Tessera

Interesting article suggesting that the UK media is disproportionately hostile to the current government at a relatively early stage in its life and has been ignoring some of the good things being done. bylinetimes.com/2026/01/29/k...

Keir Starmer’s Labour Government Is Much Better Than the Media Admits

There is a deep disconnect between the Government's actions to improve the country and its standing in the polls, argues Professor Chris Painter

bylinetimes.com

Andrea Alford’s dissertation (Lamar University, Texas): “Access Over Modality: Early Language Acquisition in Deaf Infants - Early Intervention Teachers' Perspectives” confirms our experience that access to consistent language (signed or spoken) is more important than very delayed spoken language.

Contact yorkmedicalsociety@gmail.com for more information.

The Sutton Trust@suttontrust.bsky.social · 3mo ago

1/6 Record investment is a start, but if 70% of schools are cutting support to keep the heating on, the system isn’t working. Children are our future and we need to move away from band aids to a structured plan that sees change as an investment in the UK’s future. 🧵 #EducationReform #SEND

Our polling with the National Foundation for Educational Research shows that schools continue to face difficult choices, despite overall increases in school funding over the past year. 71% of school leaders report cutting back on teaching assistants, with primary schools hit even harder.

Eleanor Scerri@elliescerri.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Very interesting new paper suggesting that disease such as malaria is a powerful driver of human habitat occupation, which in turn shapes population separation and structures. @elliescerri.bsky.social

2/5 Our study shows that malaria, one of humanity’s oldest and most persistent pathogens, influenced habitat choice by pushing human groups away from high-risk environments and separating populations across the landscape.

NCISH @ncish.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Lots of evidence to show that dance is not only fun but great for our mental health 1/2: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

The Effectiveness of Dance Interventions on Psychological and Cognitive Health Outcomes Compared with Other Forms of Physical Activity: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis

Physical activity is known to improve psychological and cognitive outcomes. Learning dance sequences may challenge cognition, partnered or group dance may benefit social interactions, and the artistic...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Are you a young person who has moved from, or in the process of moving from CAMHS to AMHS? Share your experience and help shape better mental health services for young people. Your voice matters. #ElfHelp www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

Private Eye Magazine@privateeyenews.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Age of Wonder Trial in Bradford will study 4000 12-15 year olds comparing reductions in social media over 6 weeks measuring various outcomes (anxiety, sleep etc) with before and after questionnaires. bradfordresearch.nhs.uk/the-irl-trial/ More trials like this please. @bibresearch.bsky.social

bradfordresearch.nhs.uk

The UK government is trialling social media restrictions in 300 homes and launching a landmark year-long study in Bradford tracking the impact on young people’s wellbeing. The results won’t be in until 2027. ➡️ Watch Page 94, the Private Eye podcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlG0...

Some very welcome government capital funding for school buildings in England - investing in our children and young people! commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

School buildings and capital funding (England)

Schools receive capital funding from the government through a few different streams. The overall level of funding has broadly fallen since the early 2010s

commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Hopeful UK news : the govt. Is rolling out child focused courts across all 43 court areas in England & Wales (up from its pilot of 10). Early Child Impact statements will bring children’s voices in to proceedings early - not later (or not at all). Less adversarial hearings and more problem solving.

Prem Sikka@premnsikka.bsky.social · 4mo ago

In 1215 King John took huge income from the people, so greedy that he was forced to sign the Magna Carta, agreeing he was not above the law. For a 2026 minimum wage worker to earn as much as €23m they would have had to start work in 1215. Time for a Fairness Bill of Rights?@premnsikka.bsky.social

Unilever CEO pay could rise from €5.6m (£4.8m, $6.5m) to €23.8m. But fat cats want more. Companies resent disclosing exec pay and CEO-to-worker pay ratio. Workers generate wealth but have no say in its distribution. Unlike most of Europe, UK companies don't have worker elected directors.

www.theguardian.com/environment/.... It would be good to see some large randomised controlled trials of this approach in adults and also in young people. @ucl-cpru.bsky.social @nihrarcs.bsky.social @nihr.bsky.social

‘It has changed my life’: How a dose of nature is treating mental illness

A project in London is helping hundreds of people, providing a genuine alternative to traditional treatments

theguardian.com

Mmm…GSK CEO earning £16m in one year. A minimum wage worker would need to start in 1381 to earn the same! - just after the Black Death. Ironically 1381 was the Peasants’ Revolt, demanding fairer wages. 70,000 workers, who generated GSK’s success, still waiting! www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Emma Walmsley’s pay rose almost 50% to £15.6m in final year as GSK boss

Bulk of 2025 renumeration came from share bonuses as drug company’s now former CEO benefitted from stock rise

theguardian.com

Kevin Mitchell@wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Fascinating ideas @wiringthebrain.bsky.social @utafrith.bsky.social 1/4 So just trying to unpick this a bit, if an infant had a little packet of information saying “mum” traveling around the brain, how would other bits of brain know what that meant, but…

Special Issue of @phimisci.bsky.social on Representations in the Neurosciences and AI philosophymindscience.org/index.php/ph...

Hull York Medical School @hyms.ac.uk · 6mo ago

From 2008 there were large UK cuts in CAMHS & council Children’s Services over many years. The consequences of that have been ever increasing youth & young adult psychological morbidity. One might have hoped that commissioners would be reinvesting, not the opposite. www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-fea...

