Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Sad to hear of the passing of David Botstein, one of the greats in that 1st gen of folks to be trained in molecular biology. He generously talked with me, a lowly grad student, about Barbara McClintock... 30 years ago!
@drgregorymorgan.bsky.social @alistairsponsel.bsky.social

ChatGPT spits out surprising insight in particle physics Physicists combined human acumen and AI-assisted math to show that a doubted particle interaction is possible after all

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

Ice in the Hudson River Today

Peter H. Duesberg, 89, Renowned Biologist Turned H.I.V. Denialist, Dies

Peter Duesberg has died. I discussed his excellent early work on retroviruses and cancer (before the infamous HIV-AIDS denialism) in my book Cancer Virus Hunters #virosky 🧪
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/s...

Scientists engineer microbial teams to transform mixed plastics into valuable products La Jolla, California—December 11, 2025—Each year, the world produces more than 400 million metric tons of plastic, much of which ends up in...

A circular economy turns waste into resources—and JCVI scientists are making it real. We are engineering microbes to upcycle mixed plastic waste into valuable products like lycopene and lipids. No sorting, no landfills—just innovation for a sustainable future. 🧪🧬

www.jcvi.org/media-center...

YouTube video by MicrobeTV Matters Microbial #117: Cancer Virus Hunters and Molecular Biology

Why tumor viruses are more important than you think!

@markowenmartin.bsky.social Mark O Martin's podcast is out. #virosky 🧪

www.youtube.com/watch?v=thSt...

A thoughtful review of Cancer Virus Hunters in BJHS by
@ctimmermann.bsky.social
#cancer #historyofbiology #tumorvirology #HPV #cancervaccine #oncogenes #historyofscience #historyof20thcentury
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Looking forward to being on the podcast of
@markowenmartin.bsky.social to talk about the history of tumor virology. We will talk about some of these viruses:

Interestingly he is trained in philosophy like me

After the Double Helix : Rosalind Franklin's Research on Tobacco mosaic virus | Isis: Vol 99, No 2 ABSTRACT Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scienti...

If you are looking to read a more nuanced account of Rosalind Franklin and Jim Watson following the Double Helix, check out an article Angela Creager and I wrote a while back:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Good point. Although you might expect that if scientists read some books they might read history of science.

Risk of rare heart complications in children higher after COVID-19 infection than after vaccination Children and young people faced long-lasting and higher risks of rare heart and inflammatory complications after COVID-19 infection, compared to before or

Children and young people faced higher and longer-lasting risks of rare heart complications after #COVID19 infection than after vaccination, say @vpd-hlri.bsky.social researchers.

Find out more about this study 👇
bit.ly/43BmUof 🧪

Science needs disagreement. What makes some disagreement useless? | Aeon Essays Scientific progress depends on disagreement. So why are vaccine sceptics and other science critics not worth listening to?

Nice to see philosophers of science taking on issues of the day. aeon.co/essays/scien...

Last chance to download my book for free! It's still available until tomorrow.

Rare white humpback whale spotted off coast of Kaikōura Could it be the world-famous Migaloo who hasn’t been spotted in five years?

Rare white whale sighted in New Zealand:
www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Zoology academic retires following career exploring natural evolution Emeritus Professor Hamish Spencer recalls that, even when he was a child collecting shells from his local Bay of Plenty beaches, he was fascinated by the diversity of animals and how they relate to ea...

One of my undergraduate mentors the biologist Hamish Spencer has retired:
www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...?

Summer's Out

I really love this new song from the artist Plain Henley:
open.spotify.com/track/67Tb5m...

993 reactions · 178 shares | The wingless bird that ruled the roost. Episode 13. Remembering Moa 🥚 #moa #frankfilm #storiesfromthesouth | Frank Film The wingless bird that ruled the roost. Episode 13. Remembering Moa 🥚 #moa #frankfilm #storiesfromthesouth.

Moa creek was just down the road from where I grew up
www.facebook.com/reel/7731375...

A Single, ‘Naked’ Black Hole Rewrites the History of the Universe | Quanta Magazine The James Webb Space Telescope has found a lonely black hole in the early universe that’s as heavy as 50 million suns. A major discovery, the object confounds theories of the young cosmos.

🧪 Cool subtext to this cool story on the “little red dots’ - possibly primordial black holes! - dotting the early Universe is that the hopes for the James Webb telescope have been realised. It is pulling back the curtain on puzzling and unexpected things that will help us understand how we got here.

Hoboken train station is being renovated

The start of the 2025-26 academic year at Stevens Institute of Technology

Cancelling mRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility The rest of the world is not following the US government’s dangerous path, and will stick with the technology that helped the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A technology that played a key part in saving millions of lives during the pandemic should be celebrated. Yet in the US, research into mRNA vaccines is being cut. While sadly not unexpected, it’s irresponsible as we argue in our editorial this week 🧪

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

Right, and there are institutional reasons for that -- getting promoted, published, tenured etc. -- but I guess my question is whether historians of science should also try to be more read by today's scientists.

Why are most books written by historians of science not read by scientists? Is it they focus too much on social context and not enough on the details of past science? #sts #hps #historyofscience #sociologyofscience 🧪

New on H-Sci-Med-Tech:

Check out Amalia Sweet‬ (‪@harvard.edu‬‬‬)’s review of @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social (Stevens Institute of Technology)’s book _Cancer Virus Hunters: A History of Tumor Virology_, pub 2022 @hopkinspress.bsky.social‬

#HSTM

Review available @hnetreviews.bsky.social

Rabbits with 'horns' in Colorado are being called 'Frankenstein bunnies.' Here's why Some cottontail rabbits in Fort Collins, Colorado, have been drawing attention because they have wart-like growths on their faces that look like horns.

In the history of cancer research, "horns" growing from rabbits' heads were important in showing cancer could be virally caused. See Chapter 1 of Cancer Virus Hunters.
apnews.com/article/rabb...

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End America’s run as the premier techno-superpower may be over.

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Amazing frequency of lightning strikes in this July storm in South Dakota

Massive blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria, an ancient wonder, hauled up from the Mediterranean French and Egyptian researchers are making a "digital twin" of the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt after lifting its ancient submerged blocks out of the Mediterranean Sea.

Archaeologists recovered 22 blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria, an ancient wonder. Using 3D scans, researchers aim to digitally reconstruct it, shedding light on its design and collapse. The blocks were found in the harbor off Alexandria.
🧪📜
#AncientEgypt
#Archaeology
#DigitalReconstruction

Steven Shapin · Through the Trapdoor: Roger Penrose’s Puzzles Stephen Hawking may have been a genius, but ‘Roger Penrose’s insights seem to stem from some superhuman life-form...

Meeting and talking with Roger Penrose in 1993 was one of the highlights of my undergraduate experience. Here is an excellent review of a recent biography:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n11/steven-shapin/through-the-trapdoor