Sean Prall

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...

Opinion | Trump is killing one of our strongest exports The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates.

Now there's a memorable stat!

"Colleges and universities are among America’s most competitive international exporters. In dollar terms, last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined."

wapo.st/3EvzMCI

oh hell yes

The NYT has profiled Rufo repeatedly but never come close to asking the vital questions that Larry lays out so well here:

Science’s big problem is a loss of influence, not a loss of trust Evidence shows that science and scientists remain highly trusted. But genuine scientific voices are not shouting loud enough over the noise to hold sway.

The real problem about science isn't about loss of trust. It's about not having a voice, a counter. @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Whai if the 300,000 scientists supported by NIH stood up? Or even half of them. Instead of <1%

154 million lives and counting: 5 charts reveal the power of vaccines But public-health specialists worry that misinformation and funding cuts could affect vaccination rates.

The title tells the story and the 5 graphs amplify it
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New paper exploring how cultural models of vaccines influence vaccine decision-making. Implications for the KAP framework, historical mistrust on healthcare decisions, & health promotion where formal education is rare.

Share link:
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

Fair enough. What would convince you that zoonotic origins is far and away the most likely scenario?

It’s crazy to me how bad this argument is, and how consistently it is used by lab leak people

These 5 words have killed millions in grants and advanced Trump’s agenda Five words in an obscure regulation are being deployed by Trump’s appointees to kill grants unilaterally across the government.

"Grants are getting killed “without any scientific input anywhere. It is purely political,” said a member of a senior NIH leadership team. “The science in this country is going to be destroyed if you can change what the priorities are going to be every four years. You can’t do science that way.”"

DOGE/Musk preferentially cancelled grants and contracts to recipients in counties that voted for Harris in 2024.

Among cancellations with election data available, 92.9% and 86.1% cancelled grants and contracts went to Harris counties, representing 96.6% and 92.4% of total dollar amounts.

Intrusive thoughts during pregnancy, paternity detectives, and updates from the Trump Tracker On this week’s show: The latest news on how U.S. government science agencies are being impacted by President Donald Trump’s administration, how researchers are using genealogy and DNA testing to find ...

I'm on the @science.org podcast this week with @maartenlarmuseau.bsky.social & @bscelza.bsky.social talking about genetic genealogy, cuckoldry and extra-pair paternity: www.science.org/content/podc... (Starting around 15:00)

U.S. Terminates Funding for Polio, H.I.V., Malaria and Nutrition Programs Around the World Here are some of the 5,800 contracts the Trump administration formally canceled this week in a wave of terse emails.

The Trump administration terminates funding for polio, HIV, malaria and nutrition programs around the world.

“People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”

Upon learning that yesterday would be my last day as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, I shared this parting message with my colleagues. The next few months will be frenetic and stressful for them. Here are some things that you can do to help them with the mission ahead. (1)

The associated report contains this gem of reasoning and logic, in case you thought serious people were involved in writing this:

In response to headline “Cruz-Led Investigation Uncovers $2 Billion in Woke DEI Grants at NSF, Releases Full Database” I want to re-emphasize that all these grants were public record and written in response to public solicitations supporting DEI content. No “uncovering” or “releasing” was done here