Summer conference season is here! Here are some tips to make your presentations accessible and ensure your audience is everyone. -use sans serif fonts (without extra flares and lines) stay away from times new roman and go for calibri or arial instead. -use bullet points.

Trust is key to epidemic prevention and response. Lessons from previous Ebola outbreaks, from @bbcmediaaction.bsky.social, on the importance of building relationships with local media outlets, journalists, and health authorities before a crisis develops: www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/...

Government overhauls tertiary institutions' research funding system

At the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the front line is completely overwhelmed. Our chief Africa correspondent, Declan Walsh, describes what he saw in the Ebola ward at Mongbwalu General Hospital. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/w...

New research from a team I was part of w Lauren Steele, @andreatilstra.bsky.social, & other virologists & demographers: Research on flu pandemics has been heavily shaped by 1) the 1918 flu & 2) US-specific data for other pandemics. Turns out that way understates the variety of age patterns of risk!

Once again dusting off this bad boy.

‘Biggest diphtheria outbreak’ in decades spreads into Queensland, SA and WA www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Important background information about increasing number of human hantavirus cases: apnews.com/article/arge....

Congratulations to my colleagues Judith Littleton, Caitlin Bonham Smith, and Lisa Bailey on their new article in Royal Society Open Science on catastrophic mortality on Bahrain during the time of the Plague of Justinian. Fantastic to see this finally out! doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

#NZ Scholarships to attend the Science Communicators of NZ conference in Ōtautahi #Christchurch 25-26 June – You do not need to be an existing SCANZ member to apply – Applications close at 5:00pm on 30 April 2026 www.scanz.co.nz/2026-scholar... #scicomm #SciCommNZ #SCANZ2026

Budding historians of medicine and public health: have a look at this exciting opportunity to conduct PhD research at the University of Newcastle, on a larger project of the Australian history of polio, led by Catharine Coleborne! More information at the link: www.newcastle.edu.au/study/resear...

The human face of science funding cuts – Expert Reaction

Gave a little plug for @aushumanbiology.bsky.social at the Canadian Association for Biological Anthropology (CABA-ACAB) webinar today! Maybe some scope for future collaborations? I hope some Canadians will consider joining us for the online ASHB conference this year in December!

🍃🌹🌿Extreme weather scientists warn of impending funding drought: Senior #climate scientists say the major funding for extreme weather research is drying up just as the country needs it the most #ChangeTheGovt #PartyVoteGreen #nzpol #cyclones #flooding #droughts www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Free dental care receives widespread support in new survey

"Temporary shock or lasting scar?" By 2024 nearly all high-income countries remained below their pre-pandemic life expectancy trends. We identify four distinct mortality shock patterns since 2020. Full analysis in our preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Important paper. Schools are high-risk environments for respiratory disease transmission MAINLY because classrooms are underventilated. This problem has a workable solution - it just needs political will. Air quality is as important as water quality for public health. MT @martinmckee.bsky.social

And, for anyone like me who is a New Zealander living overseas, if you have been back to NZ at any point in the last 3 years, you are eligible to enrol and vote in this election (the extension of this provision to 6 years was for the 2023 election *only*)

More than half of mpox patients in 2022 outbreak experienced lasting physical effects: Study abcnews.go.com/Health/half-...

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Here is an obituary for Alice Wong from The Sick Times, a publication aligned with disability rights and disability activism, if you are looking for an alternative to reading the nyt one: thesicktimes.org/2025/11/15/a...

Wild form of polio found in German sewage sample, health institute says

As expected, Canada has lost its measles-free status because of the long-running outbreak there. With it goes the #measles elimination status of the entire zone of the Americas, the only division of the #WHO to ever have achieved measles elimination. www.statnews.com/2025/11/10/m...

Less than one month until #ASHB2025 in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland! 💀🦷👣🗣🦧🐒🔬🩻🧬⚰️🪦 @aushumanbiology.bsky.social

'Alarming gaps': WHO warns NZ to urgently close measles vaccination gap among Māori and Pacific communities

Hospitals, clinics not equipped for measles outbreak - general practitioner

More measles cases confirmed in multiple regions

REMINDERS: *Abstracts for the 2025 conference are due at 11:59pm NZDT Monday 13/10 *Discounted early bird registration also ends at 11:59pm NZDT Monday 13/10 *Regular price registration closes Monday 20/10 Abstract submission and registration here: www.australasianhumanbiology.com/conferences....

When I get asked to write commentaries, it's not usually a good sign - it's because an infectious disease I study historically is relevant again.

Conference registration and abstract submission are now open for our 2025 Conference in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland! Learn more at www.australasianhumanbiology.com/conferences....

"The government has made it clear on several occasions that we want publicly funded research to focus on solving real world problems that can be commercialised". What a grim sentence. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Data on the cuts to the Marsden Fund reported by RNZ this morning

🚨 JOB APPLICATION 🚨 The University of Western Australia is looking for a Lecturer in Biological Anthropology Deadline for applying: August 29th More information on the link below 👇 external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/en/job/52090...

🚨 JOB APPLICATION 🚨 The University of Western Australia is looking for an Associate Professor in Biological Anthropology Deadline for applying: August 22nd More information on the link below 👇 external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/en/job/52090...

Wenner Gren is closing Sapiens because, among other things, they anticipate being able to fund fewer than 10% of their applications... at the same time as other funding sources from the federal government are being destroyed. This funding environment is an existential crisis for anthropology 🏺🧪

Awful.

A common scanning method used to create ‘virtual copies’ of precious fossils could be erasing some of the crucial information held within.

Pleased with this generous review of my book by Heather Battles @anthroetc.bsky.social in Medical History: "Barr’s historical work can thus contribute to wider inter-and trans-disciplinary conversations about the design and implementation of public health responses" www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The grass-in-ear trend is now a grass-in-butt trend. 🤣 www.livescience.com/animals/land...

"They found that the southern resident orcas — a distinct population of killer whales — were detaching strands of bull kelp from the seafloor to roll between their bodies in a behavior the scientists dubbed “allokelping.”" edition.cnn.com/2025/06/23/s...

The NZ Census is no more: www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

"At Macquarie, ancient history and archaeology, creative arts, politics and international relations and the school of sociology would all lose up to, or more than, half of their FTE staff."

Canada is struggling too. This is what happens as a result. A premature infant in Canada just died of measles. If community vaccination had been above 95% this baby who was not yet vaccine eligible could have been protected. bit.ly/4mOcNEb

The most wealthy country in the world is nearing a 30-year high of measles cases.This is a failure on multiple levels. Most importantly, we are failing to protect children from preventable diseases and disability. abcnews.go.com/Health/us-me...

NIH stops development of HIV vaccine, terminates grants to consortia, including at Duke University. www.science.org/content/arti...

Calling medical journals "corrupt," Kennedy says gov't scientists may be barred from publishing in Lancet, NEJM, etc going forward. #NIH may establish its own journals, he said. Meanwhile #CDC 's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal is on the budget chopping block. www.statnews.com/2025/05/27/r...

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I just voted! Vote for NZ's Fungus of the Year 2025: interactives.landcareresearch.co.nz/foty/