Cahir O'Kane

I have said (and fully believe) that writing tenure and promotion evaluations for deserving junior scientists is the highest and best use of my distinguished professor title.

White supremacy gets everywhere

🚨 NEW: One of the largest COVID-19 vaccine studies ever (28 MILLION people in France) just dropped.

Results?
• 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19
• 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality
• No increase in 4-year mortality
#BlueSky #MedSky #IDSky #SciSky #NewsSky #PedsSky #ObSky #NurseSky

Rising racism blamed for collapse in number of foreign nurses coming to UK Number of overseas nurses and midwives registered between April and September was half that of a year ago

Patients suffering from the effects of NHS understaffing should understand that
politicians and commentators who dabble in xenophobia, and the citizens who support them, bear responsibility for this. The rise of petty nationalism since Brexit is also a factor.
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Brexit ‘badly damaged’ our economy says David Lammy, the deputy prime minister also says rejoining the EU customs union would boost economic growth. More and more people are realising the sky doesn’t fall in when you tell the truth about Brexit!

Four unidentified military-style drones breached no-fly zone to target Zelenskyy's arrival in Dublin Gardaí are investigating whether the drones took off from land in Dublin or from an undetected ship.

Christ on a cracker — these seemingly hostile drones only missed Zelensky’s plane because he was unexpectedly early www.thejournal.ie/drones-dubli...

Indeed. But despair not so much at the costs (bad as they are), but at the false dichotomy from the obligatory BBC “expert”, who wants “conversations about where numbers (of other migrants) can be reduced in order to let more scientists in".

Hospitals facing unprecedented flu season, say NHS bosses Record number of patients in hospital in England with flu for this time of year, figures show.

Can confirm we’re admitting lots of flu and RSV patients this week. If you have symptoms but don’t need medical care, please don’t mix and spread your virus. Some of those you infect may come to harm. It’s not ok to work or party while infectious.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Long may he meditate

Join the 4th Asia Pacific #Drosophila Neurobiology Conference in China: lhs.suat-sz.edu.cn/info/1031/13...
@fly-eds.bsky.social
@flybase.bsky.social
@the-node.bsky.social

Slán leat, a Sheoirse.

Crypto Investor Donates £9 Million to Reform UK After Nigel Farage Plugs His Company and Tells Industry 'I Am Your Champion' The Reform leader recently used media interviews to back Christopher Harborne's company while promising to cut taxes and regulations on crypto firms

A Thailand-based crypto investor has handed a record-breaking £9 million to Reform UK, shortly before Nigel Farage used media interviews to plug his crypto firm and promise lower taxes and deregulation on the industry
bylinetimes.com/2025/12/04/c...

Pecunia non olet

Great to hear Rachel Reeves acknowledge that "there are many reasons why people choose to have children then find themselves in difficult times. The death of a partner. Separation. Ill health. A lost job. I don’t believe that children should bear the brunt of that."

So why should migrant children?

Near complete assembly of Drosophila melanogaster Canton S strain genome
#Drosophila

YouTube video by Schmidt Ocean Collaboration for Understanding | Searching for the Asgards

And ‘Searching for the Asgards’ the movie: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgmE...

Glad to have had my first shot of shingles vaccine this October

Congratulations!

Boris Johnson and Alexander Lebedev Must Be Investigated in a New Public Inquiry into Russian Influence If you think the Gill conviction is bad, linking the Reform UK Party leader's closest aide to the Kremlin, wait till you hear about another Leave campaigner and his connections to Putin's inner circle

🔴 Boris Johnson and Alexander Lebedev Must Be Investigated in a New Public Inquiry into Russian Influence

If you think the Gill conviction is bad, wait till you hear about another Leave campaigner and his connections to Putin’s inner circle…

bylinetimes.com/2025/12/02/b...

I bet those talks in Moscow are going well

gene names are great but really making sure a unique ID (genbank or consort) is mentioned somewhere in a paper is essential, future us will be thankful

BMP-dependent mobilization of fatty acid metabolism promotes Caenorhabditis elegans survival on a bacterial pathogen Editor's choice: Host metabolism may impact response to infection. In Caenorhabditis elegans, a conserved cell signaling pathway regulates fatty acid metabolism upon pathogen exposure, leading to impr...

Something to be thankful for ~ our paper on the intersection of fatty acid metabolism and host-pathogen response in #Celegans is now published in DMM!

journals.biologists.com/dmm/article/...

Baby steps - not just the deal has hurt the economy, Brexit has. Make the Tories and Farage own their sh--.

A British Republic would change the country for good. #AbolishTheMonarchy #ChangeTheCountryForGood

Two things can be true at the same time: Israel is a rogue state engaged in genocide, and antisemitism is real and thriving. And because of the latter it's understandable that Ireland's small but proud and storied Jewish community might be feeling particularly sensitive right now

Model for Mup1-mediated regulation of lifespan in response to SL synthesis.

In their Review, Daniel Adebayo, Hanaa Hariri and colleagues explore the roles of sphingolipids in organelle function, highlighting their metabolic connections to methionine restriction and aging.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

A catering recipe if you want to invite a lot of Drosophila species to your party....

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice Chancellor at Cambridge University, is getting some grief for this headline which suggests she is cosying up to Reform. But what she has *actually* said is entirely right and sensible.

My question is, why is The Times seeking to undermine Cambridge University?

A quick reminder of who Nigel Farage was most concerned about when Putin's tanks first rolled into Ukraine

While the leadership of Universities like the University of Cambridge should be talking to all political parties, they should certainly not be "cozying up" to Reform UK.

Are they also talking with the Greens and Lib Dems, in the same way?

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

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