Very important phase1/2 trial of a 6-valent group B strep vaccine. The vaccine was both safe and immunogenicity in pregnant and non pregnant persons. Sets the stage for ph3 studies. GBS sepsis is a major cause of neonatal sepsis causing 91,000 newborn deaths/yr. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Maternal 6-valent group B Streptococcus vaccine in non-pregnant and pregnant females: a randomized phase 1/2 trial - Nature Medicine

A phase 1/2 study found maternal hexavalent 6 polysaccharide−protein conjugate group B Streptococcus vaccine (GBS6) to be safe and immunogenic and to have induced antibody responses to vaccine serotyp...

nature.com

This is REALLY good

Amy Maxmen, PhD@amymaxmen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Doctors in Utah pull back the curtain on what's happening in America. You can read (and listen!) to my piece for WIRED/KFFHN without a paywall, here: kffhealthnews.org/public-healt...

The Iran War is on track to become the deepest oil shock in modern history, with projected losses eclipsing the 1973 embargo, the Iranian Revolution and the Gulf War. Source: buff.ly/lvndd5O

Important @nejm.org correspondence today. Investigators found that licensed Ebola vaccines generate cross-reactive binding antibody responses against Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) in humans. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

👇🏼Count Binface out of costume looks the consummate professional political candidate for Clacton Versus a thin skinned, grifting, unhinged, dodgy old man who’d look better with a bin on his head C’mon #Clacton “Farage fooled you once, shame on you; if he fools you twice, there’s no helping you”❗️🤷🏼‍♂️

If podcasts are your thing, I chatted with the host of the Naked Scientists Pod this week about the clinical trial underway in the UK. You can listen using the link below. www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

Ebola vaccine enters clinical trials

Oxford researchers develop the jab in record time

thenakedscientists.com

Come to Oxford for our three-day Summer Academy in August! Exciting programme, heavily subsidised, a taster for postgraduate study: www.phc.ox.ac.uk/events/oxfor...

Oxford Summer Academy for the Social Science of Health Innovation 2026

Following the success of our inaugural Academy last year, we are delighted to offer our second Translational Health Sciences Summer Academy. Building on the successful MSc in Translational Health Scie...

phc.ox.ac.uk

By now, you have probably heard that the culprit in this cyclospora outbreak has been identified as shredded iceberg lettuce, and while we now know which vegetable is to blame, let us not forget that another culprit are those that shredded our cyclospora monitoring.

Swapping one lithium salt for another produced a 57% wider stability window in a lithium-ion electrolyte. The shift was driven by 3D ion arrangement that text-based models miss. doi.org/hcbp9f

With machine learning, researchers embrace the atomic-scale complexity of batteries

For grid-scale energy storage and national energy resilience, the U.S. needs better batteries. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are tackling that challenge in many ways, but one approach is making a significant impact: physics-informed machine learning.

techxplore.com

I'd go further, not only do they lack consciousness, they lack intelligence. The models are just reflecting back the intelligence embedded in the ingested data. We're looking at a mirror and thinking that there's someone trapped behind the glass. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Once again we are told AI may be conscious – I study consciousness, and I have my doubts | Anil Seth

Despite Anthropic’s claims, Claude is no more likely to achieve sentience than a simulation of a weather system is likely to generate a real hurricane, says Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and compu...

theguardian.com

My latest Perspective is out in PLOS Global Public Health: The Bundibugyo Ebola Virus Emergency and the Erosion of Global Health Security. ( open access) Global health security depends on investing before not, after the next outbreak. journals.plos.org/globalpublic...

The Bundibugyo Ebola Virus Emergency and the erosion of global health security

journals.plos.org

“It’s a really important step,” says Vasee Moorthy, who leads R&D blueprint work at WHO’s Office of the Chief Scientist. “It’s hope for the community.” I wrote about the first ever clinical trial to test drugs against Bundibugyo, that started today. 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

First-ever treatment trial for Ebola Bundibugyo kicks off in the Congo

Scientists will test an antiviral drug and an antibody cocktail designed to tame the burgeoning outbreak

science.org

The conclusion the French built some of the world's most beautiful ships is a post Hoche fallacy

Again: how was a guy with no observable political skills and no allies, whom nobody liked or wanted, able to not only seize unquestioned control of the opposition but shitehouse his way to power with no plans for how to govern the country? Is that normal, does that happen in other democracies.

