Kai's write up and @cailinmeister.bsky.social's thread do a great job of summarizing our results. Rather than cover them a third time, I thought I'd clarify some misconceptions over our piece and COIS more broadly that keep cropping up scattered across replies. 🧵🧪

“That leaves Republicans in Congress as the last barrier. They owe it to the American people, and to the world, to stop Trump from acting out his fantasy in Greenland and doing permanent damage to American interests.” @anneapplebaum.bsky.social lays it out.

One of the issues that has come up again and again in my reporting on misinformation and social media is the massive influence social media companies have on research in the field. Last night a preprint dropped that tries to get at this with some numbers. My piece in @science.org (and 🧪🧵 coming):

“During the investigation, Mr. Burgard, 41, was asked whether he had behaved inappropriately toward female employees of Axel Springer at the party, two of the people said, including whether he had kissed the employees.” #giftlink

Hard to overstate how deranged this message is. And yes, it's been officially confirmed to be real...

“While we cannot definitively show that industry funding in this area is redirecting attention from products to consumers, our results are consistent with this possibility.” Preprint suggests “industry influence in social media research is extensive, impactful, and often opaque.”🧪

Yes. This is where MAGA’s stances on measles vaccine and Greenland come together for me: In both cases there is a failure to remember/imagine how bad the past was, bolstered by this naive and cruel belief that a “strong” body/country can just go it alone.

“akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive” 🧪

The way to avoid losing freedom is to use it, says Masha Gessen: “to claim all the room there still is for speaking, writing, publishing, protesting, voting. It’s what the people of Minnesota appear to be doing, and it’s something each of us needs to do — right now, while we still can.” #giftlink

How much more in your face can it be? "Why are you asking me for my paperwork?" "Because of your accent." "You have an accent too." "Where were you born sir?" "Where were you born at?" "Put your hands behind your back."

The next chance for the Supreme Court to rule that these kind of tariffs are illegal and that the law Trump is using was never meant for this kind of thing will be on Tuesday, when the justices said new decisions will be announced.

Seems like a good moment for Republicans in Congress, as well as European leaders, to find their backbones…

“Kennedy’s “fingerprints are all over it,” he says, pointing to the study’s stated objective to examine secondary outcomes such as eczema and neurological disorders. “It makes absolutely no sense to study associations between this vaccine and these outcomes,” except that’s what interests Kennedy.” 🧪

For non-German speakers: “Dear media, I can’t stand the headline "No agreement between the US and Denmark” any longer. If an armed man storms a bank, you don't run the headline: "Robber and cashier can't reach an agreement on money transfer." Stop framing imperial aggression as normal diplomacy.”

Democrats in the US (and many others in other places) seem stuck on figuring out where the wind will blow from tomorrow instead of realizing their own power to make the weather. The political right has been so much better at using an attention-fueled information ecosystem to their advantage…

As the development sector discusses the post-2030 agenda, the world isn’t sure it will get to the end of 2026. #disconnect #dissonance

#Measles cases continues to climb. The 2025 tally has now hit 2242 & there've already been more confirmed cases in 2026 — 171 — than were logged in most years from the late 1990s to 2023! Interesting to see the age distribution of cases. Lots of susceptible adults, seems. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

"The arduous nature of secret police work offers underachievers the opportunity to signal their value to the regime and get ahead of competitors for higher positions."

There’s a big story everyone is missing—but this article hits on it. We aren’t just seeing public health dismantled bc we’ve been taken over by conspiracy theorists and lunatics. What we’re really seeing is the giant, predatory, underegulated wellness industry come to Washington.

Ich habe extra nachgeschaut - dieser Tweet von Fox News ist echt Vielleicht sagt das halt etwas über den Ernst der Lage aus, wenn selbst die „organized gangs of wine moms“ gegen einen auf die Straße protestieren gehen

“Bothsidesism meets waffledom” is a pretty good description of this NYT tendency to tie itself into linguistic pretzels just to avoid specifics when we (incl everyone at the Times) have all learnt that journalism is about being specific.

Language: "But even some of those in favor of the community defense efforts were on edge that protesters could go too far. Residents said they were worried that with the number of agents patrolling the area and heightened tensions, weapons will be fired, deliberately or by accident."

Safe to say most scientists, and I think most journalists, disagree with his a view. Good journalism should do its best to represent what science says, rather than treat it as a debate where every view is equally valid and readers just need to figure it out.

Totally this. The press needs to let people know what the arguments are, but also where the balance of expert opinion lies. Of course, there have been some parts of the press that have failed badly with the latter - and those seem to be the parts Bhattacharya would praise.

