I've just come up on 3 years writing for @livescience.com -- a bit over two years as a freelancer and nearly one as a full-timer. 🥳 So enjoy this throwback to my very first LS article, published 21 Sept 2022. 🧪🏺 www.livescience.com/neolithic-ro...

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Looking at RFK's recent moves, including an attack on the hepatitis B vaccine and on painkillers for pregnant women. The common theme: That all children's health problems are due to "bad" mothers. This isn't about making kids healthy. It's misogyny. www.salon.com/2025/09/22/r...

Once more: the best evidence shows that Tylenol taken during pregnancy is not harmful. **This question is settled.** The benefit of reducing discomfort and fever is extremely important at a time when the fetus is developing. Pregnant women - Tylenol is safe. sciencebasedmedicine.org/tylenol-and-...

Your astonishing artifact this week is a bronze statuette of a Roman actor pretending to fart. 🎭💨🏺

Ever wonder why the universe exists, which countries have no mosquitoes, or where Boudicca is buried? Over at @livescience.com we’ve got a newsletter that answers them all! 🧪🏺

Archaeologists may have found the world's oldest mummies: 10,000 years ago, groups smoke-dried their ancestors to preserve them. 🧪🏺

Shout out to the extremely normie dad at the grocery store wearing a “Protect Trans Kids” tshirt. 🏳️‍⚧️💪🏼

Assuming CDC formally adopts ACIP's recommendations, CVS tells me it will provide Covid vaccines without a prescription in all 50 states and won't require even self-attestation of a qualifying condition — "it’s up to the individual patient." No confirmation from Walgreens or Walmart yet.

age 15: Computers are amazing! I'm going to do amazing things with computers! age 45: explaining to the fourth person this week why Chat GPT is not a replacement for google or the library or friends

On this day in 1991, a couple of hikers found a mummified body in the Alps. Take our science quiz to see how much you know about the Copper Age man nicknamed Ötzi. 🏺🧪

This is the best summary I can personally come up with from ACIP’s meeting on COVID19 vaccines: 1. I think the situation is the same as it was *before* the meeting. 2. They voted that prescriptions are not required, but if you live somewhere that currently requires them, they still may be.

The ACIP vote was tied 6-6 for requiring everyone to get a prescription for the COVID19 vaccine. The chair broke the tie by voting NO. Prescriptions will NOT be required.

Open mic picked up someone saying “You’re an idiot!” as ACIP member Retsef Levi was speaking. So things are going great in vaccine policy.

ACIP member Retsef Levi just announces that they're proposing a vote on requiring a prescription for getting a COVID-19 vaccine. This was not announced ahead of time. Astonishing, mind-boggling, absolutely contrary to reams of data he himself just heard in this meeting.

ACIP will be voting on this. They want to require prescriptions for COVID vaccines.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

The questions from and behavior of RFK Jr.‘s ACIP is the most egregious and dangerous display of science denialism I’ve ever personally witnessed. The harm to the United States is incalculable.

At one point Vicky Pebsworth asked what ramifications their votes had because she did not know what ACIP actually does.

It bugs me when people say that RFK Jr. and the members of ACIP aren’t “serious people”. They are DEADLY serious about taking vaccines away from the people of the United States, and they have the power to do so.

"Dr. Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians and a non-voting ACIP liaison member," voiced his concerns, "the second vote “actually revealed the truth that you do not have the data or evidence to challenge the current standing and that there is...no associated harm.”

As RFKJ‘s ACIP meets again today, know that Covid vaccines protect children from severe disease and death. Without vaccines, kids face devastating risks. For example, “between August 2021 and July 2022, Covid-19 killed 821 children ages 0–19, making it the leading cause of death in this age group.”

This isn't even a slight exaggeration. He is actively working on destroying the US's entire vaccine infrastructure. The HepB vote will be tomorrow, where they will get rid of the birth dose and recommend it at 30 days, dooming a bunch of infants to chronic infection ft. cirrhosis, cancer, and death.

