David Mouritsen
@davidmouritsen.bsky.social
I started out in physics/astrophysics and mathematics. And I strangely wound up a creative director at design, advertising, and web technology agencies. Obsessed with history.
“A Dishonorable Strike Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder” By Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith (a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute & former head of the Office of Legal Counsel) 1/
A Dishonorable Strike
Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder
execfunctions.org
Putin gives an investment conference in St Petersburg, and no one comes... highlighting the instability and fragility of the Russian economy. www.ft.com/content/36b8...
Vladimir Putin’s investment forum fails to attract western companies
Even Russia’s allies send lower-ranking officials and executives to St Petersburg — except Indonesia’s president
ft.com
The formidable Martin Wolf writes about the Trumpist “pluto-populism” — a term Wolf himself coined back in 2006 — evident in the appalling “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”: www.ft.com/content/31f4...
The formidable Martin Wolf writes about the Trumpist “pluto-populism” — a term Wolf himself coined back in 2006 — evident in the appalling “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”: www.ft.com/content/31f4...
“Trump told reporters: ‘The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them, that's why. That's the ultimate protection.’ Commenters often note that Trump talks like a mob boss, but rarely has his organized-crime style of governance been clearer than in yesterday’s statement.”
June 17, 2025
Yesterday at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), a forum of democracies with advanced economies, President Donald Trump told reporters: “The UK is very well protected.
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
“In the past, the NSF has usually enjoyed bipartisan support... But the ravages currently being inflicted upon the agency may bring a truly golden era of American science to a halt. … The Trump forces now directing the NSF have been terminating existing grants at a record pace…”
Opinion | Trump is undermining U.S. science. Here’s why that’s dangerous.
Science has played a crucial role in making the United States great and powerful.
washingtonpost.com
“Trump told reporters: ‘The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them, that's why. That's the ultimate protection.’ Commenters often note that Trump talks like a mob boss, but rarely has his organized-crime style of governance been clearer than in yesterday’s statement.”
June 17, 2025
Yesterday at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), a forum of democracies with advanced economies, President Donald Trump told reporters: “The UK is very well protected.
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
Prof Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social): “America is no longer a full-fledged democracy. We are currently living under a version of competitive authoritarianism... Trumpists, however, haven’t yet fully consolidated their hold.” 1/4
Trump’s parade flopped. No Kings Day was a hit.
Right now, images largely determine the outcome
paulkrugman.substack.com
It seems hollering “woke” isn’t an argument: “The court finds and rules that [NIH’s] explanations are bereft of reasoning, virtually in their entirety…” And as for Trumpian anti-DEI rhetoric: “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years and I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this”
Judge orders NIH to restore hundreds of grants cut under Trump
William Young calls terminations illegal, berates agency for discrimination
science.org
A man with ALS who’d lost the ability to speak: “The team asked the participant to attempt to make interjections such as ‘aah’, ‘ooh’ and ‘hmm’ and say made-up words. The BCI successfully produced these sounds, showing that it could generate speech without needing a fixed vocabulary.”
World first: brain implant lets man speak with expression — and sing
Device translates thought to speech in real time.
nature.com
Prof Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social): “America is no longer a full-fledged democracy. We are currently living under a version of competitive authoritarianism... Trumpists, however, haven’t yet fully consolidated their hold.” 1/4
Trump’s parade flopped. No Kings Day was a hit.
Right now, images largely determine the outcome
paulkrugman.substack.com
It seems hollering “woke” isn’t an argument: “The court finds and rules that [NIH’s] explanations are bereft of reasoning, virtually in their entirety…” And as for Trumpian anti-DEI rhetoric: “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years and I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this”
Judge orders NIH to restore hundreds of grants cut under Trump
William Young calls terminations illegal, berates agency for discrimination
science.org
“This year, the BMJ, a publisher of medical journals based in London, has seen bot traffic to its websites surpass that of real users. The aggressive behaviour of these bots overloaded the publisher’s servers and led to interruptions in services for legitimate customers…”
Web-scraping AI bots cause disruption for scientific databases and journals
Automated programs gathering training data for artificial-intelligence tools are overwhelming academic websites.
nature.com
Appalling. And so is: "CBS reported Tuesday that the Navy is also considering renaming other John Lewis-class oilers including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman." Will the lead ship of the class keep the name John Lewis?
