Ola Howell

How easy is it to fudge your scientific rank? Meet Larry, the world’s most cited cat “Exercise in absurdity” reveals flaws in Google Scholar’s productivity metrics

Larry the Cat briefly had an h-index of 12 after having 12 fake manuscripts that cited each other uploaded to ResearchGate and then deleted - revealing another way to fake accomplishments and manipulate stature.

@science.org #medsky

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

RFK Jr. doesn’t like that a study of every child born in Denmark from 1997-2018 showed no link between aluminum in vaccines and 50 adverse health outcomes. This study included more than a million kids.

RFK Jr. wants the study retracted.

The journal, which is a very prestigious one, refused.

This is significant from one of the most famous footballers in the world, a Muslim. Suleiman al-Obeid, 41, was killed on Wednesday in southern Gaza when Israeli forces attacked civilians waiting for humanitarian aid, the Palestine Football Association (PFA) said.

Illinois is the first state to ban AI therapists Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed a bill banning AI therapists into law, the first in the nation.

Illinois has banned AI therapy, making it the first state to regulate the use of AI in mental health services.

www.engadget.com/ai/illinois-...

BBC Inside Science - What’s the evidence for vaccines? - BBC Sounds Cuts of $500 million to vaccines research have been announced by the US government.

BBC Inside Science debunks the antivax nonsense

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

#GetVaccinated #VaccinesWork #MRNA #CovidIsNotOver

Email from the "PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE" to Kate Starbird asking for all emails from Jan 1 2021 through July 30 2025 with any of the following keywords: "diversity and inclusion" "DEIA" "DEI" "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging" "DEIB" "gender identity" "racial preference" "ESG" "organizational equity" "intersectionality" "anti-racism" "critical race theory" "LGBTQ+" "transgender" "cisgender" "gender ideology" "white privilege" "privilege walk" "cultural humility" "equity audit" "restorative justice" "racial equity" "implicit bias" "microaggressions" "inclusive pedagogy" "identity-based oppression" "systems of oppression" "queer" "non-binary" "sexuality" “Trump” “fascist”

If anyone is curious about the current list of search terms being used by right wing activist organizations to harass university professors, here's a public records request I received today from Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation. Not intimidating or meant to curtail by my speech at all, right?

mRNA vaccines are a game-changer. Faster to develop, generally safer, easy to modify, huge potential for wider applications (e.g. cancer). If the vaccine has been approved, it's already been thoroughly tested in randomised controlled trials. Nobody's trying to poison anyone with these vaccines.

Ahem. Second to last paragraph contradicts the headline.

Breaking: Med Student Saves Patient’s Life Using Krebs Cycle | GomerBlog For the first time in the history of the universe, the Krebs cycle played not only a useful role but saved someone's life.

Breaking: Med Student Saves Patient’s Life Using Krebs Cycle

gomerblog.com/2017/10/odds...

OpenAI launches reasoning LLM that you can download and tweak One version of the gpt-oss large language model can run on a laptop, and performs nearly as well as the company’s most powerful models.

Finally something open from OpenAI - it’s launched an LLM that lives up to the company’s name

An open weight LLM you can tinker with causes much excitement

By @lizziegibney.bsky.social

🧪 @nature.com

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

📌

Nicholas Hopkinson | Compensatory Puffing The main component of cigarette filters is a plastic, cellulose acetate, and trillions of butts are discarded into the...

‘In October 2024, Santa Cruz, California became the first jurisdiction to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes. It is to be hoped that negotiations in Geneva will deliver global action to eliminate them completely.’

Nicholas Hopkinson on smoking and plastic pollution: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/au...

RFK Jr cancels $500m in mRNA vaccine development in the US Since taking office, the vaccine sceptic has made a number of changes to how vaccines are regulated.

It’s as we learned the opposite of all the lessons we should have learned from the Covid pandemic.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/a...

RFK Jr’s health department to halt $500m in mRNA vaccine research Agency to end 22 federal contracts, questioning safety of technology credited with helping end Covid pandemic

RFKJr’s gradual elimination of vaccines in USA is continuing and gathering pace as 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines being terminated including late stage research for bird flu vaccine #ImmunoSky 🧪🧵

Google search has just become startlingly bad - recently I've found things on DuckDuckGo that Google's search engine has just flatly insisted *don't exist online anymore*.

