James Catterson

I was a White House ethics lawyer.

I used to advise people not to even accept a free cup of coffee from someone who had interests before them. And staff followed those rules.

I can’t even find the words to describe the scale of Trump’s corruption here.

What were the first animals? The fierce sponge–jelly battle that just won’t end For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are calling for a more harmonious approach.

'"We definitely screwed up" says King...she wishes she'd posted the study as a preprint so that the errors could have been caught sooner'

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

AI-generated data contamination erodes pathological variability and diagnostic reliability Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly populating medical records with synthetic content, creating a feedback loop where future models are increasingly at risk of training on uncurated AI ...

"AI is rapidly populating medical records with synthetic content, creating a feedback loop [that] drives a rapid erosion of pathological variability and diagnostic reliability...this renders AI generated documentation clinically useless after just two generations" www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

It's rare to see how lobbyists operate. But the Epstein-Mandelson correspondence shows us what happens all the time: plutocrats and government ministers conspiring against the public interest. This is why all lobbying should be in the public domain, but despite Labour and Con promises, it's not. 🧵

Text reads, 'Fruit fly research could help solve neurodegenerative disorders', background is an image of a fruit fly

A study using fruit flies as a model can explain aspects of neurodegenerative diseases that have baffled scientists for decades.

@poppi62.bsky.social's research focuses on axons - which allow brains to control behaviour and movement.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Header image with the paper title: "Improved in vivo gene knockout with high specificity using multiplexed Cas12a sgRNAs"

Make your gene knockouts more efficient with multiplexed Cas12a sgRNAs. Our new paper is out now, with tools available from @addgene.bsky.social , www.plasmids.eu and @vdrc-flies.bsky.social.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#CRISPR #geneediting #Drosophila 🧪🧬✂️🔬🪰

Summary 🧵 below.

TDP43 filaments in synapses

Some initial reactions to the 'published on a Sunday afternoon' letter from the CEO of UKRI. 🧵

www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

and no I haven't put the Mandelson-Epstein-Reinaldo scoop on twitter

we journalists *can* make Bluesky the place to break news

Multiple protein structure alignment at scale with FoldMason Protein structure is conserved beyond sequence, making multiple structural alignment (MSTA) essential for analyzing distantly related proteins. Computational prediction methods have vastly extended ou...

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social.
📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason
💾 github.com/steineggerla...

We could have 4 JWST’s or a science mission at every planet. The NIH could be funded for two years. Or 1.5 years or so of USAID funding, if it still existed.

This is how they’re spending our tax dollars. This is our money.

Anyone else having trouble getting through to the Abstract portal? We're having issues.

a black and white photo of a man sitting in front of a tv that says tvland classic ALT: a black and white photo of a man sitting in front of a tv that says tvland classic

Working on two paper rejections/major revisions whilst teaching and fighting for your job with only five months left on your contract is....draining...
#academia 🧪

Peripheral cancer attenuates amyloid pathology in Alzheimer’s disease via cystatin-c activation of TREM2 Peripheral cancer inhibits amyloid pathology and rescues cognition of Alzheimer’s disease through secretion of cystatin-c (Cyst-C), which binds amyloid oligomers and activates TREM2 in microglia and enables microglia to degrade pre-existing plaques.

Now online! Peripheral cancer attenuates amyloid pathology in Alzheimer’s disease via cystatin-c activation of TREM2

Usually agree with you on Edinburgh Live, but this one seems like a reach. It’s a junior reporter, it’s about a real crisis, and it’s miles better than the usual clickbait. Feels like one to let slide.

What are we doing here

Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless
economist.com/united-state...
from The Economist

Absolutely cracking work here from Jim's team. I defend the BBC a lot, but when a small team is doing really solid work like this while BBC London is doing puff pieces about the Wicked films, it really does make you wonder what's gone wrong with the big news outlets.

AI nudification: the latest weapon of violence against women and girls In Julie Burchill’s recent article in the Spectator, Does it really matter if Grok undresses us all?, she makes the argument that those who, like me, have repeatedly had their clothes removed by socia...

This week, an X user created an AI video of me being chloroformed and prepared for rape.

Victims are told it's not real and they're getting offended for no reason.

But nudification tools are weapons of sexual assault, and the harm they cause is real 👇

jessasato.substack.com/p/ai-nudific...

How Loss and Gain of Motor Protein Function Causes Neurodegeneration Researchers have identified a mechanism which can explain aspects of neurodegeneration which have baffled scientists for decades.

www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience...

www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/airport-bo...
Great piece on “airport book brain” - the tendency of politicians to swallow simplistic solutions. Latest example the Jonathan Haidt book shaping policy on teens and social media

I for one am extremely excited for the entire UK media to spend the next few months obsessing over a single constituency in the Westminster Parliament when general elections to Holyrood and the Senedd are rapidly approaching

This UK university finance dashboard is so good. Incredible public service.

Greens or Lib Dems should campaign on ditching all these contracts which are an abomination and a liability.

Construction of complex and diverse DNA sequences using DNA three-way junctions - Nature Sidewinder enables high-fidelity DNA assembly by separating the information that guides assembly from the final assembled sequence.

Clever new method for assembling DNA oligos into larger sequences without the need for unique overlap sequences. Can't wait for those 'this sequence is too complex' rejection messages from DNA suppliers to become a thing of the past. 🧬🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very grim.

www.ft.com/content/c894...

reading up on the Pitchfork subscription thing. apparently if you don't subscribe you can no longer read every review. and it sounds like their archive of reviews will not be open to non-subscribers anymore either.

Trick Bag, Aquarium Drunkard, Stereogum, Hearing Things, a billion independent newsletters…just saying! if you cherish the spot where you read about music, especially if it’s eternally dangling on the precipice of financial oblivion because there’s not a corporation behind it, throw them some money.

Deutsche Bank here with the good stuff.
Game on.