There's basically at least one long review article for every gene under the sun, all published in late 2020 because so many scientists were locked out of the lab during the early pandemic

Fun fact, we've had 5 Prime Ministers since 2016. We also had 5 Prime Ministers between 1979 and 2016.

Sorry, but what a choice of words

I don't think we factor viral dosage in enough when we consider symptoms. A toddler sneezed in my face 9 days ago and it's the worst I've felt since getting COVID in 2021. I bet the sheer amount of virus I was inoculated with played a role in the severity of disease!

Let my dad choose the family Christmas film. Last year was Blue Velvet, this year it’s Contagion

The early phase of AI image generation was artistically brilliant. Prompt: Boris Jonhson observing a toilet

Really pleased to see this work, looking at stability of the immune system after Long COVID, is published! www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... I'll write an explanation of our findings (and further scientific context) soon!

I'm so incompetent that I just got a rejection letter for a job I didn't apply to. At least I apparently performed well at the interview?

Oddly was discussing this last night, I don’t think I rented a place with a living room between 2009 and 2017. I doubt it’s got better! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I love how you can word a sentence clearly, but reviewer 1 and 2 don't like the sentence so you carefully reword. Then it comes back and gets carefully reworded again. Months of back and forth before acceptance. Then the copyeditor says "correct for clarity" and it goes back to how it was!

Tidying out my parents place, this folder has every western blot I ran during my PhD

I'd love to know whether... 1. I'm just getting old 2. UX no longer exists 3. UX as a concept has changed ...because I really struggle to log into websites these days

I'd love to understand why my local neighbourhood's section of NextDoor needs so many posts about Jeffrey Epstein

I'm reading a very persuasive review linking disease Y to mechanism X. The issue of publication bias is so interesting though as I've spoken with plenty of people who failed to find X in disease Y. The negative data is either unpublishable or goes into small journals that people don't read....

Helpful

My favourite part of #ihw2025 was the student explaining their poster who said: "This is the mechanism we propose, which is supported by the data. I don't think we have it right really but its the best explanation we have". Quite appreciated the honesty!

Having to explain Yu Gi Oh to an Emeritus Professor #ihw2025

Back in 2021 I was unemployed so I asked the SLC if I could stop repaying my student loan until I got a new job. They would only recognise me as unemployed if I took unemployment benefits. I actually got a job before I managed to get unemployment benefits….

Doing chemical safety training today, not sure why the videos all have a jazzy intro but I'm thoroughly enjoying it www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyxB...

This is probably the most exciting result I’ve had in about 18 months!

Update, I asked them to discuss similar work in the field. They said no! What a weirdly convoluted way to get your manuscript rejected

I’m amazed how many papers I read which don’t compare their data to similar studies. “We found xyz”. Ok but similar studies found wxz, why? It feels so fundamentally incurious that you wouldn’t discuss this after doing 2-3 years of work?

I note that when you agree to review a paper within a week, they don't tell you how long the paper is beforehand

The apheresis cone price has gone up. Feels weird that the cost of human blood is subject to inflation

It feels so tacky now that the queen’s death was first announced on twitter. It shows how important boring, stable institutions are

When my father retired, he decided to take up art as a hobby. I don't know much about art and he doesn't know much about science so we both just sort of nodded and said "very nice" at each other's work. The most I can say is that he seems to like chalk and pastels, like the piece I've attached 1/4

30 years after the end of the Cold War and Greece is still considered Western Europe and Poland Eastern Europe

I always wonder how best to review manuscripts with suboptimal English. Like I understand what they mean but it's not how it ought to be said. I refuse to correct English line by line, and I really think it's the journal's job to sort out

It’s another group finding overactive CD8 T cells in Long COVID! They focus more on IL-3 than IFN-y www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Giving blood on the hottest day of the year. Wore a white jumper. Peak planning

I really want to avoid being political on this account. Or a millennial book nerd… …But if I wrote a popular book where the bad guys’ colour are green and silver, I’d avoid taking celebratory photos wearing those exact colours?

The academic career has really delayed my family life, but I hadn’t realised how bad it was

I feel like dentistry is just the modern version of blood letting

My dad: “I want to go on twitter and say rude things about Elon Musk but I’ve forgotten my password”

One day someone will say: “hey Ben, aren’t you Burmese?” And it won’t be in response to a natural disaster, civil war, genocide…

Shrinkflation: my lunch costs the same but is smaller and now advertised as a low calorie option

I know I've complained before but this manuscript is 28 pages and 197 citations and Frontiers gave me 3 days to review it

My student's presenting her rotation project work today. She had two results suggesting we're on to something interesting, and two suggesting we've got everything backwards. She's worried how the audience is going to take this but I think ending the project on a cliff hanger is brilliant!

Love that Greece is Western Europe but Poland is Eastern Europe

Student today: “I would hate to do a PhD project and find that it diverges into something else entirely” Oh boy

I think I should retire now while I'm ahead

I did think at the time: “it feels like there’s a hole in my glove” and “ponceau will stain my hand pink for a week” But there you go

Odd choice or words from my student or do I ask for a wellness check?

Cackling maniacally at my luck here

Reviewing a manuscript where the discussion section is just the researchers listing every possible limitation of their study. They're trashing their own work with Sherlock-level scrutiny and I love it

a cat burglar?

My bag of cat litter couldn't be delivered because it required a signature. Who is planning to steal cat litter?

Pre-existing IgG antibodies to HCoVs NL63 and OC43 Spike increased during the pandemic and after COVID-19 vaccination Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, NL63 and OC43 were all raised during the pandemic and further enhanced after COVID-19 vaccinations. www.cell.com/heliyon... 1/2

I tried putting my biochemistry mock exam questions into ChatGPT. It does surprisingly well, but not brilliantly (high 2:2). Right now the smoking gun is eloquent writing, vast information but poor knowledge synthesis. I’m sure it will cover that gap though

Our next book club will be on the 28th February, where we'll be discussing Medical Apartheid, a book about the use of African Americans in medical research without their consent. There will be tea, coffee and cake!