Stress from racism may help explain why black women more likely to die in childbirth, study finds

At this year's @cambridgefestival.bsky.social, Mariam Rashid, Jack Monaghan and I planned a panel with a twist: some of them were "Traitors", and the audience were asked to guess which. Have a read about it in our article in @theconversation.com: theconversation.com/the-fake-dis... 🧪

"Cofnas hinkelt door zijn presentatie, leest vooral slides af, strooit met namen van filosofen en tabellen en incasseert opmerkingen over de beperkte wetenschappelijkheid van zijn beweringen." /1 www.standaard.be/binnenland/l...

Hello Bluesky — I’m Zeshan Qureshi, a doctor, academic, author and advocate working on race, health and anti-racism. After 17 books and 23 years in medicine, I’ve just received advanced copies of the book I’ve felt most compelled to write: Anti-Racist Medicine. 1/4

Last day to register for EHBEA is tomorrow (1 April). The programme is now published and looks great! Really good to see so many papers focused on advancing methods and theory in the discipline 😊

Or academics

Join us at the Cambridge Festival for an interactive panel: Traitors style, with a scientific twist! If you think you can spot impostors better than a TV contestant, come and prove it. Friday 27 March, 7pm at Darwin College. Tickets here: www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/trait... 🧪

"Arguing intelligence & adjacent traits are biologically determined served a clear function for Epstein, who treated women as subordinate. It’s equally unsurprising that the powerful people he cultivated might come up with a natural, objective explanation for their perch at the top of society"

Thanks @thebookseller.com for including my book in your preview: paperback is out 16th April www.thebookseller.com/comment/prev...

In an essay for @aeon.co, I argue that humans evolved not to cooperate or to compete, but with the capacity for both – and with the flexibility to cheat when we’re likely to get away with it. Cooperation is therefore something we need to promote, not to presume. 🧪 aeon.co/essays/we-co...

How have ideas of relational equality developed in the past 100 years? ⚖️ Don't miss this forthcoming #London #Lecture by TRIP President @jowolff.bsky.social, Social Equality: Then and Now. 🎟️ Get tickets here: buff.ly/WQ4gFXS #politicalphilosophy #socialequality #philosophy

“Low birth rates are not the end: they are the catalyst for a more humane, sustainable world – one where all the people live richer, fuller lives”

Cool to get some coverage in the New Scientist. I might have rephrased a couple of small things! But the closing paragraphs from Jerome Lewis, especially, are fab. www.newscientist.com/article/2507...

In an article for @jmirpub.bsky.social, @rjmilne.bsky.social, Alessia Costa, and I argue that trust should be understood contextually, not as a static concept. Instead, trust is about the relationship between the trustor and trustee – in healthcare and beyond. www.jmir.org/2025/1/e83533

A few thoughts for the @newscientist.com about how recent research from the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social into selfish sperm tells us a lot about biological evolution – and even ourselves: www.newscientist.com/article/mg26... 🧪

Great blog post from the @nuffieldbioethics.bsky.social showcasing how utilitarian decision-making around vaccination combined with poor communication is a terrible recipe if you want to maintain public trust: www.nuffieldbioethics.org/news-blog/ch... 🧪

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat. Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

The not so distant future of the US? From Adam LeBor’s The Last Days of Budapest

Fantastic resource for running conjoint analysis in R by @andrew.heiss.phd www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2023/07...

You’ve been badly misled over COVID origins theconversation.com/how-conspira...

Instead of trying to extend the lives of a privileged few, we should invest in improving the lives of all people today. A piece for @undark.org on transhumanism, oligarchy, and biology 🧪 undark.org/2025/07/23/o...

Without a proper understanding of human nature, we are at the mercy of our biological heritage. A feature on cooperation, competition, and invisible rivalry for @newscientist.com: www.newscientist.com/article/2486... 🧪

Excellent and considered post. A must read

In a follow-up to our study on accent mimicry last year, we've found that natives are the best at detecting accent mimicry. People from other English speaking countries were, however, worse at mimicry detection than were native listeners. @robfoley.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Talking yesterday evening with @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social at the launch of his new book Invisible Rivals (yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... )

SO excited to announce that INVISIBLE RIVALS by the brilliant @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social publishes today! 'Working across philosophy, evolutionary biology, public policy, and politics, Invisible Rivals is unlike any other book I’ve read.’ - Devi Sridhar

