Found this gem today: Stedman’s Medical Dictionary… on floppy disks. We've seen medical knowledge move from 5.25-inch disks to CD to the web to AI models that fit on your phone. Also accepting nominations for Curator of the Museum of Forgotten Academic Technology.

What if a school bake sale worked like academic publishing? Taxpayer-funded muffins. Unpaid taste testers. A $42 price tag on pie. A satirical breakdown of the triple tax in research and higher education. If you like it, please subscribe for free! beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/baking-bad...

Every day is Black Friday in academic publishing. A $200–$800 expert service (peer review) is permanently marked down to $0 — and nobody even calls it a sale. I recently wrote about this in @undark.org . Links in first reply.

3I/ATLAS has everyone seeing patterns in pixels. Here’s my guide to help non-experts understand how “image anomalies” emerge — and why they can be so persuasive. open.substack.com/pub/beyondth...

We rarely talk about how U.S. taxpayers end up paying three times for the same scientific research — to fund it, to review it, and to access it. It’s time to rethink how we publish and share science. @undark.org undark.org/2025/11/20/o...

Over a month after publication our @bmj.com Investigation into the Q-collar is still attracting reader interest. The second most read article in the journal. 15,000+ reads in the first month. 2500+ last weekend. People want transparency in sports science and the FDA. www.bmj.com/content/391/...

3I/ATLAS is the perfect internet drama: One group: “Obviously a weird interstellar comet.” Other group: “Obviously aliens.” They’re looking at the same pixels. Nothing exposes human confirmation bias faster than a new space rock.

This story recently made many headlines. My comments here got a lot of engagment. So, I decided to write more about it! Check it out on my free Substack newsletter, Beyond the Abstract: beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/when-a-fac...

This came up in my feed and immediately triggered my BS detector. The “$2 depression test” detects BDNF in saliva, not depression in people. Cool engineering, zero diagnostic data. Saliva ≠ brain, correlation ≠ diagnosis, prototype ≠ clinical tool. www.emjreviews.com/en-us/amj/in...

Is The Mattingly Curse real? @bluejays.com Don Mattingly made the playoffs 11 times, but has 0 World Series rings. I ran the math. There’s a 29% chance this would happen by luck alone: humanlimits.substack.com/p/the-don-ma... In other words, he’s not cursed. He’s probability personified.

Check out my latest: A sports device to ‘protect the brain’ illustrates a major problem with the FDA de novo pathway www.statnews.com/2025/11/02/q... via @statnews.com

"Patients and consumers shouldn’t need a FOIA request to understand whether “FDA authorized” reflects compelling evidence or a device permitted despite serious internal concerns, addressed only through labeling caveats." www.statnews.com/2025/11/02/q...

Happy Friday to those who celebrate! forbetterscience.com/2025/10/24/s...

I truly feel for Sauce Gardner—not just for the concussion, but for believing the Q-Collar could actually protect his brain. A few days ago, @washingtonpost.com featured him in their investigation questioning the evidence behind it. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/...

The BMJ's EIC's thoughts on Q-collar & FDA: "the FDA, has a duty of care to the athletes and therefore the public. It’s a duty of care that the FDA failed to provide in its approval of Q-Collar—a decision that must be revisited." @kamranabbasi.bsky.social @bmj.com www.bmj.com/content/391/...

A more upsetting outcome is marketing of devices like the Q-collar, designed to protect athletes from brain injury, built on pseudoscience claiming to be inspired by bighorn sheep and woodpeckers, which untested, puts the user at risk 🧪

Tua Tagovailoa says his secret to avoiding concussions is eating more carbs. So… can bread really protect your brain? I dug into the science (and the psychology). Check out my brand new Human Limits newsletter, focused on sports science + medicine! humanlimits.substack.com/p/can-carbs-...

It’s me, hi 👋 I’m the scientist, it’s me. My new peer-reviewed study asks does Taylor Swift actually make Travis Kelce play better? 🏈🎤 The manuscript on Taylor Swift is published in @plosone.org journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

At rest, your heart pumps ~5L of blood per minute. During max exercise, cardiac output can quadruple to 20–25L >80% of that blood is redirected to skeletal muscle. All powered by a pump the size of a red onion, squeezing into an aorta about as wide as a mini cucumber. My Coke can visual ⬇️

Spotted at the grocery store today: pre-decorated pumpkins. At what point did we as a society decide getting a sharpie marker out was just… too much effort? 🎃🤔

🧪 “If we tell people science is the search for truth, every correction looks like a lie exposed. If we tell them it’s the search for better explanations, every correction looks like progress.” beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/science-is...

🧠 Hot Brain Summer is here! But not in the way you think. Heat affects health. But that doesn’t mean your neurons are about to melt. I unpack how science, storytelling, and activism can blur together—and why that matters. 👇 Full piece (it’s nuanced): beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/hot-brain-...

Back in my vet school days, a professor told us dogs will get blamed for infections they didn't cause. On that note, I decided to write about how pets are perceived as risks to joint replacement surgery patients. What's the evidence? Plz read + share beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/no-dogs-al...

When does science become sleight-of-hand? My latest Beyond the Abstract post uses magician tricks—palming, misdirection, forced choice—to unpack how flawed research fools us. And why spotting real science is harder than it looks. beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/research-i...

Didn’t expect this: Beyond the Abstract hit #40 on Substack’s rising Science leaderboard in its first 48 hours. Thanks to everyone who’s read, shared, or supported it—I truly appreciate it. 🙏 Give it a read—and if it resonates, consider subscribing: beyondtheabstract.substack.com

🏇 Today marks the 151st Kentucky Derby—and Bob Baffert is back after a drug-related suspension. As a veterinarian and sports medicine researcher, I’m still not buying his claim that it was all an innocent mistake. Here’s my hot take: beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/prescripti...

Today, I launched Beyond the Abstract—a newsletter about science, health, and academia. It’s for anyone who cares about evidence—and how it gets used, misused, and misunderstood in research, medicine, and career decisions. Subscribe for free! beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/when-attra...

Just published a piece in @statnews.com: Red Dye No. 3 isn’t the real threat—it’s the sugar that delivers it. I argue that banning synthetic dyes may feel like progress, but it risks missing the bigger public health danger. www.statnews.com/2025/05/01/r...

We're family, even if we don't share a single chromosome... Very sweet. Also genetically impossible. But sweet.

A 51km ultra marathon everyday, for 390 days in a row. Yes, it's legit impressive, but I always struggle with the "but, why?" component. It seems like there is this one-upmanship with more and more extreme endurance feats just for the sake of it. newsroom.co.nz/2025/01/25/l...

Glad to see that statistician Andrew Gelman likes our work debunking the Q-collar!