I don't think Peter Mandelson is PM's biggest problem. The biggest problem is not standing up to the literal violent racism on our streets, supercharged by the richest man in the world, and threatening the very fabric of our society. If he and so many commentators can't see this, we're truly lost.

SINGER, our ARG inference method, is finally published and freely available online: doi.org/10.1038/s415... It was a long journey – 16 months from initial submission to acceptance. Is it just me, or has peer review gotten more arduous lately? 4+ rounds of review isn't so unusual these days...

I see we’re still living in the Shameless Era

So the anglicisation stopped at Samhail/Likeness

In these dark times, it comes as a rare pleasure to highlight @natanaels.bsky.social ‬ & @marcdemanuel.bsky.social's work on germline and somatic mutations in humans. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

This great YouTube video about the #ColossalBio Red Wolf #DisInformation; tldr, they didn't clone red wolves, they cloned a coyotes... youtu.be/V9fLpgZ09EI?...

Good, and about time too. A shameful example of eugenics in recent European history. Denmark issues first apology over forced contraception of Greenlandic women www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Fascinating graph

I wrote an op-ed on the world-class STEM research ecosystem in the United States, and how this ecosystem is now under attack on multiple fronts by the current administration: newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-an-awar...

Just got a 🧪pitch from a PR claiming to work with Colossal (de-extinction chancers). It was a pre-written article claiming the science sector is carrying out "coordinated attacks" on the co. Spy the headline. They asked if I'd publish it on my Forbes column. Not enough eye rolls on Earth for this 🙄

New Paper! In 2019, my first dissertation chapter revealed complicated polyploidies in the cotton family (Malvaceae) but we lacked the tools and genomes to truly understand it. Now with better genomes and improved methods, it's much more complicated than we thought. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

📣Online NOW! 📄Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 @jgschraiber.bsky.social @jeffspence.github.io @docedge.bsky.social

Even if individuals with recent African ancestry, such as these, were relatively rare in medieval NW Europe, we can probably expect many more such discoveries as increasing numbers of ancient and historical genomes are sequenced. www.science.org/content/arti...

This short article from historian Patrick Geary, on the challenges of integrating scientific (e.g. genetic) evidence in medieval history, is well worth a read. Coming from the other direction, I wrote about the same topic in books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeum/c....

A characteristically sharp piece by @robin-f.bsky.social , on historical periodisation, with special attention to early medieval Britain.

The ITV documentary about Lucy Letby is very good. Old school, public interest broadcasting which assumes the intelligence and the conscience of its audience. Anyone with the slightest interest in the case should watch it.

Evidently this school was barely affordable for families sending their children there. That they felt such pressure, when Oxfordshire has many excellent and improving state-funded schools, shows how pernicious the culture of private education is. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Without federal funding, public media — and the truth-telling, community-connecting role it plays — is at risk. Local stations may vanish. Millions could lose trusted news and vital information. If you are ready to join the fight for journalism, donate now: n.pr/458sOhq

Studies of 'which route did Out-of-Africa take' are always entertaining, and this is a cIassic of the genre. I love how it starts out with GIS plots of Red Sea inundation, and ends with what appear to be pictures from Indian Jones' notebook. comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/a...

I was fortunate enough to look through Richard Owen's sea-serpent-related clippings and notes yesterday in the @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social. Came face to face with this goofy king of the deep. Shades of the infant form in Shin Godzilla.

Self-inflicted embarrassment for the University of Warwick — first it rebrands hyper-generically, then someone totally unhinged decides the *front page of the uni website* should say ‘Learn more about our Brand’.

It's wild about how all this publicly available evidence of Epstein procuring for Trump is just finally coming out now. Do bigfoot political reporters not even bother with research any more? Why did they not even seem to care?

Feargus O’Connor was born #OnThisDay 18 July 1794. The Irish born radical leader came to embody Chartism as its greatest orator, owner of the Northern Star, and MP for Nottingham. Read his life story here www.chartistancestors.co.uk/feargus-ocon...