In an article for @theguardian.com, I argue that we have a proclivity for blindly trusting success, leading us open to exploitation by autocrats. To counter this, we have a collective need to support others' capacity to think both critically and ethically. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m... 🧪

Excited to say that an advance copy of Invisible Rivals has arrived! Thanks so much to @agentbal.bsky.social and Jean Black of @yalepress.bsky.social for making this a reality – it's a funny feeling holding 5 years of work in your hands! Preorder available here: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

🎯 Our next #GenomicsLite session with @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social will explore: Why trust #science? We'll be discussing the importance of #trust and what scientists can do to build trust with communities. 📅 Thurs 22 May, 3pm BST 🔗 cstu.io/28697e

A fab few days listening to great research and catching up with old friends @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social @judithbeier.bsky.social and prize winner 🏆@hannesrathmann.bsky.social at #HumanEvo25

After a few years in the making, our podcast Streets in the Sky is out! As global warming contributes to increasingly unsafe living environments, new housing developments that fail to account for local needs risk becoming public health crises. open.spotify.com/show/1pCB1qR... @cph.bsky.social

A few thoughts about dire wolves, credulity, and trust for the @newscientist.com @engagewcs.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2477...

Out this week @cogscisociety.bsky.social! @samhforbes.bsky.social & I ”urge extreme caution in the use of LLMs in classrooms lest we further normalize: pupils losing their privacy, reducing contact between learner and educator, deskilling teachers & polluting the environment” doi.org/10.1111/cogs...

Great piece in @undark.org on hereditarianism and ethical questions around open science Thanks to @rjmilne.bsky.social for sharing! undark.org/2025/03/26/u...

1. What's at risk by disrupting NIH? With only a bit of hyperbole: a mechanistic understanding of life itself, & therefore better treatments for cancer, dementias, autoimmune disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, birth defects, aging & more 🧪 Notes on a revolution interrupted 🧵

Can’t recommend enough @robfoley.bsky.social’s book of essays on modern higher ed, Notes from Ivory Flats, which you can order here: www.amazon.co.uk/Notes-Ivory-... Find out, for example, what the risk assessment for Darwin’s Beagle would look like today — and what it says about academic life now

Thanks so much to Jean Black @yalebooks.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social and @robfoley.bsky.social – would not have been possible without you @darwincollegecam.bsky.social @cambridgeuni.bsky.social @sangerinstitute.bsky.social @engagewcs.bsky.social

Knowledge, unlike antibiotics and bleach, is free – and the spread of information about how to help prevent contagion can only be good for healthcare systems and society more broadly. My latest for @uk.theconversation.com @engagewcs.bsky.social theconversation.com/can-making-t... 🧪

In an article for @uk.theconversation.com, @rjmilne.bsky.social and I argue that while the UK's plan to foster innovation through AI is ambitious, it will rely on public trust for success. Yet anyone can claim to be trustworthy: how do we tell who actually is? theconversation.com/government-n...

Budapest’s wartime descent into hell: A review of Adam LeBor’s fantastic new book illustrating the descent of a major European city in the face of fascism www.thetimes.com/article/c3c2...

Happy to say I've joined the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social as a staff scientist, where I will be focusing on the erosion of public trust from an evolutionary perspective. Glad to be joining a great team led by @rjmilne.bsky.social!

In a piece for the @financialtimes.com, I discuss how accents of languages, maybe more than any other signal, explain how trust forms among people, and serve as shibboleths through which we categorise them. #linguistics 🧪 🏺 www.ft.com/content/2464...

“Our findings highlight that both self-report accuracy and selective participation are competing biases and sources of poor reproducibility for biobank-scale research” www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨🚨 FINAL REMINDER! 🚨🚨 ⏳ Abstract submissions for #EHBEA2025 close TONIGHT at MIDNIGHT (GMT)! No extensions this time! Be part of this amazing conference in the vibrant city of Newcastle this April 🌉 Submit here now: ehbea2025.com 🚀 @ehbea.bsky.social #BioAnth #CultEvo #EvPsych #Evosky

In a new paper following a presentation at this year's Data for Policy conference, @rjmilne.bsky.social and I draw on interdisciplinary studies of social trust and behavioural ecology to propose a solution to what we call the trustworthiness recognition problem: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🧪

It's been a huge amount of fun talking to people about our accent mimicry study and seeing the reaction to it. If you are feeling up to taking the test yourself, we've duplicated it for public participation: cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... We'll post the results soon! 🧪 #langsky