A short thread for Remembrance Sunday. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. During the First World War, over eight million troops from many different nations passed through Southampton, the country’s number one embarkation port during the conflict. 1/6

Let us use the occasion of his death to redouble our efforts not to tolerate such comments and behavior. The careers and potential contributions of many scientists are at risk and they and we will all be poorer for complacency or worse. 13/13

I was wrong to not clearly call out the dangerous consequences of behaviors of Jim Watson and people like him. While his comments received considerable attention because of his fame, he is far from being the only member of the scientific community who holds similar views. 12/13

Addendum I thank people who have commented on this thread. I want to be clear about what I intended to convey and also to highlight some of the damaging aspects of Watson's misogynistic and racist comments. 1/13

Fascinating stuff. A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire, this study claims to have identified thousands more miles of Roman roads than were previously known. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ah, Labour. Only the rosettes are a different colour. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

And here they are

As a young Assistant Professor, I attended a lecture by Watson at UT Austin. I was excited, I mean..DNA… I learned no science from his talk, but did learn he was a flaming sexist and racist. Worst of all, it went unremarked upon by my colleagues and the field. My lesson: this is what we face.

LABOUR Home Office minister writes...

An excerpt from SQUIRREL - my latest (and first) nonfiction book for adult readers! Hope you enjoy this bite! @islandpress.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social @andreabrownlit.bsky.social 🐿️🌍 Natural History thewalrus.ca/why-squirrel...

If I'm doing the math correctly, Musk's big pay packet yesterday could have made each of these now-dead people millionaires instead. He is among the sickest men the world has ever produced.

Fat storage in the body relies on specialized structures called lipid droplets. In a new Science study, researchers identified the microprotein adipogenin as a regulator of adipocyte lipid droplet size, revealing a key mechanism in lipid homeostasis. Learn more this week: https://scim.ag/4nFEGO7

Using proximity labeling and a derivatized galectin-3, scientists in the lab of Professor Mia Huang mapped glycan–protein interactions that drive placental cell fusion, published in @pnas.org, offering new insight into placental development.

The sizes of shark species show that mathematical rules constrain evolution. www.quantamagazine.org/shark-data-s...

Thermite burns at more than 2,200 °C—hotter than molten lava—and yields aluminum oxide and metallic iron. It’s an excellent way to teach chemistry students about activation energy and exothermic reactions, says Yilei Wu: cen.acs.org/education/un... #CENChemPics #chemsky 🧪

It’s really important that #Vancouver’s Downtown Business Association, who were originally against bike-lanes, are now among their most vigourous supporters, because of ACTUAL EVIDENCE that they’re better for downtown business than any street parking they replaced. Safe bike-lanes mean business.

It is possible to recognise that Watson's treatment of Franklin was despicable and at the same time to acknowledge that Matthew is right.

Bluetorial-Jim Watson I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions. What follows is my personal perspective. 1/41

Yesss!!! Go the 🐧🐧🐧!!! Absolutely brilliant! ❤️💚

Zack for PM, anyone? join.greenparty.org.uk

What a brilliant morning at Lands End parkrun. Sixth anniversary. Met the RCGP team that set it up and a wonderful volunteer team. Brilliant setting for a community gathering.

Southampton #parkrun in the blistering sunshine 😎🕺🏻

Now that he has passed I thought I would share this letter I received in 2013 from James Watson after I wrote to ask whether he or Crick had discussed the DNA work with Franklin following publication of the structure in 1953. Relations were cordial but the matter was not discussed.

Happy #Caturday

Nov 7th is the birthday of both Lise Meitner & Marie Curie. Of the 13 chemical elements named directly after real people (not mythological figures) only two are named after women: meitnerium and curium (the latter of which is named in honour of both Marie & her husband) #chemsky 🧪

Stand 🎶🎵🕺🏻

Green, the band’s 6th studio album, was released this week in November 1988. What’s your favorite song on the album?

Wait, I thought these yokes reached 'human like intelligence'... 🤔 Guess what... 😂😂😂

HAPPY FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPING DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE

I find the "bioRxiv let me down" for offering an LLM-based review service a bit overblown It's a service, is there if you want to use it, same if you don't I don't use ChatGPT, but I still use the internet, and I hate the AI-search summary but I still use Google search, just ignore the top bit...

American scientists it is time we spoke up to stand up for our colleagues. Our H1B and immigrant colleagues gave their lives and their futures, left their homes, to participate in our science. The US has betrayed them. We must stand up and protect them.

How much longer is the @royalsociety.org going to look away from the devastating actions of its honoured fellow, Elon Musk? Such moral cowardice.

Heading to Oxford now to give this talk this evening. Do come if you're nearby and free. www.oxfordplayhouse.com/events/the-a...

Right, but we all know that "AI pioneers" consistently talk bollocks about such things, right? Right? www.ft.com/content/5f2f...

"The damage, in other words, will be disproportionately felt in those areas that can least afford to lose these potential engines of growth and culture - as well as world-class names." Have such anti-immigrantion policies EVER led to anything but disgrace? www.independent.co.uk/voices/edito...

Shortly I'll be speaking on ABC North Queensland about this.

Excited to launch an openRxiv partnership with the scientist-run AI review service qed (@qedscience.bsky.social), the brainchild of @odedrechavi.bsky.social 1/n openrxiv.org/enabling-rev...

AI letters are flooding the medical literature. (gift link) Thanks, Altman.

Glass is a mysterious substance. 🧵

If I get enough agreement, I'll do my best to basically commit to providing context to chem/chat for the next 6 months to see if we can get it off the ground Happy to amplify discussion/debate

Very sad to see the major university in the East Midlands 'suspending' (i.e. planning to close) key courses like Modern Languages and Music and scaling back Nursing. It's a scandal that top universities are just being left to go to the wall after years of underfunding. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Which one is more English?

“What keeps people in love is not what makes them fall in love in the first place.” Arthur C. Brooks on what qualities are most important for true, long-term companionship:

fun fact: I once did such a shit job at making a graphic explaining the absurdity of wind turbine syndrome, Donald Trump found it and reposted it (via Dan Scavino, I think) I took responsibility for screwing up and learned my damn lesson :) ketanjoshi.co/2017/06/12/w...

In fairness, the infamous 'IQ test' does not include rare earth chemistry... or The Magneto... #chemsky 🫣

If said women work for your competitors, I guess maybe

More useful material for the @royalsociety.org’s bio of their esteemed fellow. Though I’m still struggling to understand how a society that claims to value scientific rigour continues to honour someone who spreads so much disinformation.

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

"'They’re spending more money than I would even tax them,' [Mamdani] said in an interview with MSNBC last week." This is the message. Make it clear that these billionaires aren't just worried about losing money. They're worried about losing the ability to exchange their money for power.

Excited to share our latest @nature.com: How does naloxone (Narcan) stop an opioid overdose? We determined the first GDP-bound μ-opioid receptor–G protein structures and found naloxone traps a novel "latent” state, preventing GDP release and G protein activation.💊🧪 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...