Uta Frith

Just what is needed today.

A 19th century photo portrait of a woman wearing a dark garment, with a lace collar and a subtle smile, in a black and white with an oval frame.

Born #OnThisDay in 1821 was Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the USA and the first woman on the medical register in the UK. She was a committed social reformer and helped found the London School of Medicine for Women. #WomenInSTEM

❄️🎣 What ice-fishing competitions reveal about human decision-making. New paper in @science.org by researchers from @mpib-berlin.bsky.social, @scioi.bsky.social, and the University of Eastern Finland.

👉 Read more: www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/newsroom/new...

📄 Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reality Is a Shared Hallucination—And It’s at Risk of Collapsing, Scientist Claims When that happens, it can lead to some truly disturbing outcomes.

A recent interview with Chris Frith @cdfrith.bsky.social
www.popularmechanics.com/science/a700...

Unlocking thermal energy: capture, storage and re-use of industrial waste heat | Royal Society This report from the Royal Society explores how industrial waste heat can be captured, stored, transported and re-used.

Industrial heating accounts for around 14% of UK emissions, yet approximately half of the energy used in UK industry is lost as waste heat. Capturing and re-using this could help decarbonise industry, reduce energy demand and more. Read the full report here: royalsociety.org/news-resourc...

Hmm, interesting and a bit disturbing too.

A very important review.

Professor Maggie Snowling on rethinking reading disorders We caught up with the presenter -  Prof. Maggie Snowling, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Oxford and Research Fellow at St John's College - about her career, the topic, and her h...

Dyslexia isn’t just about reading and writing. Prof Maggie Snowling explains how reading disorders originate in the language system, and why many children also struggle with oral language.

Read the full blog to learn more. https://bit.ly/4qr5SlY

Painted in 1913, Paul Nash gave this picture the ultimate simplicity of a title, 'A Drawing.' The elm trees marked the boundary of his family's home at Wood Lane House, Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. Trees always held a spiritual quality for him.

Development of Uncertainty Sensitivity: Early Competence or Protracted Development? The development of uncertainty sensitivity, a critical cognitive ability, presents a challenging paradox: Some evidence points to its emergence in infancy, whereas other evidence indicates much late.....

A very neat experiment that uncovers developmental differences: Development of Uncertainty Sensitivity: Early Competence or Protracted Development? - Wan & Sloutsky 2026 - Developmental Science - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too If we don’t slow down, the research enterprise is going to crash, argues Adrian Barnett.

Great to see that someone decided to make a difference in putting quality over quantity and promoting slow science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There are different causes for under-confidence and different remedies.

YouTube video by The Royal Society Why morning light is so important | The Royal Society

Good to watch this video on a day like today.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkDM...

Put pressure on publishers to follow best practice — external regulation is the answer Journals that work hard to meet the needs of both authors and readers should be acknowledged publicly — encouraging others to follow suit.

“I propose academic journals submit to independent regulation through an international quality-management standard. Organisations must demonstrate operations are customer-focused, committed to continual improvement, underpinned by systematic management approaches & evidence-based decision-making”

EU’s Horizon scheme boosts UK research quality, report finds

Shared exclusively with us ahead of its publication, the DSIT report evaluates the UK’s performance in an earlier EU funding programme, Horizon 2020

It also highlights disruption to UK researchers’ participation following Brexit

One of the rare studies that tries to relate ToM performance with real life social interaction.
The Impact of Theory of Mind on Real‐Time Social Interactions and Momentary Social Anxiety: A Comparison Between Young Autistic and Neurotypical Children - Chen onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Abnormal Developmental Trajectories in the Brain in Individuals With Reading Disability It is unknown how the brain supports reading development in individuals with reading disability (RD). In a cross-sectional study (i.e., children, adolescents, adults), we found an age-related shift ...

Interesting brain changes in Chinese readers.
Abnormal Developmental Trajectories in the Brain in Individuals With Reading Disability - Yan - 2026 - Developmental Science onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

French natural philosopher and mathematician Émilie du Châtelet was born #OnThisDay in 1706. Her 'Institutions de Physique' caused debate throughout Europe, and her translation of Newton's 'Principia Mathematica' is still considered the standard translation in France.

#WomenInSTEM

Dissociating underlying components of pragmatics: a most promising basis for research into communication difficulties.

Three distinct components of pragmatic language use: Social conventions, intonation, and world knowledge–based causal reasoning | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Pleasing picture and interesting to compare with the work of Anna Ancher currently on show at Dulwich Picture Gallery www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/ann...

Book Now https://shorturl.at/10LVD
Winter Carols by Candlelight @ConwayHall
English Interpreted Performance #BSL
#BritishSignLanguage
7pm–9pm Thurs 11 Dec 2025

Shocked to think of the consequences of political interference on a formerly trusted website.

Mary McCarthy: Why ADHD support at work and school may matter more than formal diagnosis In a world with greater awareness of ADHD symptoms, the health system cannot cope with the number of people waiting for an assessment.

Excellent piece by Mary McCarthy on how to overcome the challenges of massive waiting lists for ADHD diagnosis www.independent.ie/opinion/comm...

Increased complexity of social category markers leads to diverse rule-based categorizations and reduced intergroup bias | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Social categories are key to human social life, often leading to intergroup bias and stereotypes. While traditional studies use binary social markers, real-world markers are more complex. This study e...

Very interesting! Related to works on the importance of diversity of opinions, not just connectivity, in reduction of polarization: diversity leads to increased perceived similarity www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10...
And our work on complex social markers: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Lottery before peer review is associated with increased female representation and reduced estimated economic cost in a German funding line - Nature Communications The authors show evidence from a German funding line that a lottery-first approach followed by peer review is accompanied by increased female representation both at the submission stage and among fund...

“data show an increase of 10% in submissions & 23% in funded projects from female applicants with the lottery-first approach compared to a previously used procedure. Additionally, the lottery-first approach was estimated to have 68% lower economic costs compared to single-stage peer review approach”

Going against the gut: Q&A with Kevin Mitchell A new review of 15 years of studies on the connection between the microbiome and autism reveals widespread statistical and conceptual errors.

Kevin Mitchell tells it as it is. There nothing there! We're easily captured by a simple narrative for an incredibly complex etiology. www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/goi...

I found this article super-interesting: Why more social interactions lead to more polarization in societies | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

All in the Mind - Are there multiple subtypes of autism, and how vivid are your memories? - BBC Sounds A new study suggests that autism’s genetic profile differs with age at diagnosis.

Brilliant episode of All in the Mind with @claudiahammond.bsky.social, who discusses autism with @utafrith.bsky.social, brain development with @catherineloveday.bsky.social, as well as memory, music and other interesting topics

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Very concerning. Thank you Dorothy, for calling out this folly.

For a thorough dismissal of the acetaminophen scare read this editorial by Eric Fombonne
First published: 17 October 2025
doi.org/10.1111/jcpp...
..."no evidence for a causal association...singling out acetaminophen use to ‘prevent’ autism was unscientific and truly irresponsible".