Today's post delves a bit into the history of #sociology, memories of Erving #Goffman, and his use of #metaphor as method makingsciencepublic.com/2025/09/26/e...

We have people in power making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproven.

Folks, we've got an epistemological crisis and it's not going well www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

History was made in Germany yesterday when for the first time, a member of the Bundestag, Hanna Steinmüller, carried her baby while addressing parliament from the lectern.

Phenomenal. In my 10 year update of A Brief History, I make the point that in the first edition, not one disease had been successfully treated using gene therapy. Today that number is at least 7.

In my life I've seen treatments for AIDs developed, vaccines for Ebola and malaria, and now this. Medical science is one is the areas that still consistently seems to make these miraculous advances and I'm genuinely grateful to everyone involved. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

i challenge you to find cooler news today than “despite all odds against American scientific research rn, a CO researcher developed a temperature-stable, single dose rabies vaccine that works bc of particles coated in CANDY & SAPPHIRE, & it could help reduce rabies deaths in places w/o electricity”

Really, really important thread intersecting science and politics. 🧪

It's refreshing for the first time in over a decade trump says something factually wrong and the press actually says out loud it's wrong to everyone paying attention. That alone left me speechless!

Have now listened and it's great! So much to look at for A Level English Language students around representation of gender, language change and technology.

Science pushes back. Thanks to Helen Tager-Flusberg for her work on this front! Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/o...

Tylenol/paracetamol and #scicomm - what is the strategy? Is there a strategy? Or is even firefighting wrong in this context? makingsciencepublic.com/2025/08/09/f...

Tired of hearing 'we need immigrants to staff the NHS & care homes' - as if we're a servant class. Newsflash: immigrants do a variety of work, pay taxes, buy homes, raise families. Britain doesn't 'need us to serve'. We're here to live. Like you.

Autism is back on the front pages. Why not read the book that my excellent @manchester.ac.uk @manchstm.bsky.social colleague Dr Bonnie Evans has published on the history of autism? It's open access and you can read it online for free. www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781...

This ought to be engraved somewhere.

Excited to join Bluesky and to share this Call for Papers for a special issue in 2026 on 'Human Rights and the Social Experiences of DNA in the Global South'. We look forward to your submissions! Please share. #NGS #newgeneticsandsociety #humanrights #dna

When your response to fascism is that 'the numbers don't add up' then you've lost all sense of what matters to humanity.

You’re much closer to becoming disabled or homeless than you are to becoming rich and wealthy. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not something you can “try harder” your way out of. We need robust social supports & safety nets to ensure everyone is properly cared for.

This study on best way to use steroids to get on top of eczema flare ups is still looking for participants.

In the late 19th century, millions of migrants left Germany as a result of religious persecution, economic hardship, and political uncertainty. Among them was Nikolaus Schrod, a cabinet maker from Frankfurt who - along with his wife Bina - moved to London to start a new life in the 1850s. 1/3

Fantastic piece in Nature Reviews Neuro by @nicolecrust.bsky.social on the importance of science communication. My take? Everything matters - just do something. It will make a difference for how science is valued and trusted, how community understands. Let's get out there and communicate! 👏

For weekend readers, some reflections on community engagement with #AI and #ELSI makingsciencepublic.com/2025/09/19/p...

definitely watch this video. excellent for a linguistics class 🐦🐦!

i don’t think people on bluesky understand the severity of this situation. i woke up to literally hundreds of texts from friends and family thinking about either moving back home to india or applying to other countries for jobs. this includes me.

National Academies of Science panel finds that: The EPA was right in 2009 (when it found that climate change driven by society’s emissions of greenhouse gases are endangering human health & lives), and that everything we've learned since has only made it more right. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

In today's post I take a proposal by Alondra Nelson for AI ELSI as a springboard to reflect on obstacles and opportunities for community engagement with AI makingsciencepublic.com/2025/09/19/p...

This is the kinds of news I needed today. Aesthetics and infrastructure wrapped in one little tech pun.

The problem - which was discussed at some length yesterday - is that Colin's and Aoife's forensic demolition of that PX misleading report on NI/ECHR has got NO traction among the numerous media organisations that gave prime national relevance to the latter. Dark money wins over accuracy

The real existential threat isn't AI — it's billionaires. My latest, for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

The free speech implications aside, something I've been mulling for a bit is the way American political discourse and philosophy has constructed the idea that beliefs do not influence actions specifically when those beliefs and actions are hateful and violent, and that you can never talk about this

An actual quote from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’ Look forward to Wes S saying 'too often people go to hospital to have operations' or Heidi Alexander saying 'too often people go to the station to catch a train'

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

“Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’.” - business secretary, Peter Kyle. What do they want knowledge for? Heaven forbid that students go to university to learn something!

In today's post I take a proposal by Alondra Nelson for AI ELSI as a springboard to reflect on obstacles and opportunities for community engagement with AI makingsciencepublic.com/2025/09/19/p...

We must support our colleagues working in autocratic regimes

Queen

Medieval TARDIS discovered in Skipton ;)

We write to remind leaders of colleges & universities of their fundamental duty to protect academic freedom & the absolute necessity to ensure that the freedom to discuss topics of public import without constraint is not curtailed under political pressure. 2/4

Been an honour and fun to help the @crick.ac.uk set up a shiny new magazine - here, for the first issue, I talk to the new boss, who takes over from Sir Paul Nurse: Edith Heard, who was described by the Financial Times as "the epitome of a European scientist" www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-09...

This is absolutely a must read. We are in deep trouble and I am even less optimistic than the authors.

I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday. As leaders, we must stand together and make clear Musk will face serious consequences for these actions.

A story of human kindness worth listening to... (I was just doing the washing up and happened upon it) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Modern Fiction Studies is sponsoring a conference on “Cultural AI” at Purdue, to be followed by a special issue. @aarthivadde.bsky.social, @richardjeanso.bsky.social, N Katherine Hayles, @mattwilkens.bsky.social , @mellymeldubs.bsky.social, and I will be there later this week.

Just came across this poem by Matthew Arnold called "Victorian pessimism" and it ends like this: "And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night." www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

For there to be no comment from the government on Musk's call for violence, let alone action against X, is unconscionable. An utter dereliction of its responsibility for national security and an affront to every member of an ethnic minority, who is being put at risk by this rhetoric.

A reminder that Elon Musk is still a Fellow of the Royal Society. Surely THIS is the point at which he is expelled @royalsociety.org

#unfundedhobbyistresearch (www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...)

Spanish schools to teach pupils how to cope with #climatecrisis disasters - Children as young as three will have lessons on wildfires and flooding www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

The reporting on Charlie Kirk’s killer in the UK & US highlights again how fundamentally ill equipped mainstream media is to report on political violence in the digital age. They do not know anything about online far right meme culture & it’s starting to do real harm. #r4today

Geoengineering and metaphors, 2009 to 2025: Continuity and change Since around 2006, I have been interested in speculations about geoengineering, that is, attempts to deal with climate change by directly intervening in the planet's atmosphere, oceans, or land. Such interventions include pulling…