Why are Gen Z drinking less alcohol than older generations? Those born between the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2010s seem to be drinking less alcohol than older generations. Why is this—and could it be a public health opportunity? Elisabeth Mahase reports The...

www.bmj.com/content/390/...

Helpful overview of trends

Why are Gen Z drinking less alcohol than older generations

"[T]he scientific enterprise is now witness to widespread, organized defection from the scientific public goods game. Large swaths of players, among them many scientists, reviewers, editors and publishers, are choosing to no longer make genuine contributions to the pot."

Britain’s medical exodus is a warning sign for the NHS Doctors are increasingly prepared to travel abroad in search of better pay and conditions

Excellent piece from @stephenkb.bsky.social: migration provides an exit option for Britain's doctors and nurses (but also for other professionals too), meaning that if the NHS wants its people, it had better pay to keep them

I prosecute and defend the most serious sexual offences in our courts.

The overwhelming majority of offenders are British-born. Overwhelmingly the victim is someone known to them, either a partner or relative.

Anybody purporting to care about protecting women might start there.

Gates Foundation pledges $2.5 billion to women’s health initiatives Breaking: The Gates Foundation said it would commit $2.5 billion through 2030 to support women’s health initiatives, its largest funding commitment ever to the issue.

Read the full story:

Gates Foundation pledges $2.5 billion to women’s health initiatives
www.statnews.com/2025/08/04/b...

🌟 Great to see the publication of this important research on medicines and breastfeeding by @swpharmres.bsky.social member Rachel Pilgrim.

📑 You can read the full paper here
internationalbreastfeedingjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

#PharmSky #PharmacyResearch

Good morning 🌞

Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs - Nature Mouse models show that respiratory infections from viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can trigger metastasis of dormant breast cancer cells in the lungs, a finding supported by epidemiological data from two large human cohorts.

Nature research paper: Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs

go.nature.com/4odw172

Registration for our 2025 Innovation Day in Bristol is now open! Save the date for the 21st October!

More information including a provisional programme and a registration link is available on our webpage: www.bath.ac.uk/events/south...

It’s been obvious for some time that Musk’s platform is deliberately & dangerously hideous. There is nothing to stop politicians, up to & including the government, removing themselves from it entirely. Their every utterance would still be reported, regardless of how it entered the public space.

Our Brain—Immune Axis Gets A Jolt Facts, data and analytics about biomedical matters

A rundown on the big advances we’re seeing on the brain-immune axis

erictopol.substack.com/p/our-braini...

Medicine and Society "Estimates suggest that a universal transition to race-neutral reference equations could change the impairment-severity ratings of millions of workers." "Reform and Remedy for Imprecision and Inequity — Ending the Race-Based Evaluation of Occupational Pulmonary Impairment" by R. Khazanchi et al.

U.S. health care systems have begun shifting to race-neutral reference equations for interpreting pulmonary-function tests, but implementation gaps risk perpetuating inequities in disability compensation, write the authors of a new Medicine and Society article. Learn more: nej.md/4kYkaH6

Low-dose metformin requires brain Rap1 for its antidiabetic action Metformin lowers blood glucose by inhibiting Rap1 in ventromedial hypothalamic neurons that regulate glucose balance.

Metformin, the first line drug for Type 2 diabetes, has been used for 60 years without a clearcut mechanism of action. It turns out it's not just reducing glucose output from the liver. Metformin also works via the brain www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

NHS data show drop in prescribing of dependency-forming medicines The number of patients prescribed dependency-forming medicines in England has decreased by 1.1 million since 2016/2017, according to figures published by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA).…

The number of patients prescribed dependency-forming medicines in England has decreased by 1.1 million since 2016/2017, according to figures published by the NHS Business Services Authority
#ukpharmacy #prescribing #addiction

An infographic illustrating the '3-30-300 Rule' for urban greenery. It features stylized drawings of trees and a bench, accompanied by three key guidelines: having 3 large trees visible from your home or workplace, ensuring 30% tree canopy cover in your neighbourhood, and living within 300 meters of a publicly accessible green space

Have you heard of the 3-30-300 🌳 rule?

Everyone should be able to:

🌲 See at least 3 trees from their home
🌳 Have 30% tree canopy cover in their neighbourhood
🍃 Live within 300 meters of a high-quality green space