2/ "we identified 26 genetic risk loci for fibromyalgia, providing robust characterization of its genetic architecture. These findings establish a firm biological basis for a long-debated condition." #Fibromyalgia #Fibro #FMS #FM

Most HPV16 research treats the virus as genetically static. It is not. HPV16 isolates differ by up to ~2% of its ~7900 bp genome, and can differ in cervical cancer risk by >100-fold. We analyzed 4704 carefully-curated HPV16 genomes to study this variability. 2/9

It's never in my entire life worked 😂 For decades, docs told my parents & me, "it's anxiety, she has panic attacks" In my 30s: got an x-ray of my heart. Radiologist wrote "her heart is fine, but why does she have COPD lungs??" Saw a pulmonologist. Raging lifelong asthma. Lungs 150% normal size 🫠

truly the problem is the idea that you can and should maximize utility from other people's reproduction.

Great paper. Can we then also conclude that rare recessive diseases would have been more common, where it not for the negative effects that are exerted on carriers?

Not the NYT literally claiming the decline in teen births is an apocalypse *and* that it’s because of phones and not an active international campaign to f’ing reduce teen births as a Moral Good www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/o...

Opinion | Why We Delude Ourselves About the Birthrate

nytimes.com

You might enjoy “Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life” by Fintan O’Toole, a short book. It also includes some asides about Renaissance period in surprising consonance with Palmer.

Neil Webber@larpsidekick.bsky.social · 2mo ago

So, finished Ada Palmers magnificent Inventing the Renaissance- a book that gave me new tools to try and understand the past, new ways of thinking about history, one of the best history books I’ve read. It’s helped me better understand Shakespeare, his context given me ideas on how to present them

Fun fact: Mendel originally planned to breed mice but the abbot at his monastery took offense at the idea of a priest having anything to do with sex, so Mendel switched to peas. Mendel was grateful that "the bishop did not understand that plants also have sex.”

gavin jones@ecologyofgavin.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I have a cousin who decided to become a monk and I had to make sure he knew about the GOAT

An accurate diagnosis can give us so much, yet many people wait years to receive an accurate diagnosis, causing a physical and emotional toll. What underlies this and what can we do about it? In this week’s TPWKY book club, Alexandra Sifferlin joins to discuss her book The Elusive Body. Listen now!

Hard-to-detect mutations explain how common autoimmune diseases arise www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Hard-to-detect mutations explain how common autoimmune diseases arise

An old theory gains fresh support from advanced DNA sequencing, which can detect rare mutations in B cells from people with autoimmune thyroid conditions.

nature.com

‘The Wonder of Life on Earth’, illustrations by Raxenne Maniquiz, published by @twohootsbooks.bsky.social

Finally, here's an absolute banger of an article, published just last month (Hoffman et al. 2026), showing how incredibly powerful the cohort patterning of influenza deaths is, in regular (not pandemic) years, corresponding to how circulating strains match up w what people were exposed to as kids

Childhood immune imprinting shapes cohort and period influenza mortality

Childhood exposure to different influenza strains shapes the age-profile of seasonal influenza mortality.

science.org

Mutation-selection-drift balance models of complex diseases https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.18.654722v1

Bhattacharya goes "there were political machinations in the old process too. (pause) I shouldn't say 'too,' I don't believe there are political machinations in the current process" 🫠🫠🫠

I need to start keeping a tally of how many times he mentions whole-genome sequencing

By the early 1900s, the work of Goddard & others had led many Americans to embrace negative eugenics, or the idea that "unfit" individuals should not be allowed to reproduce.

The drug is trimetazidine (seems very paternalistic to not mention it)

Emerge Australia@emergeaustralia.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Deakin University is recruiting participants for the TRI-ME clinical trial testing a new medication for #MECFS. 👉 8-week study (Geelong, VIC) 💊 Active drug or placebo 🩸 Blood tests + $20/session Interested? 📧 tri-me@deakin.edu.au 📞 0482 869 599 #Research #ME/CFS

A fun paper explainer, with sci fi references

Thibaut Brunet@thibautbrunet.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Rita Levi-Montalcini Thanks for highlighting, this lady’s career is fascinating. “one of the first scientists to point out the importance of the mast cell in human pathology.”