Just spent 10 minutes trying to find this thread of recommended books, so now that I have, here's a boost:

Very interesting post by @sashagusevposts.bsky.social on a recent paper showing that simple generic models don't explain the inheritance of traits in a comprehensive way. open.substack.com/pub/theinfin...

White text on white background instructing LLMs to give positive reviews is apparently now common enough to show up in searches for boilerplate text.

If people think American scientists are somehow going to land in Europe, I've got news for you about the difference between millions and billions. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This looks tremendous.

FAO Jeff Bezos and the folks at @altoslabs.bsky.social. youtu.be/CNjhWxWUnT0?...

I appreciate that people feel the need to review anonymously, and they should always be able to do so. But if you fear the consequences even of constructive and respectful criticism, how do you handle peer interactions where anonymity is impossible, like seminars, collaborations, meetings..?

Planetary exploration has produced so many treasures. Like this exquisite view of Phobos over the limb of Mars. ESA/Mars Express. 🧪

The medieval manuscripts of the "Life" of St Botolph, by Folcard (BHL 1428) and their relationships. www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2025/...

For those with an interest in medieval and early modern Irish/Anglo-Norman history, this is a goldmine.

🧬In Neolithic Çatalhöyük, family was built on social relations rather than blood ties. Genetic analysis shows that over time, co-residents were no longer genetic relatives. Female subadults were buried with 5x more grave goods. 🔍A surprising story of Neolithic social life.

Spontaneous combustion - long out of fashion in humans since Dickensian times - continues to plague old buildings that are the subject of planning/conservation disputes.

Collosal Biosciences and their employees should be shunned for what they are doing.

Is this guy an actual comedy act.

This remarkable finding probably necessitates a rethink of ideas about how & when humans reached America south of the ice. These people may well have no genetic descendants today, but their presence has implications for how we interpret the ancestry of other ancient peoples in Beringia & NW Siberia.

(1/2) With a heavy heart, I have written to the Prime Minister to tender my resignation as a whip. Whilst I will continue to support the government in delivering the change the country so desperately needs, I cannot vote in favour of the proposed reforms to disability benefits.

Matthew Cobb gave a lecture on Francis Crick and his times after he was awarded the Bernal Prize by the Royal Society. It's on YouTube below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkXc...

Prof Peter Mandler’s (@petermandler.bsky.social) insatiable curiosity has fuelled an extraordinary career over more than two decades at Cambridge. As he steps back from formal teaching, the acclaimed historian reflects on a life of intellectual breadth, public advocacy—and no plans to slow down ⬇️⬇️

NPR reporting on cutting edge science from the 1880s; the "widely accepted germ theory" vs the "outdated miasma theory".

Denmark’s Ministry of Digital Government is phasing out its use of Microsoft Office.. to switch to open source alternatives like LibreOffice instead. Why? Because relying too heavily on a US tech giant for your nation’s digital infrastructure is starting to feel a bit... well, risky.

TIL about two AI-generated stories that disparage my science and academic integrity. I cannot prove that they were paid for by #ColossalBio or its co-founder Ben Lamm, but you can read them and make your own decision: www.apnnews.com/who-is-vince... www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2025/06/vinc...

If you are in London a week today and are free early evening, please come along to my talk at @royalsociety.org (free!). If you can’t make it, it will be live-streamed and subsequently available online…

The absolute selfish giant nature of NO BALL GAMES signs is one of the meanest, most telling aspects of our society, and I whole-heartedly endorse this proposed ban. See also, keep off the grass and don't play in the fountains. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Welcome to the archives.

I’ve been studying gene regulation in primates for over 20 years, and using RNA-seq since 2008 to compare expression across species. We thought we were being careful. We used curated orthologous exons to minimize alignment bias and focused on biologically meaningful comparisons. We were wrong.

Strong similarities between Colossal Biosciences and the BritainsDNA saga. www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/...