chaasblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/19/e...

The @acs.org has deleted its website on diversity, equity, inclusion and respect. www.acs.org/about/divers...

I'm a journalist with Bloomberg News. I am trying to connect with climate scientists affected by the LA fires. If you would be interested in sharing your thoughts or experience, please reach out here or eroston at bloomberg dot net. Thank you. 🙏

How workers died last week. Carbon monoxide, falls, logging, suffocation, coal mine, construction equipment, vehicle incidents, stabbing and shootings. On average, over 100 workers are killed every week in the US due to traumatic injuries suffered at work jordanbarab.com/confinedspac...

Am getting inquiries on how to stay safe in terms of air LA due to fires...indoor filtration is key. Inexpensive CR boxes can be built in less than 1 hour by a 5 year old and outperform more expensive HEPAs. KN95 for particles. Respirators with activated carbon is concerned about gases/fumes. (1/2)

The costs of slowing climate change are far, far lower than paying for climate disasters. A 2023 report says it will cost over $12 B (over 15 yrs) to build resilience in LA to disasters. Is this a lot? Estimates of the current LA fires are approaching $60 B. climateintegrity.org/projects/cli...

The Philly Inquirer (@inquirer.com) has a bunch of job openings right now -- including one on the health desk! Come work with our extremely cool team full of extremely smart reporters (and me). inquirer.rec.pro.ukg.net/PHI1500PHILI...

Philadelphians! I am working on a story about our city's rat population. Do you have any experiences with these critters? Have you been surprised by how few rats you see despite the city's longstanding issues with litter and street cleaning? Tell me your rat tales!

Announcing - 2025 Summer Institute in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (#qmra). Applications now open - flyer attached. #riskanalysis #riskassessment

"We estimate that the sources of drinking water for up to 23 million Americans could be contaminated above regulatory thresholds by wastewater-derived PFAS [forever chemicals] alone." @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Not worth the paper on which it’s printed. Unsub, folks. WaPo’s actively killing democracy The Philly Inquirer’s 1 of The Best. Use your $ to sub there At Cliff’s Edge, we *NEVER bend to whims of billionaires* We’re Independent Alpha Democrats. **SUBSCRIBE for FREE! www.YouTube.com/Cliffs_Edge

@cnn.com - you should not use the #MercatorProjection when you discuss #Greenland. This is quite misleading visually in terms of land area.

Nice drinking water you got there, if you can keep it. My story about how water (drinking and waste water) are losing workers right when because of climate change we need them most. Gift link.

Two things can be true: Public health travels at the speed of trust. Responses built on trust will be more effective. Viruses can exploit trust within rural communities. "Trust your raw milk farmer" is not the basis of an effective public health response. www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2...

Sadly, it’s a good time to once again share this amazing infographic that we ran at @science.org more than 7 years ago 🧪 #IDsky www.science.org/content/arti...

At what point do we reject a null hypothesis that a person is only a useful idiot?

I wasn’t expecting to add “polio booster” to my list of vaccines and boosters I need to catch up on (flu, shingles, covid, etc.) but here we are. FML.

Yet another illustration of university administrators behaving as if faculty are an inconvenient expense on the budget line and the marginal value the time they spend doing what they think is important is zero.

We need to know more about the variability of responses of #LLMs . A short blog piece: chaasblog.wordpress.com/2024/12/10/v...

Curious whether any of my followers here are at the #SocietyForRiskAnalysis meeting this week? #SRA2024 #riskanalysis #riskassessment

risk assessment should be a required course in public health. same with comms training.

A bit of an overdue introduction since jumping on here a few weeks ago. Microbiologist with split affinities for marine science and public health that I try to merge when I can. Happy to see fellow scientists here and keeping my paper reading list full!

Not great that scientists and journalists are scattered about on different platforms at this particular moment in time (not coincidental that this happened at this particular moment in time, either...)

Optimist: The cup is half full. Pessimist: The cup is half empty. Engineer: Please re-do your responses in SI units, use one more significant figure, and specify your measurement method.