Sean Prall

You can ignore science, but science will never ignore you.

Measles incidence in the United States.

The ENDOW project is seeking a Research Officer in Research Data Management to be based at the London School of Economics. - Oversee and extend our database covering geospatial, demographic, economic & social network data from 50+ communities in 30+ countries! - Contribute to research on the dynamics of social and economic inequality! - Join a stellar interdisciplinary team! - funded by the ESRC and the NSF [world map showing location of ENDOW communities; photos of some of the team members and some of the ENDOW communities showing their diversity

Research Officer in Research Data Management Salary from £43,277 to £48,220 pa inclusive of London allowance Fixed-term appointment for 18 months This research officer position is to work with Eleanor Power as part of the ongoing "ENDOW" project (Economic Networks and the Dynamics of Wealth Inequality), funded by the UKRI and US National Science Foundation. The research officer will be based in the Department of Methodology, a leading centre for research and education in social science research methods. While we expect this to be a full-time appointment, we are open to considering the possibility of a part-time appointment. The post entails overseeing and extending the database of the "ENDOW" project, which includes data from over fifty communities around the world, comprising economic, demographic, and social network data characterising each community, its resident households, and the individuals within them. The research officer will be responsible for the expansion of this database to include longitudinal data from each community site, implementing a robust data infrastructure to manage and curate this information. The research officer will work closely with Dr Power and data contributors to ensure data quality, standardisation, and appropriate governance. They will contribute to core analyses of the ENDOW project and develop tools and resources that will be of wide utility for the collection, curation, and analysis of cross-cultural data. This role is central to building the data infrastructure that will enable meaningful, productive comparisons across these diverse field sites and will ultimately serve as a resource for the broader scientific community. The successful candidate will: Have a completed PhD, be close to completing a PhD, or have other research experience that demonstrates the capability to produce independent original research Have experience with database design, data management and data governance Have experience with programming in R or Python

🚨Job alert! The ENDOW project is hiring a Research Officer in Research Database Management, to be based at @lsemethodology.bsky.social.

Oversee & expand our database & contribute to research on social & economic inequality.

Deadline 15 February. Share & reach out!
jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

She Wanted to Improve Genetic Medicine

New in @nytimes.com on how some research on human origins and genetics are being cut from federal science programs. @carlzimmer.com interviews Brenna Henn, who has done much to illuminate the genetic variation and history of southern African peoples.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...

Portrait of Brenna Henn next to an open freezer of samples.

Here's my latest contribution to the @nytimes "Lost Science" series. Brenna Henn's sweeping study of African genetics has been frozen. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Ypmm1A

Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera. Behind closed doors in Washington, top advisers made a series of decisions that had devastating repercussions for the poorest country on earth. We went to South Sudan and found people who died as a re...

The impacts of the Trump Administration's "let them eat cake" foreign policy outlined in grim detail

www.propublica.org/article/usai...

When parental care hurts: Extended parental care and the evolution of overparenting Abstract. In recent years, childrearing in high-income countries has become described as ‘relentless’ in its demands on parents. In response to growing del

New paper out today with Zhian Chen.

We argue that modern intensive parenting is not only exhausting for parents, but in some cases disrupts healthy child development.

What is 'overparenting'? And can evolutionary theory help us understand how we got here?

academic.oup.com/emph/advance...

Social learning is critical to breastfeeding success: evidence from rural Namibian pastoralists AbstractBackground and objectives. Lactation is one of the defining features of mammals, yet many humans struggle with breastfeeding. One reason for this i

New paper out on the important role of social learning in breastfeeding! academic.oup.com/emph/article...

Rethinking polygamy – new research upends conventional thinking about the advantages of monogamous marriage Simplistic stories about the dangers of polygamy can be compelling and intuitive. But new research suggests some arguments about its harms don’t hold up.

Simplistic stories about the dangers of polygamy can be compelling & intuitive, but what is the evidence that monogamous marriage is advantageous for society?

theconversation.com/rethinking-p...

If one man marries two women, another man must go unmarried, right? No. Demography matters. If sex ratios are skewed towards women, then polygyny can exist alongside universal marriage for men (who want to marry women). If only more people understood demography 😊

"Public health is under siege in our country. This time it is not from fringe communities scattered across the nation but from our appointed leaders, who were nominated by our president and confirmed by our elected officials in the Senate."

A must-read anonymous piece

www.bmj.com/content/390/...

From a colleague:

NSF proposal received FOUR "excellent" ratings (the highest possible...that almost never happens).

Rated "highly competitive" in panel summary.

👎 ...but still rejected.

Likely reason: It studied a topic disfavored by this admin.

Fun fact: even as UCLA is being extorted for $1B by a fascist government, its administration is requiring all faculty to install a “security” program that surveils everything we do and shares that information with the federal government.

I’m frustrated to lose our grant & field season, but more concerned about the state of science in the US and the longterm ramifications of this obscene attack on higher ed. I hope that UCLA and other universities actually stand up and fight back, instead of give in to ridiculous demands.

Very disappointed that we were forced to cancel our field season and return early, following the suspension of our NSF grant as part of Trump’s attacks on UCLA. Particularly sad for our students, who spent significant time and effort to join us this year.

U.S. Economy Could Suffer a $7 Billion Loss from Precipitous Drop in International Students NAFSA: Association of International Educators is the world's largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education and exchange.

Still a projection, but a devastating projection: 30-40% drop in international students at U.S. universities this fall
www.nafsa.org/about/about-...
Hard to wrap your head around the full implications of this for universities

My new paper "Post-pandemic inequalities: Evolutionary anthropological frameworks for long-term impacts of the 1918 influenza pandemic" is now published in Evolutionary Anthropology!

