Michael Le Page

Madness

Brexit Hit to UK Economy Double Official Estimate, Study Finds Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist.

Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist

Surprising new biography of Francis Crick unravels the story of DNA Francis Crick's biography is full of surprises as author Matthew Cobb reveals the life and work of the co-discoverer of DNA's structure, finds Michael Le Page

I highly recommend the biography of Francis Crick by @matthewcobb.bsky.social if you want to know more about the man behind the myth, or are just interested in the history of molecular biology 🧪

I thought I knew a little about Crick, but it turns out I didn't

www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

Common type of inflammatory bowel disease linked to toxic bacteria The discovery that a toxin made by bacteria found in dirty water might help trigger ulcerative colitis could lead to new treatments for this form of IBD

A toxin made by a bacterium may trigger ulcerative colitis - a common form of inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD - by killing immune cells in the lining of the colon 🧪

If confirmed, this could lead to new treatments, including vaccines or phage therapies

www.newscientist.com/article/2505...

Common type of inflammatory bowel disease linked to toxic bacteria The discovery that a toxin made by bacteria found in dirty water might help trigger ulcerative colitis could lead to new treatments for this form of IBD

The discovery that a toxin made by bacteria found in dirty water might help trigger ulcerative colitis could lead to new treatments for this form of IBD

"which they call 3D necroprinting"

Not quite sure what to make of this term. Shouldn't it refer to printing dead things, rather than with dead things?

Wondered what was happening with LLMs and gaming. Sounds like there's much worse to come

Sequencing Hitler's genome teaches us nothing useful about his crimes To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

"If you resort to mentioning Hitler, some say, you have lost the argument. If you resort to sequencing Hitler’s DNA to try to get more eyeballs for your TV channel, I would say you have just plain lost it" 🧪

My view of the TV documentary on Hitler's DNA:

www.newscientist.com/article/2504...

Why the claims about Hitler’s genome are misleading Spotify video

Also on this episode of the podcast, @mjflepage.bsky.social and I talk about our worries around genetic determinism open.spotify.com/episode/16HS...

YouTube video by New Scientist What Science REALLY Says About Hitler’s Genome

I interviewed geneticist Turi King and historian of Nazi Germany Alex Kay about the documentary, "Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator" and I started by saying we don't call DNA a blueprint...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XXB...

Analysing Hitler's DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing useful To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

Sequencing Hitler's genome teaches us nothing useful about his crimes To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

Instead of watching the documentary, read this by @mjflepage.bsky.social on Hitler's DNA
www.newscientist.com/article/2504...

Sequencing Hitler's genome teaches us nothing useful about his crimes To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

“There is no need to look to genes to explain why many individuals try to become dictators – the far more pressing question is why we let them.” The argument against sequencing Hitler’s DNA for a TV documentary. @mjflepage.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2504...

Sequencing Hitler's genome teaches us nothing useful about his crimes To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

"If you resort to mentioning Hitler, some say, you have lost the argument. If you resort to sequencing Hitler’s DNA to try to get more eyeballs for your TV channel, I would say you have just plain lost it" 🧪

My view of the TV documentary on Hitler's DNA:

www.newscientist.com/article/2504...

Thing about Iceland’s forests is that they were & are a bit different to those elsewhere. The joke goes, what do you do if lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up!

Francis Crick threatened to sue him for libel to try to stop the publication of The Double Helix, I read in the @matthewcobb.bsky.social biography of Crick

You can probably thank unleaded petrol too

Your flight emissions are way higher than carbon calculators suggest Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator

Have you ever used one of those calculators that tell you how much CO2 🔥 you'll generate flying 🛩️ somewhere? 🧪

Well, the bad news is that existing flight calculators wildly underestimate the true impact, according to a team at @uniofsurrey.bsky.social

www.newscientist.com/article/2502...

New Scientist is looking for a new features editor, ideally with a specialism in evolution, ecology, human sciences and biology - if there's you, take a look! www.dmgmedia.co.uk/careers/jobs...