Kristy Townsend, PhD@neuroadipo.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Love this tradition @ohiostatepress.bsky.social. Promoted faculty pick a book and write a dedication. 🧪💚🧪 Here is mine from my promotion to Professor in 2025.

Prevention may have wider spillovers than we thought: Eric Topol explores the evidence that older adults who received a shingles vaccine had a roughly 20% lower risk of developing dementia in later years buff.ly/iuMmX9U #ShareGoodNewsToo

Spotlight on the Shingles Vaccine—Again!

Two new studies add to a remarkable body of evidence for benefit

buff.ly

1490s 💫 reading @adapalmer.bsky.social book Inventing the Renaissance, I lately learn “the #earlymodern “ could be that old* too *for some

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · 6mo ago

And here is the paper astrolabe that is included into the binding of the so-called "Heidelberger Schicksalsbuch". This paper instrument left the highlighted lasting impression on the nearby blank pages. #bookhistory #histsci 2/2

Apt

Tom Kindlon@tomkindlon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

‪2/‬ ‪"I can choose to exceed my limits, but I can’t choose to recover from exceeding them, and telling me to try is like telling a diabetic who’s‬ ‪being forced to eat a box of fudge to “try” not to become hyperglycaemic"‬ #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #MEcfs #CFS #PwME #PEM ‪

“it can be hard not to marvel at certain empirical blind spots that ought not have been there by the middle of the twentieth century.” Yah. Jaw dropping to glimpse the mirror mid century researchers held up to themselves when writing about women patients .

Lit Hub@literaryhub.bsky.social · last yr.

@tomzellerjr.com explores how medical misogyny impacted the practice of neuroscience (and the treatment of migraines).

The idea that getting surviving a disease is proof of strength and fitness has deep and largely disgusting roots in American history (see Olivarius’ book). In this case, they are drawing the lOgIcAl conclusion that needless exposure to disease is therefore a valuable test of strength…

Necropolis — Harvard University Press

Disease is thought to be a great leveler of humanity, but in antebellum New Orleans acquiring immunity from the scourge of yellow fever magnified the brutal inequities of slave-powered capitalism.Ante...

hup.harvard.edu

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“Bacterial meningitis can progress quickly, causing the brain to swell and limbs to develop gangrene and sepsis, and can kill within 24 hours… “It’s even more important now that we get meningococcal vaccines out to people given that we are seeing a spike in this Y strain,” Messacar said.”

People distrust healthcare, and often it's not the medicine itself. It's because of exceptionally negative experiences with medical "professionals." I'm a white male. And even I have experienced doctors treating me like total garbage. Makes me scared of how marginalized people are treated.

”Long COVID is sometimes described as an anything-goes sequela. This study shows the opposite. A consistent, reproducible biological signature across independent cohorts.“ (from the Zdenek tweet thread on the nature paper)

Christophe Veltsos@drinfosec.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Direct link to the article mentioned above: Long COVID involves activation of proinflammatory and immune exhaustion pathways (Dec 12, 2025) www.nature.com/articles/s41... [ Free PDF available ]

In this week’s TPWKY book club episode, Dr. Homer Venters joins us to discuss his latest work, Outbreak Behind Bars: Spider Bites, Human Rights, and the Unseen Danger to Public Health. Dr. Venters has extensive firsthand knowledge of the barriers in care - and he has evidence-based solutions.

A few charts we created for this analysis.

Had an exchange not so long ago here on when neuroplasticity approach appropriate. The cause of illness accurately recognised (e.g. a discrete lesion) and not as a cure for impairment but to improve quality of life, post CNS injury for example. Misapplications harm reputation.

Simon Spichak@spichaksimon.bsky.social · 9mo ago

They include a bit about Deacon discussing the idea of people being insulted by the neuroplasticity approach. "There might be a tendency to double down on your I am sick and I am having these symptoms and reluctance or resistance to an open mind."

2) The authors started with data in the UK Biobank. They looked for cases with MS, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and atopic dermatitis using their ICD-10 health records. Next, they used the genetic data of these participants to screen for disease–causing mutations.