Please check it out at the link below!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Pleased to present our new preprint on sleep and circadian rhythms among the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia.

This is a fascinating system for exploring sleep biology. Lots of variation in light exposure, housing type, and subsistence.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧵 below.

A U.S. tile map that depicts the measles vaccination rate for kindergarteners (according to CDC data) in each state from 2013 to 2023. A key explains that for each state, a gray dotted line represents the benchmark for herd immunity: a 95% vaccination rate. Vaccination rates above 95% are shown in blue, while vaccination rates below 95% are shown in orange. Looking at the full map, the trend lines lean much more orange than blue. Measles vaccination rates in most states were below herd immunity in school year 2023-2024.

Federal kindergarten vaccination data shows national rates for four major vaccines, which had held steady before the COVID-19 pandemic, have fallen significantly since.

In fact, measles vaccination rates were below herd immunity in most states in 2023.

➡️ Read more: propub.li/40KnM8n

Federal investment in UC research Federal funds are the university’s single most important source of support for research, accounting for more than half of UC’s total research awards. Many of California’s leading industries grew from UC research, including biotechnology, computing, semiconductors, telecommunications and agriculture. Providing health care at UC University of California Health (UC Health) is one of the nation’s largest public academic health systems, serving as a critical part of the California safety net. UC trains approximately 36% of the medical residents in California

The university of California is a powerhouse of innovation, healthcare, and social mobility for California and the US.

Senior Researchers 60,400 --> 16,900 Other Professionals 14,400 --> 4,100 Postdoctoral Associates 5,500 --> 1,000 Graduate Students 41,500 --> 12,400 Undergraduate Students 37,300 --> 8,000 PreK-12 Teachers 42,900 --> 8,200 PreK-12 Students 128,100 --> 39,400 Total Number of People 330,100 --> 90,000

🚨🚨 Friday night news drop from National Science Foundation!! 🧪

NSF just released its detailed budget request for next year: nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

We knew it was going to be bad...and it lives up. Guts direct NSF support for a **quarter million people**

🧵 on some highlights...

Measles Heatmap of the number of cases of measles from the 1920s to the 2010s in the United States, shown by stage. Blue is low, red is high. The chart is annotated with a black line that shows the date of the introduction of the vaccine (approx 1963) and the number of cases drops dramatically right after.

Heatmap of vaccines reduced measles cases across US states From 1929 to 2022 There are lots of cases before 193, then it drops and almost disappears completely in the 1990s. 1963: The first measles vaccine is developed by John Enders 1971: The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is developed by Maurice Hilleman 1980: It becomes mandatory for children entering kindergarten to be vaccinated against measles Data source: Project Tycho (2018); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1959-2022) OurWorldinData.org - Research and data to make progress against the world's largest problems. Licensed under CC-BY by the author Fiona Spooner

Happy to see an update to this classic from the Wall Street Journal (Tynan DeBold, Dov Friedman), this time by @scientificdiscovery.dev and @spoonerf.bsky.social at @ourworldindata.org. 📊

New: a log chart, new colours and three relevant annotations.

Source: ourworldindata.org/measles-vacc...

CMOS Plasma and Process Damage This book provides an up-to-date, single-source reference on CMOS plasma and process damage, for engineers from all disciplines.

In other news, my engineer father has published a book! Looks like a spicy read!
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Author-Paid PublicationFees Corrupt Science and Should Be Abandoned Thomas J. H Morgan & Paul E. Smaldino

As grant money starts drying up, it's more important than ever not to waste it on paying publishers' open access "article processing fees" when we can host PDFs for free. Tom Morgan and I wrote a paper on this, forthcoming at Science and Public Policy. Accepted draft here: osf.io/preprints/os...

Erema po otjindjumba? Highlighting cultural models and knowledge gaps of malaria in rural Namibian pastoralists - Malaria Journal Background As Namibia attempts to eradicate locally transmitted cases of malaria, epidemiological strategies, interventions, and outreach require a sound understanding of indigenous knowledge and prac...

New paper on malaria in NW Namibia, highlighting significant differences between cultural models and biomedical ones that could be detrimental to malaria eradication efforts.

malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

The NIH budget is on a fast track to disaster An NIH insider explains what Republicans are likely to do next, and what we can do

New at Can We Still Govern: An anonymous NIH employee maps out the GOP budget gameplan to permanently gut our most important science agency.
Impoundment, delay and red tape will create artificial "savings" that become the new benchmark for NIH budgets.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nih-bu...

Scientists Find Measles Likely To Become Endemic in the US Over Next 20 Years A new study forecasts more than 850,000 measles cases over the next 25 years if US vaccination rates stay the same. Millions of infections are possible if rates drop.

A new study forecasts more than 850,000 measles cases over the next 25 years if US vaccination rates stay the same. Millions of infections are possible if rates drop. www.wired.com/story/scient...

share link:

rdcu.be/eiEGs

The Role of Medical Mistrust in Vaccination Decisions in Rural, Indigenous Namibian Communities - Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Objectives Substantial inequalities in access to healthcare are common in rural and marginalized populations in the Global South, and these inequalities can drive health disparities. Historical mistru...

New paper out exploring the relationship between medical mistrust and vaccination beliefs and decisions in Namibian pastoralists, with some COVID stuff thrown in for good measure

doi.org/10.1007/s406...

This statement from the NSF is insane.

Science is, in essence, designed to separate the true from the false.

Understanding how falsehoods spread is key to the scientific endeavor. It is not a violation of free speech to be proven wrong.

Haunted by hopelessness: 12 Zambians share their stories as HIV drugs run out Mothers and children, husbands and wives, doctors, truck drivers and religious leaders are all grappling with the fallout from the sudden U.S. cuts in aid.

I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years.

This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration.

www.npr.org/sections/goa...