Global GHG emissions showing a flat line at about 15MtCO2eq, where countries submitted, with a slight decline in emissions to 2035. A rising line from 35 to 55MtCO2eq shows global emissions, and the commitments at the last round of NDCs leading to flattish emissions.

Where are we on climate action?

The bottom black line is countries that submitted new commitments (on time), the dotted line is global emissions. Blue shading are the commitments.

That is the progress 10 years after Paris...

unfccc.int/process-and-...

I'm seeing a Stars Wars droid soldier

How many people did Hurricane Maria really kill in Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria last September Hurricane Maria resulted in 1139 excess deaths in Puerto Rico between September and December 2017, when death counts returned to average, a...

I don't think we'll see that kind of death toll in the immediate aftermath given the advance warnings, but based on what happened in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, in the longer run, yes, there could be thousands of excess deaths due to #Melissa

www.newscientist.com/article/2175...

Hurricane Melissa is being fuelled by exceptional ocean heat The monster hurricane pummelling Jamaica is powered by abnormal sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean, which were made at least 500 times more likely by global warming

It's horrifying to see #Melissa intensifying right up to landfall - I dread to think what will happen in Jamaica, with up to a metre of rain forecast 🧪

But it's clear why Melissa is so powerful - it was fuelled by waters made abnormally warm by global heating:

www.newscientist.com/article/2501...

Seismic recording that shows horizontal lines with a slight wiggle to them.

Horizontal lines across the page that get thicker with wiggles near the bottom of the page.

The horizontal lines are very thick.

The page is almost black because of the thickness of the lines.

4 days of seismic records from a seismic station in Jamaica shows Hurricane Melissa roaring towards the island.

Hurricanes increase the amplitude of ocean waves which beat on the coast and sea floor. These produce Rayleigh waves that can be seen as increasingly thick “wiggles” in seismic records 🧪

The world, the universe and us From the evolution of intelligent life, to the mysteries of consciousness; from the threat of the climate crisis to the search for dark matter, The world, the universe and us is your essential weekly ...

“We’ve missed 1.5”: In the podcast this week we discuss the facts that (a) Paris saved us from the worst of global heating and (b) that it’s been clear for a long time that we’d miss 1.5 degrees.
📺🎧:

podfollow.com/the-world-th...

How mRNA vaccines teach your body to kill cancer; Grim state of climate action; Why birds sing the dawn chorus Spotify video

New podcast:
💉mRNA vaccines help your body fight cancer
🤬State of Climate Action report sounds red alert
🦜New explanation for the dawn chorus
open.spotify.com/episode/4ODd... with @pennysarchet.bsky.social and @mjflepage.bsky.social plus Clea Schumer and Sophie Boehm of @worldresources.bsky.social

'Weaponised' CAR T-cell therapy shows promise against solid tumours So far, immune cells that have been engineered to kill cancers, known as CAR T-cells, haven’t worked well against solid cancers - but a study in mice suggests that could soon change

Immune cells engineered 🧬 to target cancerous cells, called CAR T cells, work really well against blood cancers like leukaemia, but they don't do much against solid tumours, that is, for most cancers 🧪

Now promising animal results suggest this could soon change

www.newscientist.com/article/2501...

Gene-edited pigs resistant to swine fever could boost animal welfare Classical swine fever reduces productivity and harms animal welfare, but pigs have now been genetically edited to make them completely resistant to the disease

This year the US approved CRISPR 🧬 pigs resistant to a disease called PRRS

Now a team at @roslininstitute.bsky.social has gene-edited pigs 🐖 to make them resistant to classical swine fever 🧪

The benefits should include lower greenhouse emissions and prices 🥓

www.newscientist.com/article/2500...

We all get poorer every time a climate disaster strikes Long-term economic effects of global warming could be far greater than thought, making many countries poorer and hurting even those of us spared direct impacts

Sarcasm aside, it's perhaps worth pointing out that the evidence suggests that weather disasters reduce economic growth for decades - the idea that there's rapid bounceback, or even extra growth stimulated by recovery, has proved wrong

www.newscientist.com/article/mg23...

Biting midges arrived in Iceland a decade ago. They're pretty nasty, too