This is a fantastic graphic on the post-viral impact of COVID published in Cell. When people think of long COVID, they likely think of the last image. Many don't know the virus can worsen pre-existing conditions & causes new ones (e.g. autoimmune disease, stroke) www.cell.com/action/showP...

Six years from the last pandemic (no fun at all, you may recall), are we better prepared for the next go round? Yes, but not really; progress, most certainly, but also backward steps. WHO report. www.who.int/news/item/02...

It looks like the #AI,#Chatbots,#LLMs taking jobs thesis is flawed, based on misinterpretation of data leading misattribution of causes. www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/the-ai-lay...

Why is it that the #FreeSpeach absolutists have such thin skins. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/a...

An entertaining example of including #ChatGPT et al in a Computer Science exam, including T-rex and banana costumes (!). ploum.net/2026-01-19-e...

Ekaterina Shelehova. Amazing voice. Strong. Folk, but also operatic. Here with "Savage Daughter" youtu.be/tegev08KyHY?...

A global synthesis of >600 studies finds that across agro-ecosystems, grasslands and forests in temperate and tropical zones, increasing plant diversity has a consistently positive effect on plant performance and the suppression of antagonists 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#ChagtGPT advising on health. I suspect that a lot of this is happening already, but to market a ChatGPT health service. If what you have is really common, you'd be n with a chance; if symptoms are unusual, you may also care to test the efficacy of prayer. theconversation.com/chatgpt-heal...

Vale Rob Hirst. #MidnightOil

Spare a thought for accidental heroes, the people such as Ahmed al-Ahmed, who risk their lives to help people. They are lauded at the time, but suffer from PTSD for many years, often without help www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Happy 82nd bday Paul Keating “It begins, with recognition that we did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands & smashed the traditional way of life.We brought the diseases. The alcohol.We committed the murders.We took the children from their mothers.We practised discrimination & exclusion”

A mechanistic link (ie not just strong association) shown between Epstein-Barr virus and Multiple Sclerosis. Tl;Dr - immune system mistargetting. x.com/ZdenekVrozin...

New Study. For people with diabetes diet drinks such as Coke Zero may be preferable to water. Caveat: Hard to avoid confounders with this open label (obviously) study. gidmk.medium.com/diet-coke-is...

A speech to High Schoolers on why one should learn another language, done entirely in Gen-Alpha English. Grokked most of it (to use a GenZ or earlier phrase) x.com/Rainmaker197...

Never forget the most ironclad rule of politics: Every abuse you justify against another will be weaponized against you in time. To cheer abuse, violence, or the suspension of others’ rights is to cheer the abuse, violence, and suspension of your own.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

Summer Holiday Non-Problem With the front door open, the bird chirruping outside keeps making me look for the new message on my phone. 😀 Summer, in a quiet part of the world. Bless.😌

And the first publication for 2026! We don't have equity in medicine until we ALL have equity. And ongoing inequity diminishes patient care. 🌏✊️ 'This editorial adds value by emphasizing how gender inequities vary between high-income and low- and middle-income countries—an area seldom explored.'

Great article by @glenberman.bsky.social "What would it take for me to feel safe wearing a Kippah after Bondi". I go for invisibility. He has a better suggestion: reaching out, coalition building. I agree. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

@rbreich.bsky.social quoting Andrew Coyne: "We are in a kind of hyperinflation of presidential derangement, an exponential curve asymptotically approaching Nero."

Did he make it?

Bit of nostalgia ...from 1984, the Gillies Report Twelve days of Christmas ... inc PADDINGTON BEAR!! Enjoy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYzl...

Meanwhile, in Perth, a man with both neo-Nazi and Hamas/Hezbolah sympathies, 6 (currently legal) rifles and bomb making instructions was arrested after anti Jew posts. The convergence of extreme-Right and extreme-Islamism, united in hatred of Jews. Shudder

It's easy to assume that the most talented adults among us were once gifted children, but it turns out that talent during childhood is no guide to later success

What an amazing voice twitter.com/Rainmaker197... (The complete version is linked in the comments)

"There will be a time for politics; now is the time to mourn". Please read this article.

This - Just say Jewish Lives Matter ⬇️ www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Second night. Candles lit, as much as anything out of defiance, but also out of huge thanks for the public and private response from across the religious spectrum to the #Bondi violence. (If you look carefully you'll notice that the memorial candle on the left is still going).

This first night of Chanuka we did not light the first candle of the festival; we lit a memorial candle for the people massacred in #Bondi.

Any sensible health system would treat this as a huge call to arms, Measles has a R(0) value of 12-18, though one source I found quotes it higher. In other words, it is ridiculously infectious. What is even more ridiculous: downplaying vaccination.

A rather different take on Carol of the Bells youtu.be/0bqiBpRvEwc?...

OMG 🤭 @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social #AusPol #SocialMediaBan

Red squirrels have the same pigmentation system as humans (via two sorts of melanin). Regulation is very different, so no chance of us turning red (sunburn is different!!). Interesting to speculation what the sociological impact would be.

@ecosiasearch.bsky.social has put together a pot of EUR 1M toward founding a Nobel Prize in Climate. What a brilliant idea. www.climatenobelprize.org

This nice article from @newscientist.com describes how spatial multi-omics has developed to study very localised disease at a cellular level, e.g. cancer development from tiny numbers of deranged cells

Leaders of a Catholic church in Massachusetts kept a Nativity display with an anti-ICE message in place on Monday, defying an order from the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston to remove it. The display shows Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus missing, replaced by a sign reading “ICE WAS HERE.” trib.al/adPW46y

The Australien Government has made an ad about the Social Media Ban for Under-16s, and it's surprisingly honest and informative.

First recorded death due to a new subtype of bird flu H5N5 (versus H5N1 circulating in birds). First case of a new pandemic? Maybe, but there are many more steps before that. In the meantime, surveillance theconversation.com/first-human-...

More of this !!

A seal walks into a bar .... (no, really) www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

The story about Vitamin-D supplements is really a story about science working as it should; a neat idea (Vit-D is associated with ill-health) found not to imply causation; taking more makes no difference. Vit-D deficiency no longer accepted as a real condition. gidmk.medium.com/theres-no-su...

Google is reportedly in talks to sell its tensor processing units – a type of computer chip specially designed for AI – to other tech companies, a move that could unsettle the dominant chip-maker Nvidia

Vale Tom Stoppard. Easily my favourite C20 playwright. Language and big ideas dance across his plays, but always a sense of humour. My favourite is Arcadia. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

A really nice new study provides evidence that SSRI Sertraline can help prevent domestic violence by reducing impulsivity. Chance for second thoughts. This could be a game changer www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

crazy IG em_clarkson

Instead of "one is the loneliest number" you should have "zero is the onlyest number"

Very apposite quote. While the original context related to political systems, the idea applies equally well to human relationships, coercive control, family violence.

It turns out that a baby's name can affect their future. Nominative determinism (broadly defined). Then again Johnny Cash understood that in 1`969 with his hit "Boy Named Sue" www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Yes, some people's legacies are complicated. For example, Watson. After all, though he was racist, don't forget his other traits. For example, he was also sexist. And also anti-semitic. And a data / idea thief. So let's not forget all the different facets.

A controversial topic for your Friday 😉 Tea Room Spoons 😀 A 2005 study at Melbourne University looked at the half-life of a set of departmental tea-spoons. I've observed similar at other Australian Comp Sci depts. 10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1498 What about other countries? #anthropology