Kai Kupferschmidt

Post Traumatic Disorder Adam O’Neal says he’s bringing “intellectual diversity” to The Washington Post’s opinion pages—but the moves he’s making behind the scenes tell a different story.

Last week, new WaPo opinion editor Adam O'Neal quietly carried out another purge of staffers, cutting editors and major names like Marc Fisher and David Hoffman, among others.

Meanwhile, he welcomed three conservatives to the section.

Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/washington...

Not happening somewhere else. Here. In America. Right now.

My new op-ed with @lkfazio.bsky.social:

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.
Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Game changer for cell-based plant genetics: the labs of Caixia Gao & Jin-Long Qiu have developed very efficient self-replicating vectors and they just published a very nice proof-of-concept paper.
#plantscience
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Open-Access Teaching Module on the Black Death Now Available Free, new materials for teaching the Black Death

My thanks to TEAMS (Teaching Association for Medieval Studies) for posting a notice on their newsletter of the new #OpenAccess teaching module on the Black Death: teams-medieval.org/untitled-4/. #histmed #MedievalSky #PandemicPedagogy 🧪🗃️

Nobelpreis für Medizin: Wenn Ihr Immunsystem nicht Amok läuft, liegt es an diesen Zellen Kämpfen, aber nicht gegen sich selbst: Wie dem Immunsystem das gelingt, haben die Medizinnobelpreisträger gezeigt. Es könnte helfen, Krebs und Neurodermitis zu behandeln.

Nobelpreise für Medizin 2025 geht an Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow & Fred Ramsdell für ihre bahnbrechenden Arbeiten zur peripheren Immuntoleranz. Gratulation 👏
#Tregs #Tolerance #FoxP3 #Nobel2025
Super Erklärstück dazu von @florianschumann.bsky.social @jasimmank.bsky.social @zeitonline.bsky.social

Once again worth pointing out that before Trump came along politicians didn't tell bald-face, easily disprovable lies. They equivocated or shaded, and occasionally told a whopper if they thought no one would ever find out. But Trump's complete disregard for truth is a brand new thing.

Wir sind die Influenza-Influencer...

Medicine Nobel for researchers who identified immune system’s security guards Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi discovered regulatory T cells that prevent autoimmune disease

“Anyone who does not have an autoimmune disease, that’s because of these regulatory T cells,” says Markus Feuerer, an immunologist at the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Audio-Essay: Umgang mit der AfD - was sagt die Forschungslage? - mit Tarik Abou-Chadi

Weil dank Merz jetzt wieder darüber geredet wird, dass man die „AfD inhaltlich stellen“, also ihre Themen bedienen müsse, hier nochmal mein Interview mit @tabouchadi.bsky.social zur Forschungslage (es funktioniert nicht). Wir reden über medialen & politischen Umgang mit Rechtsextremen & was hilft.

ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team Documents show ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to target people for deportation.

NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...

Pandemia + Ein Podcast von Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt und Kai Kupferschmidt.

Pandemia wird allein durch euch, unsere Hörer:innen, finanziert.
Mit einer Mitgliedschaft bei Pandemia+ helft ihr uns, das Projekt am Leben zu halten und häufiger Folgen zu recherchieren und produzieren.
Das geht zum Beispiel bei Apple Podcasts oder hier:

steady.page/en/pandemia/...

Pest (Bonus) | Heavy Metal Podcast-Folge · Pandemia · 01.10.2025 · Nur Abonnent:innen · 26 Min.

Ein toter Forscher, ein vermeintlich ungefährliches Bakterium und der Kampf von Mensch und Mikrobe um eine wichtige Ressource: Eisen.
Darum geht es in unserer Bonusfolge zur Pest-Serie für unsere Unterstützer.
Und: Der nächste Mehrteiler ist schon in Arbeit und beginnt hoffentlich diesen Monat...

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, former Director of NIAID, is Fired by Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy in Retaliation for Filing Whistleblower Complaint with the Office of Special Counsel

bit.ly/4gRA3yx

Thanks!

Curious if law experts can explain whether this runs afoul of the Hatch Act and if not why not?

Over on X you can see how the Trump administration is using every channel of communication to frame the shutdown as the fault of Democrats.

Using such official communication channels for partisan politics obviously erodes trust. As with many things we are witnessing, this will have lasting effects

Opinion | The Real Stakes of the Shutdown

“But debate over the tactical wisdom of the Democrats’ decision should not obscure the responsibility of Mr. Trump and the Republican Party. Mr. Trump is threatening to hurt Americans in two ways and forcing Democrats to choose which one to prevent.“

Short and to the point. You do have to wonder why others seem to be struggling so much with this…

At our recent @lshtm.bsky.social event on misinformation, Chris Whitty gave some useful reflections on common causes and some important considerations for handling it.

Full event: www.youtube.com/live/H_nClQ2...

PS: The NYT headline is truly atrocious.

Trump and Hegseth Recount Familiar Partisan Complaints to Top Military Leaders

Honestly, if you see an event like this in literally any country in the world, it's a fifteen-alarm fire for democracy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u...

Guns at Annunciation I was baptized at the church where kids were murdered. It's a canary in the coal mine for a dystopian America, where people blame everything but the real cause: a country awash with unlimited guns.

from @brianklaas.bsky.social, "a dystopian America, where people blame everything but the real cause: a country awash with unlimited guns"
www.forkingpaths.co/p/guns-at-an...

I don't think the average person is going to learn much by accessing a paywalled scientific paper.

But the current system keeps out journalists, science communicators, policy researchers, and fact checkers from reading into a topic as well.

More #blue science (and more mysteries)…
Nice story by my colleague @spoke32.bsky.social on two new discoveries suggesting humans used blue pigments much earlier than thought.
Love to see all this research! At this rate I’ll have to revise my book soon :)) 💙

The measles website at CDC continues to share updated data. 1514 cases reported in 2025. 3 deaths. CDC scientists working hard but have to manage vaccine attacks from @SecKennedy and his minions. This will be the year that ends US’s measles elimination status. Not one word at #UNGA.

On the principle of “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” this article fails to reach even a low bar. I mean the article — which I read three times — not just the headline. We can only conclude that the "extraordinary claims require... " principle is not in use for this protagonist.

Says it all.

My key point is support independent publishers and creators, especially as that's where all the really interesting and creative stuff is happening.

This is
a) incredibly fatalistic
B) deeply provincial

but what is most amazing is

C) how they manage to combine fatalistim and provincialism with an unassailable feeling of superiority

It is a remarkable, if contradictory, skill.