Visited a hospital here in Berlin this morning and I will say, if I was deciding who to quote on the walls of my hospital corridor, Kafka would probably not be the first person to come to mind… 🫠

"ICE is violence-prone because its main purpose has become theatrical. Under present leadership, ICE is less a law-enforcement agency than it is a content creator. from David Frum: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

This piece is very well reported and written. It’s clear-eyed, precise and gives important context. And yet it’s a great illustration that there’s this fundamental, unbridgeable formal constraint that makes it essentially impossible to plainly call this what it is. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/u...

Friendly reminder that we call eggplant eggplant because the "normal" eggplant used to look like this

“But we can fight back. The biggest lesson the four of us have learned over this past year is that what feels impossible and overwhelming when you’re sitting by yourself can begin to feel achievable and urgent when you are working with others that share your values.“ 🧪

This piece by @helenbranswell.bsky.social is great. I do have to say I chuckled when she said: "has reducing the number of diseases all children are [...] vaccinated against to 11 from 18 brought the US in line with most other [...] countries? Two words. No and no." www.statnews.com/2026/01/09/c...

“The society was not a “dining club” or “political party”, Nurse said, noting that he was sure it had included “murderers” and other criminals in the past.” Sure seems like a declaration of moral bankruptcy… 🧪

The Norwegian Nobel Prize committee has been forced to make a statement, declaring that the prize cannot be transferred. It's hard even to comprehend how stupid this has become

RFK Jr. has said previous dietary guidelines were untrustworthy because advisers had ties to food-industry groups. But so do several advisers on his dietary guidelines — just different parts of the industry, including red meat and dairy.

Consensus reality has been under assault by Trumpism and by tech for years now. But it's important to underline that people are still putting their lives on the line because they believe it matters. www.theverge.com/policy/85905...

Def not the most important thing about this, but coming across this thread from a researcher studying vehicle ramming attacks is giving me the most “old Twitter“ vibes I have had here…

What are we even doing here

Unser erster Pandemia-Newsletter "Nachgeimpft" ist raus! 🥳 Über Feedback, Vorschläge und Fragen (auch solche, die wir im Newsletter beantworten sollen) freuen wir uns immer! Und jetzt zurück zu den Chlamydien... 🤓 Und wer noch nicht hat: Kostenlose Anmeldung geht hier: steady.page/de/pandemia/...

The no-angeling is already in full swing.

Vanessa Vu, Inhaberin der Nature Marsilius Gastprofessur, spricht in ihrem öffentlichen Vortrag in Heidelberg darüber, warum Wissenschaftler:innen in Krisenzeiten stärker als „Public Intellectuals“ gefragt sind. Dienstag, 20.01.2026 | 19:00 Uhr, Aula der Alten Universität Heidelberg

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says they've been informed by the FBI that US DOJ has said FBI will solely lead the investigation into Renee Nicole Good's killing by a federal officer. State investigators no longer have access to "case materials, scene evidence/investigative interviews"

This is *excellent* forensic journalism by The Times: clear explanation using video evidence. This is the best of Times journalism. Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

Just seen Grok putting the body of the victim of the ICE shooting in Minneapolis into a bikini. Digital corpse desecration now available to the public.

Fascinating research on a terrifying disease: Turns out boring old albumin, the most abundant protein in our blood, plays a crucial role in protecting us from being eaten alive by “black fungus” mucormycosis #IDsky 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

“[P]utting data into GISAID is like dropping it in a mail slot in an unmarked building,” says @colincarlson.bsky.social. “It’s wonderful that there’s so much cool stuff in that building. It would be great if we knew who owned it, or who paid for it, or what they plan to do with it.” #IDsky 🧪

Jan. 6 “heralded a culture of political unaccountability, in which people who violently attacked Congress and beat police officers escaped without lasting consequence. The politicians and pundits who had egged on the attack with their lies escaped, as well.” #giftlink

Wenn wir etwas gelernt haben bei unserer Arbeit an @pandemia.bsky.social in den vergangenen 5 Jahren, dann dass es am besten ist, die Dinge einfach mal zu starten und dann zu schauen, wie es sich entwickelt. In dem Sinne…

This is a first…

„Never forget: whenever Elon Musk walks up to a podium to bullshit you about colonizing Mars or whatever, he is walking on the bodies of dead children. He yanked their food and medicine away while telling lies and cracking stupid jokes.“ @dereklowe.bsky.social as usual not pulling any punches

Given everything happening right now, I updated this article with options for weather apps, web forms, and translation services — along with some tweaks to existing categories. I hope it helps your transition off US tech!

Und wer beim nächsten Zoom-Treffen dabei sein will, der kann hier ein Abo abschließen und uns so helfen, neue Folgen zu produzieren! Allen, die das bereits tun: Vielen Dank! Ohne euch, gäbe es uns schon lange nicht mehr. steady.page/en/pandemia/...