Dorian McILROY

"Europeans, let's wake up!" — Defend Democracy “We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.” President Macron on the occasion of German Unity Day, 3 October 2025.

"If we Europeans do not wake up and say, ‘We want to take back control of our democracies,’ I can tell you this: within 10 years [...] we will be a continent, like many others, of conspiracy theorists, extremists, noise and fury."

defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

... tomyelecu dammit. Capital on the second word of a species name? Complete amateur!

I agree, should be Begomovirus Tomyelecu

Absolute legend is spot on. Fundamentally changed the way we see our chimpanzee cousins.

Children and teens who had a Covid reinfection had a doubling of #LongCovid risk (PASC) and a significant increase in many other adverse outcomes (Figure) www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Population-Level Effectiveness and Herd Protection 17 Years After HPV Vaccine This cross-sectional study investigates population-level effectiveness and herd protection in the first 17 years after human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among adolescent girls and young women at ...

A landmark new study in JAMA Pediatrics shows the HPV vaccine is doing exactly what it promised & more. 17yrs after rollout, adolescent vaccination has slashed HPV infxns not only among those vaccinated but also those unvaccinated, showing powerful herd protection.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Protein Domain Designer tool for the generation of publication-ready protein domain diagrams

New week, new tool: Find our Protein Domain Designer tool to generate publication-ready protein domain diagrams here: domaindesigner.farnunglab.com

Now this is an interesting result. OTOH, I hate to see the word "dogma" used instead of "current model", "prevailing view" or so on, and here the authors do it twice in the abstract. Science does not have dogma, dammit.

Epstein–Barr virus exploits desmocollin 2 as the principal epithelial cell entry receptor - Nature Microbiology A genome-wide CRISPR screen helps to identify the Epstein–Barr virus receptor desmocollin 2 for primary epithelial cell infection. Additional infection assays revealed that desmocollin 3 also aids infection.

Epstein–Barr virus exploits desmocollin 2 as the principal epithelial cell entry receptor

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

I had almost forgotten about that period. So you know how everyone in the US must be feeling right now. I guess the return to rationality in SAfrica proves that Trumpian insanity doesn't last forever.

I think I'm going to put this on a T-shirt, and wear it every class I teach this year.

Excellent!!

The Simpsons old man sitting on a stump telling a story but all the kids have been replaced with headstones

me telling my grandkids what it was like to have vaccines

In a UN speech today, President Trump said that "all of these [climate] predictions were wrong".

Back in 2019 I led a research effort to digitize old climate model projections and assess how well they did. Turns out they got future warming pretty spot on!

This is an absolute tragedy. And completely predictable.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17C2hiurja/

Vaccinations save lives and increase life-span.

For every death averted, 66 years of full health were gained, translating to 10.2 billion years of full health.

The answer to whether vaccinations prevent deaths is written in stone- and in the data.
🧪 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

I can't believe we still have to convince people of this. It's like having to refute the 4 humours model of disease.

A new theme issue of #PhilTransB examines the evolutionary history of bacterial immune systems, their modes of action, and the patterns how different bacterial immune systems are distributed across different ecosystems. Read: buff.ly/Z4qdxY1

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail - Nature Communications Rodrigues and Queiroz et al. report the discovery of Naiavirus, the largest enveloped virus, isolated from a Brazil biome. With an oval capsid and flexible tail, its giant genome holds many novel gene...

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail
nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63463-6

This is a great story!

As for biodiversity, a brand new study also confirms what's well established: overall ruminant meat, especially from grazing animals (which require more land, entailing more carbon & biodiversity opportunity costs) has the biggest 'extinction footprint' of all foods: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

A two-fer of beneficial associations with the planetary, primarily plant-based diet
journals.plos.org/plosmedicine...

I once got an email from an irate author. Why can't I pay you to publish my paper? Editor X of Journal Y accepts my money! Why don't you?

I forwarded that email to the publisher.

The editor is still there.

Trends in reported cases of acute Hepatitis B peaked in 1986 and then declined after ACIP recommended universal infant immunization Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00333549231175548

Did you know? Universal Infant Hepatitis B vaccination is a public health policy success story.

The US initially tried a risk-based approach to Hepatitis B vaccination in the 1980s.

But vaccination rates remained low.

New cases continued to increase.

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview....

Though it’s traumatic for me to bring this up, I was targeted by a group allied with Turning Point USA in 2018, with the help of Tucker Carlson on Fox. My home address circulated online and I got death threats. 1/

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer Differences between cancer types, infectious disease, and potential prognostic markers are uncovered by studying microbes within cancer DNA.

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

TLDR -- most cancers do not have microbiomes...but a few do have consistent microbe associations (i.e., colorectal and oral cancers). Make sense!

Another excellent summary from BK Titanji. I did not know abou M-protein mutations - thanks!

Great job by the brilliant @pilardomingoc.bsky.social and her team!

Hmm, now that I've read it, I'm not so sure. Needs a confirmation study. All the immunological X-reactivity was done with BSA coupled "mimotope" peptides, not virus capsids, and the virome stuff does not clearly show (to me at least) increased prevalence of Vientovirus in Sj patients.

DYK: #suicide claims over 720,000 lives every year?

Each life lost leaves a profound impact on families, friends, colleagues and entire communities.

This #WorldSuicidePreventionDay, let’s talk openly about suicide to challenge harmful myths, reduce stigma and foster compassionate conversations.