Without any new evidence, ACIP votes to recommend against combined chickenpox/MMR vax for kids. Instead, kids will get the two vaccines separately. 🧪

Reaction's to ACIP's vote are coming in. The American Academy of Pediatrics says the meeting "promoted false claims and misguided information about vaccines as part of an unprecedented effort to limit access to routine childhood immunizations and sow fear and mistrust in vaccines."

BREAKING: CDC's ACIP just voted 8-3 to change vaccine recomendation and stop recommending MMRV to children as their first dose.

Ever wonder why the universe exists, which countries have no mosquitoes, or where Boudicca is buried? Over at @livescience.com we’ve got a newsletter that answers them all! 🧪🏺

To recap: the site “Charlie’s Murderers,” which targeted those critical of Kirk and shared their personal info, went down Sunday night. It was replaced by “Charlie Kirk Data Foundation,” which never had an accessible database or functioning submission portal, and is now also gone

*stepping out of a time machine in 2007* I come from the future - the most consequential men in society are the hosts of the Man Show, Fear Factor, and the Apprentice

RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine delusions—not science—steer CDC now, ex-director testifies arstechnica.com/health/2025/...

A couple thoughts as a reporter who's been covering RFK Jr and watched today's hearing with fired CDC director Susan Monarez 1) the biggest things I heard today were about the CDC's childhood vaccine schedule. Monarez testified that RFK Jr told her he talks to Trump "every day" about changing it.

Chimpanzees get a surprising amount of alcohol from the fruit they eat. This discovery might bolster the "drunken monkey hypothesis" for humanity's love of liquor 🧪🍸

U.S. Vaccine Guidance Is in Chaos, Fired CDC Director Tells Senators “The administration has totally lost its credibility,” one public health expert says, of the hearing. “People will die. People will suffer.” www.scientificamerican.com/article/vacc...

Monarez: "Kennedy demanded 2 things of me that were were inconsistent w/ my oath of office. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause"

15 MINUTES until former CDC Director Susan Monarez testifies in front of Congress about her firing and turmoil in the agency under RFK Jr. We will be watching LIVE and giving updates and reactions! www.pbs.org/newshour/hea...

This week’s astonishing artifact is an Indigenous map of the heavens that tells the story of the Skiri Pawnee. 🏺🧪

Regardless of the disgraceful nonsense we will likely hear from this administration in the coming days on vaccine “recommendations,” Americas healthcare insurers issued a joint statement tonight saying coverage for Covid and flu shots will remain unchanged from prior years. Speaks for itself.

RFKJ’s ACIP “could vote to restrict access to additional vaccines that prevent Hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, & chickenpox, in addition to making more changes related to the COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Monarez is no longer there to reject these recommendations if they are not supported by science”

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Style lessons from Robert Redford, one of the most stylish men in the last century. 🧵

The rampant violations of academic freedom and intrusions on extramural speech are escalating rapidly. Faculty members have the right to speak or write as citizens, free from institutional censorship or discipline. Expression of opinion as a citizen does not constitute grounds for dismissal.

For decades, Irish nuns ran homes for unwed mothers. Beneath one of them, a ghastly discovery: 796 babies buried in a septic tank. Forensics experts are now unearthing Ireland's past.

NEWS: By vaccinating babies at birth, the U.S. nearly eradicated hepatitis-B in children. Kennedy's vaccine advisory panel is expected this week to recommend delaying the shot, opening a window for kids to be infected. Exclusive by @jackie-fortier.bsky.social kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

RFK Jr.'s hand-picked panel of vaccine advisors is expected to vote to delay the hepatitis B shot for newborns. Doctors warn that could fuel a return of a disease virtually eradicated in U.S. kids.

“The goal with the mRNA is for that not to be available to anyone, because no one should be using that one,” Ladapo said, in an apparent reference to the COVID-19 shots. www.tampabay.com/news/florida...

PSA: If you haven’t yet, it may be a good idea to get your COVID shot this week. Reports suggest that CDC may further restrict COVID vaccine access to people aged 75 and up, unless you have an condition. The committee that advises the CDC on vaccines meets this Thursday.

Archaeologists may have found the world's oldest mummies: 10,000 years ago, groups smoke-dried their ancestors to preserve them. 🧪🏺

This little oil lamp in the shape of a Roman comic mask is pretty spiffy. 🧪🏺