Just over a minute on Trump as the would be king... youtube.com/shorts/dpLgf...

The end of Digging for Britain. For me, at least. But I’ll still be making television about archaeology, on other channels. So watch this space…

I REALLY hope this can be replicated in humans. A trial in mice showed that a nasal vaccine targeting multiple respiratory pathogens including COVID-19 worked really well - enabling development of protective Immunity in the lung for 3 months (the duration of testing) 🧪

Yay Cambridge Vet School stays open. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Quelle surprise... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Usually meetings early in year would discuss fall vaccines. Now Kennedy is cancelling meetings so what will the future vaccines be?

Things just go from bad to worse over in the US.

Universities were forced to pivot quickly to online teaching when all institutions went into multiple lock downs imposed by the government in response to a covid pandemic. 🧵

But how are vaccine manufacturer's able to work and respond to capricious changes at the turn of a time from Kennedy's team? This illustrates how unqualified they are and risks the future of vaccine research in the States as well as damages access to better vaccines which we REALLY need for flu

the FDA have done an abrupt turnaround and after initially saying they wouldn't review Moderna's application to licence an updated flu vaccine for the fall they have NOW decided they will review the application 🤷‍♀️

"And the man at the back said, "Everyone, attack" And it turned into a ballroom blitz And the girl in the corner said, "Boy, I wanna warn ya It'll turn into a ballroom blitz" www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Quite a photo www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c7...

Wow.

"I've been totally exonerated"

So the US government is now providing a website that essentially lets European users look at banned porn and hate content cos they love free speech so much yet somehow keep stifling their own journalists and criticism of Trump…. Yup that’s completely normal ?!?!

The latest Trump administration moves to restrict voting ahead of the Midterms youtube.com/shorts/UgHy3...

Presume it's something to do with the fact that, according to Trump, he's been 'totally exonerated' 😒

This is so dark. The disinformation runs so deep.

‘Is university still worth it?’ is the wrong question - www.ft.com/content/649d... via @FT

Full story here: www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

PS more detail on my substack post here christinapagel.substack.com/p/whats-goin...

'What’s going on with measles in England?' New from @chrischirp.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/christin...

And when it comes down to it, 96 cases in just a few weeks is *huge* when we know it can be zero or close to zero. There mustn’t be any shrugging of shoulders, or acceptance of these outbreaks. We know that outbreaks are avoidable because we did avoid them – for years, and not long ago. 7/8

So is 96 cases so far in 2026 a lot? Compared to 20th C, no. But it is an unwelcome sign that we could be returning to the early vax era when lower coverage meant significant outbreaks. AND the susceptible population is growing not shrinking and providing more room for local epidemics to grow. 6/8

This means that we would expect measles to be able to spread most easily regions where there has been relatively low coverage years, meaning there are too many susceptible children who will be vulnerable if exposed. Recent cases concentrated in two least vaxxed regions, London & W Midlands. 5/8

But nationally, by 2025 only 84% of 5-year olds had had 2 doses of MMR, a long way off the 95% required to keep measles eliminated. There is also stark regional variation, with London having by far the lowest vaccine uptake in the country (70%) & W Midlands the next lowest (84%). 4/8

The amazing consequence of years of high rates of vaccination was that for 20 or so years in England, measles essentially disappeared. In 2016, WHO declared Measles eliminated (no or very little local transmission) in England. We’d gone from 100,000s of cases before vax to basically none. 3/8

This shows notifications of measles in England since 1940. 1st measles vax was introduced in 1968 after which cases fell, but it took years for % of children vaxxed to increase to over 80%. It got to over 90% by 2000s. 2 doses of MMR give 99% protection against infection. 2/8

🧵What is going on with Measles in England? UKHSA has reported 96 confirmed measles cases since 1 Jan 2026, concentrated in London (64% of cases) and the West Midlands (26% of cases). But what does this all mean? Is 96 a lot? Why is it happening? And what can we do about it? 1/8

Your regular reminder that Musk has raciest views and promotes far right ideology on his X platform. In case you missed X.

The future of universities is precarious as it is but what has happened with Bangor Uni attacks from Reform following their decision to not allow a Reform person to talk there should be a wake up call for how Reform may ape Trump’s anti- university style

Great to see my friend Christina Pagel featured in the THE for her work on tracking Trump's authoritarian actions. "Scientist behind Trump Action Tracker uses skills in data collection to look for patterns in president’s seemingly scattergun approach"

Tracker here www.trumpactiontracker.info

Delighted to see the TrumpActionTracker feature in this @timeshighered.bsky.social profile by @patrickjack.bsky.social today :-) was great to chat to him about it! www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mathema...

"Switzerland’s military has terminated its contract with Palantir… following a security audit… concluded that U.S. intelligence agencies could potentially access sensitive Swiss defense data… significant reputational warning for the data analytics firm" www.newscase.com/palantirs-sw... #R4Today

Plans to invade Greenland have just been cancelled after this

Climate change could lead to 123 million (range 49.5m to 203 m) more malaria cases + 532,000 (195,000–912,000) more deaths in Africa between 2024 + 2050. Extreme weather events are the primary increased cause, accounting for 79% of cases and 93% of additional deaths. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We pride ourselves on being a democracy and yet there’s a medieval theocratic anachronism in the heart of parliament: 26 bishops with automatic seats in the House of Lords. (The only other country in the world with clerics automatically entering a government is… Iran).

Turns out it's not just Trump who "could stand in the Middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters."

Now Kennedy is in charge of vaccine policies for USA and has reduced access to vax and undermined vaccine confidence. He is also overseeing the largest measles outbreaks since the vaccines were rolled out. Why is he being allowed to do this?

People died as a consequence of growing anti vaccine fears after his visit…

Now emails and correspondence unearthed by AP and Guardian paint a different picture which shows explicit intention to discuss vaccine safety and his beliefs…

His statements about his visit in senate contradicted earlier statements he had made in 2021 according to AP

During the congressional hearings for his post, as well as denying he was anti-vaccine, RFKjr denied that he went to Samoa to discuss vaccines…

Evidence has emerged that RFKJr lied about his infamous 2019 trip to Samoa after which measles vax uptake plummeted and measles cases spiralled resulting in 83 deaths and thousands of measles cases …🧵 #HealthPolicy

Some of the changes sound good, but the assurances over discovery research (curiosity doesn't quite capture the vibe, IMHO) funding, when it's a real-terms cut, remind me of darker times c.a. 2010-2024. That, over-reliance on industry, and "doing fewer things better" worries me.

In a further stroke of genius, our FEE-DEPENDENT HE sector is about to suffer ludicrous changes to leave to remain rules and associated increases in Visa costs. This crap, along with Brexit, hampers our wonderful, diverse, and brilliant HE communities in their ability to thrive.

Doing "fewer things better" is a typical "gold peaks" type approach...i.e. stuff doing well already will get more money...and spiral up. This lacks flexibility and diversity. An example from my own field...we could have done with more Coronavirus experts in 2020, perhaps?!

🧵