Hegseth Orders Navy to Strip Name of Gay Rights Icon Harvey Milk from Ship
A new name for the Harvey Milk was not given but, according to the memo, Hegseth and Phelan are planning to announce the new name aboard the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned Navy ship.
military.com
Karly Kingsley@karlykingsley.bsky.social · last yr.Harvey Milk was a Korean War combat veteran, civil rights icon, and trailblazing elected official. Instead of honoring that, we’re renaming ships during Pride Month for culture war points. The priorities are continually dissapointing.
Another judge just ordered govt to reveal its deal with Bukele to another alien sent to CECOT. A magistrate judge in Columbus, GA (MDGa) did so in the case of Venezuelan EDQC, sent to CECOT on 3/15 without opportunity to raise a fear-of-torture claim. 1/5 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost
Edward Nirenberg@enirenberg.bsky.social · last yr.I worry that not enough of a big deal is being made about how long-term the devastation of these budget cuts to our scientific and health agencies will be, beyond the absolute ruin they will cause in the acute period.
Definitely cool. But he has a rough road ahead of him...
Thor Benson@thorbenson.bsky.social · last yr.Lee Jae-myung, the South Korean politician who climbed the fence of the parliament to get inside and vote against martial law, has been elected president. Pretty cooool
If RFK Jr. wants to identify toxins that are causing harm to Americans’ health, he should pick up his phone, open the camera, and flip it around to selfie mode.
I am officially one of The Ancients, Keeper of Knowledge of the Before Time
Republicans are determined to impoverish the U.S. with their attacks on #science.
David Mouritsen@davidmouritsen.bsky.social · last yr.“National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt wrote an apologetic memo to employees. Her statement to STAT that 250 people could lose their positions by summer’s end had come as news to the roughly 1100 NASEM staff.”
Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years. What are we doing?
After terminally ill patients tried a last-ditch blood cancer treatment, doctors are talking about a potential cure. https://trib.al/s1XkBk5
From No Hope to a Potential Cure for a Deadly Blood Cancer
Multiple myeloma is considered incurable, but a third of patients in a Johnson & Johnson clinical trial have lived without detectable cancer for years after facing certain death.
trib.al
Decidedly cool. “The adaptability, the researchers say, underscores just how flexible octopuses are: Their limbs can react to sensory inputs without requiring their brains to engage, as if the appendages are making decisions independently.”
This octopus grew a ninth arm—which soon developed a mind of its own
Study highlights just how flexible cephalopod’s bodies are after injury and during recovery
science.org
Worth pointing out — again and again and again: “The court… emphasized that ‘the President may not lawfully do by coordinated executive fiat what Congress has repeatedly declined to allow by statute.’”
Too Big to Be Lawful: A Federal Court Halts Mass Layoffs Across the Civil Service
A recent court decision has made clear that reorganizing the federal government can't proceed through backdoor executive planning.
justsecurity.org
“This year, the BMJ, a publisher of medical journals based in London, has seen bot traffic to its websites surpass that of real users. The aggressive behaviour of these bots overloaded the publisher’s servers and led to interruptions in services for legitimate customers…”
Web-scraping AI bots cause disruption for scientific databases and journals
Automated programs gathering training data for artificial-intelligence tools are overwhelming academic websites.
nature.com
Appalling. And so is: "CBS reported Tuesday that the Navy is also considering renaming other John Lewis-class oilers including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman." Will the lead ship of the class keep the name John Lewis?
Hegseth Orders Navy to Strip Name of Gay Rights Icon Harvey Milk from Ship
A new name for the Harvey Milk was not given but, according to the memo, Hegseth and Phelan are planning to announce the new name aboard the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned Navy ship.
military.com
Karly Kingsley@karlykingsley.bsky.social · last yr.Harvey Milk was a Korean War combat veteran, civil rights icon, and trailblazing elected official. Instead of honoring that, we’re renaming ships during Pride Month for culture war points. The priorities are continually dissapointing.
