Norma

RFK Jr.’s billionaire running mate is making a comedy about the pandemic Nicole Shanahan has recruited a top screenwriter and enlisted Covid contrarian Jay Bhattacharya.

I don’t know that words exist to convey the magnitude of disgust I feel upon reading this.

Your Headphones Aren't Poisoning You Why you don't need to worry about feminizing chemicals in your earbuds

A bunch of headlines have recently been screaming about nasty chemicals in headphones.

It's nonsense. To paraphrase my wife, the only way chemicals in your headphones would be an issue is if you ate them.

My new piece:

gidmk.substack.com/p/your-headp...

Inspiring no holds barred call to action by Peter Stahley to take the fight to RFKjr and the MAGA vandals of global AIDS research. #CROI2026

Glyphosate Probably Isn't Giving You Cancer Why you are probably safe to eat fruit and vegetables farmed using the weedkiller glyphosate

Given the renewed interest in glyphosate, here's my piece on the chemical and how we know that it almost certainly does not cause cancer:

gidmk.substack.com/p/glyphosate...

These results suggest that initial exposure to X’s algorithm has persistent effects on users’ current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

Don’t follow conservative political activist, those posting every incidence of crime

Diese Woche muss ich mal wieder etwas ran auf Bluesky: eine Woche Wissenschaft gibt es von mir auf @realscientists.de

Guten Morgen in die Runde! Diese Woche gibt es meinen Wissenschaftsalltag als Molekularbiologie am @mdc-bimsb.bsky.social / @mdc-berlin.bsky.social, allerlei Hintergründe zu unserer Forschung und natürlich (Versuche von) Antworten auf eure Fragen. Falls jemand da reinschauen will: meine … (1/2)

Single-cell transcriptomics reveal intrinsic and systemic T cell aging in COVID-19 and HIV | Aging Aging | doi:10.18632/aging.206353. Alan Tomusiak, Sierra Lore, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, Eric Verdin

Single-cell transcriptomics reveal intrinsic and systemic T cell aging in COVID-19 and HIV

The claim SC2 “ages” T cells; but analyse acute/early convalescent samples (≤60 days). Acute infection skews cell states and markers; not biological aging!

www.aging-us.com/art...
1/8

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm Nature - Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative...

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm

Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions.

Surprised?

Of course, the names Hulscher and McCollough will signal carbage. Anyone else on these rubbish manuscripts does it for what?

This is not science. It’s a single, uncontrolled case report spun into sweeping claims about vaccines. A repository upload ≠ rigorous evidence.


1/10

The paper is nice, with experiments well done and it offers insights on mechanisms of, likely, initial TRM cell seeding. However, this may therapeutical be difficult to acieve in humans. To make this clearer, I added an explanation on

"SPF mice vs humans: why translation is non‑trivial"

Mapping the specificity of H3N2 strain-specific and cross-reactive human neutralizing antibodies elicited by the 2025-2026 influenza vaccine An H3N2 variant, named subclade K, continues to circulate widely during the 2025-2026 influenza season. This virus possesses a hemagglutinin (HA) protein that has eleven substitutions relative to the ...

Our preprint examining the specificity of human antibodies that cross-react with subclade K H3N2 viruses was posted this morning on medRxiv. These studies have implications on what vaccine strains should be selected for next year’s influenza season. 1/
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

So many who do not understand correlation vs causation. Who do not understand or deny the effects of physiological immune responses. Yet, pretend, post nonsense and claim to know better than experts. They even use the word "proven" 🤦‍♂️

open.substack.com/pu...
1/2

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is one of the delayed complications of measles and affects up to 1 in 600 unvaccinated children who’ve had measles. It occurs without warning an average of 7 years after infection and can occur decades later. There is no cure and it is almost always fatal.

The last part abt how measles disrupts immunity vs other infections is, imo, underappreciated (& mechanism was recently clarified). It's part of why measles vaccination was seen to help beyond just reducing measles complications - not getting measles reduces severity of subsequent infections too.

U.S. Mission to Mexico issues an alert about ongoing security operations in the wake of the CJNG reprisals.

Shelter in place order for the states of Jalisco, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Nuevo Leon and parts of Michoacan.

9/

Jalisco and Guadalajara are tearing themselves apart right now.

Thread.

1/

My statement: 
“Today, the U.S. Supreme Court stood up for the rule of law and Americans everywhere. Its message was simple: Presidents are powerful, but our Constitution is more powerful still. In America, only Congress can impose taxes on the American people.

Our discovery of novel viruses in invasive camelids in Australia leads us to propose a simple idea: RNA viruses may repeatedly evolve functional modules at the 5′ end of their genomes.

#Virology #RNAvirus #VirusEvolution
#Picornavirus #VirusDiscovery

doi.org/10.64898/202...

COVID survivors may be at higher risk for obstructive sleep apnea for up to 4.5 years post-infection

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-survivors-may-be-higher-risk-obstructive-sleep-apnea-45-years-post-infection

TOP NEWS TODAY 🔝 21 February 2026 — Meanwhile in Ukraine Post by Meanwhile in Ukraine

Ukraine paired deep strikes on Russia’s missile industry with a high interception rate overnight, while Russia kept targeting cities and civilians.

And the pressure isn’t only on the front: energy threats inside Europe and new U.S. tariffs are tightening the screws beyond the battlefield.

Donald Trump will HATE this ad when he sees it during the Olympic hockey final.

Let’s win gold. And then win back our country. LFG USA 🏅🔥🇺🇲

Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations transports heading south across Iranian airspace.

🇷🇺 SUM9105 is Il-76TD RA-76362 #152A4A
🇷🇺 SUM9125 is Il-76TD RA-76841 #152C29

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski: “Germany and France together are now too small to govern Europe. Together they do not even have a blocking minority.

“Poland is not only the largest of the ten countries that joined the EU in 2004. Our economy is now among the 20 largest in the world.
1/2

☆

Tweet von Veronika Grimm: Der Kündigungsschutz sollte gelockert werden, so dass die Innovationsdynamik unterstützt wird und der Strukturwandel in eine zukunftsorientierte Richtung gelenkt wird. Die Arbeitnehmer haben dadurch mittelfristig produktivere und besser bezahlte Jobs.

Was für ein grauenvolles Menschenbild muss man haben, wenn man Entlassungen für eine Voraussetzung von Innovation hält?

If you've been watching the ongoing Epstein files unraveling across Europe, note that the dominoes didn't start falling until one fell. And then another. Finally, the momentum in societies shifted.

It will be the same within this administration. They have to remain united.

Lest one domino fall.

A nasal ‘universal vaccine’ in mice: broad protection by supercharging the lung’s first responders

An intersting paper.

The paper, behind a paywall.
www.science.org/doi/...
1/2

Unfassbar, was Söder hier sagt.

"Eins will ich noch sagen. Ich find rechtsextrem übel, aber mit dieser linken Gruppierungen, mit dieser linken Partei. (...) Deutschland darf nicht noch mal vom Sozialismus regiert werden."

Völlig geschichtsvergessen, völlig an der politischen Realität vorbei.

If science has spoken, and nobody ever got poisoned, why does #glyphosate safety sheet say to wear protection?
forbetterscience.com/2021/05/19/h...