RCPsych uncovers £2.1million planned spending cuts for children’s eating disorder services in England

New RCPsych analysis published during Eating Disorders Awareness Week reveals that 16 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England are planning a total of £2.1 million in cuts, after adjusting for inflati...

rcpsych.ac.uk

Can exercise improve #cancer survival rates? #HYMSResearch led by Dr Cindy Forbes and funded by @yorkshire-cancer.bsky.social is delving into the potential of exercise in cancer care: www.hyms.ac.uk/research/stories/can-exercise-help-improve-cancer-survival #WorldCancerDay

Barry Wright @barrywright.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Griffith Taylor wears the same hat and top in several other photos.

Alan Stedman@alanjstedman.bsky.social · 7mo ago

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert... "Grotto in an iceberg, with geologist T. Griffith Taylor and physicist Charles Wright, reverse view of Ponting's famous image, 5 January 1911"

Alan Stedman@alanjstedman.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Do we know who the two people in view in this picture are from Scott’s 2011 expedition?

This photo was taken in 1911 using glass plate technology by Herbert Ponting who was part of Scott's Antarctic expedition, The composition and detail are exquisite with the band of white snow/ice creating a perfect frame around the two people and the ship in the distance Iconic imo

Photograph from 1911 taken by Herbert Ponting whilst with Scott's Antarctic Expedition

The monochrome photo is taken from within a cave. The walls of the cave are made of ice. The cave entrance is in the mid distance with two figures standing looking out towards a distant ship. Between them and the ship there is first a 'beach' of ice before the sea itself. The ship could be up to 800 metres away

What makes the photo so special is that where the figures are at the cave entrance there is a band of very white snow and ice (contrasting with the comparatively dark inside of the cave) that creates a stark framework in which the men and the ship are captured. It is made even more dramatic by the fact that the cave entrance is at least 30 metres high and is in the shape of a distorted elipse with the tail sloping off to the right at the top of the elipse

The photo being in monochrome in a largely white environment makes the photographers skill all the more laudable

10/10 It is also of great interest to see how these social dynamics play out not just in the school playground but in adult society and world politics.

NCISH @ncish.bsky.social · 7mo ago

1/10 It is fascinating looking at the themes that emerge from research into childhood bullying in schools. They consistently include things like:

🚨NEW @NCISH_UK STUDY🚨 NCISH has been commissioned to examine the transition process from CAMHS to AMHS. This can be a high-risk period for patients. To better understand this risk, we are asking patients, carers and clinicians to share their experiences of mental health services via online survey

M.J. Crockett@mjcrockett.bsky.social · 8mo ago

You can never have too much discussion about empathy @mjcrockett.bsky.social

New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/

Abstract

When we empathize with someone going through something, we often draw on our past experiences with the someone and the something. These kinds of experiences ground "thick empathy", a form of empathy that has been largely overlooked in the psychology and neuroscience literature. Consider how a mother, empathizing with her daughter about to give birth, can draw on her own experience of childbirth, and her relationship with her daughter, to deeply grasp what her daughter is going through in a way that others who lack those experiences cannot. I argue that thick empathy deserves more empirical attention because it is associated with well-being and helps us build networks of effective mutual social support. My analysis highlights novel risks and dilemmas posed by "empathy machines" that promise to enhance or even replace human empathy and are becoming increasingly popular as a potential solution to widespread loneliness. Even when empathy machines provide value to individuals, their widespread adoption risks imposing collective emotional and epistemic costs that ultimately make it harder for us to empathize well.

Keywords: empathy, understanding, experience, thick description, ethnography, phenomenal knowledge, interpersonal knowledge, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, chatbots

Nature Reviews Psychology @natrevpsychol.nature.com · last yr.

A very powerful article everyone should read about the devastating impacts of war on children www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How growing up in war really affects an 11-year-old child

Fergal Keane has met thousands of traumatised children while reporting on conflicts. Here, he researches the long-term effect on them - and what, if anything, can help.

bbc.co.uk

Supporting the mental health of forcibly displaced children Review by Michael Pluess, Felicity L. Brown & Catherine Panter-Brick Web: go.nature.com/42PmmJV PDF: rdcu.be/ej6vz

doi.org/10.1080/0266...

Identifying autism in children and young people who are deaf or hard of hearing: a systematic review of the literature

There is a paucity of research pertaining to the assessment and diagnosis of autism in deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) children. A number of developmental, cultural/linguistic and structural barrie...

doi.org

Social media has many positives & potential benefits for young people but can create many problems & present serious risks, so it is very puzzling that social media companies aren’t working much harder with their huge profits to make it safer & better for young people. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Australia's social media ban for children has left big tech scrambling

The policy is the culmination of years of pressure on firms over online safety.

bbc.co.uk

An idea for an “inequalities tax”-Any large firm paying any senior staff in a year more than its lowest paid staff earn in a lifetime (e.g. 50 years) pay an inequalities tax levy and those senior employees pay a higher tax rate @darrenpjones.bsky.social @resolutionfoundation.org @theifs.bsky.social

The King's Fund@thekingsfund.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The old frustrations appear in the take home messages from @thekingsfund.bsky.social latest publication including “Inequalities emerge early and have lifelong consequences.” and “Long waits for child mental health services and demand for community paediatrics signal concerning gaps in access.”

Asthma, allergies and chronic illness are common: around 1 in 11 children have asthma, while 40% have a diagnosed allergy. For far too many, health challenges start early. Learn more about the current health trends children are facing in England. https://bit.ly/4oRj5na