Bénédicte C

ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour Trump ally Laura Loomer took credit for Sami Hamdi’s detainment in move denounced as ‘affront to free speech’

Tinpot dictatorship moves. Really bad implications. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Russia arrests Ukrainian biologist for backing curbs on Antarctic krill fishing ‘Trumped-up’ charges spark diplomatic row as scientists express fears for health of 70-year-old Leonid Pshenichnov

Politicization of science, Russian style.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

BIG ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS! 💫

A new section of Hadrian’s Wall has been discovered! The furthest west bit found yet - and it is glorious! 🤩

Reported by the great WC21. Link to his full video here: youtu.be/VfVvl3A_sO4?...

#archaeology #history #Roman

It's true.

Democrat-led government shutdown.” She added: “Due to a recent court order, HHS is not currently taking actions to implement or administer the reduction-in-force notices.” According to the document reviewed by POLITICO, the National Institutes of Health was to take the hardest hit among HHS agencies, 4,545 layoffs, or roughly a quarter of its workforce. It ended up firing no one. A federal judge in San Francisco blocked the firing of 362 of the 954 HHS employees who did receive the October layoff

Russ Vought

My reax to the big planned NIH shutdown firing news from @politico.com:

The Project 2025 ppl didn’t do big (illegal) NIH firings because they know there would be public outcry.

Keep speaking up!

made me laugh. should be crying.

This is figure 4, which shows protein–protein network analysis reveals protein networks involved in pwMS.

Myelin damage in multiple sclerosis can be detected up to seven years before symptoms, with early immune pathway activation and a 21-protein panel showing promise for presymptomatic diagnosis, according to a paper in Nature Medicine. go.nature.com/4qqq47L #medsky 🧪

Musk: X will delete all heuristics from its recommendation system within six weeks. ...the familiar logic of likes, replies, and reposts that shaped Twitter for years is about to disappear. In its place, Grok, the platform's in-house Al model, will read and watch more than one hundred million posts.

Larry Glickman with a fascinating thread on the different meanings of capitalism and free market enterprise for different people and over time... and the weirdness of polling about how people feel about economic concepts that are left entirely undefined.

Always learn something!

Trend in Americans’ Positive Ratings of Capitalism and Socialism: Just off the top of your head, would you have a positive or negative image of each of the following? Capitalism. Socialism

I can imagine that “off the top of their heads,” when hearing the word “socialism” some would fixate on the Soviet Union, others might think of the British Labour Party. It could evoke a welfare state of the sort associated with the New Deal. Others might recall Trump calling Biden a “socialist.”

Grim.

I spend all this time trying to figure out what the master plan is, and it always hits me: nothing. Just conspiracy brain worms all the way down. And the most smug self-righteousness as Kennedy and cronies destroy over a century of concerted scientific effort and hard work.

FDA’s artificial intelligence is supposed to revolutionize drug approvals. It’s making up nonexistent studies. | CNN Politics Insiders tell CNN the FDA’s AI is “hallucinating” studies and can’t access key documents. Agency leaders insist the AI is getting better, and use is not mandatory.

Hi yes hello this is 1 facet of exactly why we told you not to use "generative AI" in the regulatory production pipeline: Eventually the bullshit it spits out— even its citations— will fail to agree w/ consensus reality, but they'll sure *look* like they do, & by then you'll have started trusting it

The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations The move — along with the CDC’s explanation — is a sign that the nation’s top public health agency may be falling in line under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines.

www.propublica.org/article/meas...

In the antivax groups I infiltrated they wanted to catch them for “immunity.” And that is ofc not how this works (measles destroys your immunity you built up).

Or they view all of these as “harmless.”

Cholera is spreading fast, yet it can be stopped. Why haven’t we consigned it to history? | Hakainde Hichilema and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Vaccine production must be expanded to combat this ancient disease, especially in Africa, but a lack of political will is holding us back

Cholera is still circulating in 30+ countries. There is a vaccine. The Guardian asks why it is not used more!.

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade - Nature mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Finally read the paper and it's worth the buzz.
mRNA vaccines saved 20 million lives in a global pandemic and the technology is opening up new avenues for the treatment of deadly cancers. This is really one of the most impactful scientific developments of our time.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

imagine inheriting wealth from the last gilded age of oligarchy and cutting Trump $130 million walking around money checks instead of funding libraries and universities like your ancestors had the shame to

A screenshot from WTAE with the lead in to a story about delayed NIH funding in Pittsburgh.

Story about delayed funding from NIH aired on a local news stations this evening with me and @vscooper.micropopbio.org

We filmed this a couple of month ago when I was not clear if the missing funding would materialize.
(Thanks for hardworking NIH staff, it did).

1/3

Exclusive | Inside the Tech CEO Campaign to Stop Trump From Sending Troops to San Francisco Sam Altman, Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff helped Mayor Daniel Lurie to persuade the president not to deploy the National Guard.

Tech CEOs stopped Trump from sending troops to San Francisco which would have been disastrous for their immigrant worker base given the troops come along with massive indiscriminate ICE raids.

Who needs Congress when you have an oligarchy?

Opinion | Silicon Valley Is Investing in the Wrong A.I.

Another excellent read by @garymarcus.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/o...

F.D.A. Approves New Menopause Drug

The FDA has approved elinzanetant, a new drug for menopausal hot flashes and night sweats that may also help with menopause-related sleep problems. Significant news for patients who can't take estrogen; nonhormonal treatments have been very limited.

Average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30 percent, documents show The price increases — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years.

"The price increases — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years."

Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans did this. ↘️

Amazing job opportunity at the @institutimagine.bsky.social, Head of the Genomics Platform.

I am adding an English translation of the opportunity, but fluency in French is a (reasonable) requirement for the position. Application link below.

www.welcometothejungle.com/fr/companies...

New UN report warns that welfare cuts can fuel far-right support. It features my work on public service deprivation with @paularettl.bsky.social @catherinedevries.bsky.social @marcocappelluti.bsky.social and on climate-related disasters and far-right incumbents with @pstanig.bsky.social

Bales is a must read for those interested in the functioning of anti-public health propaganda and political networks.

The radicalisation of Bev Turner #HARTleaks shows the role the HART group had in taking the GB News presenter down the rabbit hole

The radicalisation of Bev
Turner
#HARTleaks shows the role the group had in taking the GB News presenter down the rabbit hole
open.substack.com/pub/counterd...

Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

Tesla Settles Another Autopilot Death — The Evidence You Won’t See in Court While Musk screams “nothing to see here”, while Jurors and the Courts see plenty

Tesla have no choice but to start settling all Autopilot death lawsuits. A massive verdict against them guarantees they cannot afford to go to Court again re autopilot deaths. Read with this gift link how legal strife abounds for Musk.
medium.com/torque-theor...

Herbal supplements were supposed to make them healthier. Instead, they got sick Common compounds like turmeric and ashwagandha can overwhelm the liver and lead to health complications

Dietary supplements and liver failure, good Guardian article.

www.theguardian.com/wellness/202...

"Despite the academy’s best efforts, it is clear that most of the research findings about harmful impacts from tech remain hidden as trade secrets. To protect the public, policies that bring this information to the light of day are needed."