Very cool animated #history map of #Europe. One frame for every year starting in 400 BC. The link goes through to YouTube. Be aware the video is 11 minutes long. Utterly fascinating though! Link: buff.ly/2EPAoPc

@dankaszeta.bsky.social Frecnh infantry at Waterloo, did you see this?

I loved Moby Dick when I first read it many moons ago. I had forgotten how far the journey described in the book was. Source: buff.ly/5Z2mKIy

“Brian got some hair gel and now he thinks he’s a f***ing unicorn.”

Now that highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 (bird flu) has been detected for the first time in wildlife in Australia, this online lecture from 2024 at the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute may be of interest. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImFD...

The global expansion of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza - Prof Thijs Kuiken

YouTube video by Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute

youtube.com

A truly wild thing about our MAGA/MAHA government is how they go on & on about how evil the government is & how the government lies & how nobody should trust government public health agencies Um, THEY ARE THE GOVERNMENT And trust in these agencies has plummeted under their watch—due to THEM!

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · last mo.

In the teaser to his podcast, RFK Jr. says, “Many of us have come to the conclusion that government actually lies to us”. In this, he is correct, because he is part of the government, and he actually lies to us all the time. If you want you can read more of what I wrote about the pod here:

@mackayim.bsky.social hiya Ian, did you have an interest in Ru tank arsenal? seem to remember a conversation.Jompy has just written a new article

Phone ban, social media ban & curfew, trans bathroom ban, trans youth healthcare ban, repeated protest ban, arrests of peaceful protestors for Palestine. All this government seems able to do is ban, ban, ban. No positive vision of the future, just kneejerk authoritarian crackdowns.

Dan Sohege@danielsohege.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is nuts. Yes we need better protections online, but this is a massive overreach by Starmer. For many young people, especially marginalised ones such as trans and neurodivergent, online spaces can be a safe place for them to develop a genuine support community www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Titanic Men Going Home, Belfast, painting by Cupar Pilson, Irish artist.

It’s a stupidly high bar but I believe this to be Craig Brown’s finest work

In advanced melanoma, better responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors were more often linked to Faecalibacterium in the gut. Other pathways appeared to align with resistance. doi.org/hb46ss

Gut bacteria linked to immunotherapy success in melanoma patients

Researchers at The George Washington University, working with Weill Cornell Medicine, have identified specific gut bacteria linked to better responses to cancer immunotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma.

medicalxpress.com

Cool paper

Springer Nature@springernature.com · 3mo ago

Structural features of the Great Pyramid of Khufu in the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt may have enabled it to withstand earthquakes without sustaining serious damage over the approx. 4,600 years since it was built, says study in Scientific Reports: spklr.io/63323EMEaz #Archaeology 🏺

Congo’s New Ebola Outbreak Has No Vaccine, No Treatment, and Has Already Crossed a Border Bundibugyo ebolavirus confirmed in Congo and Uganda. The world has no approved countermeasures for it. Read & subscribe (for free!) www.celinegounder.com/p/ebola-bund...

Congo’s New Ebola Outbreak Has No Vaccine, No Treatment, and Has Already Crossed a Border

Bundibugyo ebolavirus confirmed in Congo and Uganda. The world has no approved countermeasures for it.

celinegounder.com

In the first inventory of its kind, the Wageningen researchers counted some 9,000 mounds, three times as many as previously thought.

NL is littered with ancient dwelling mounds, research shows - DutchNews.nl

Terpen, or the ancient man-made dwelling mounds the Dutch built to protect their farmland and homes from flooding, were much more common in the Netherlands than previously thought, a new study by…

dutchnews.nl

Told Austrian TV how Russian fighters in Africa have committed atrocities while propping up juntas & how they’re weaponizing the continent as a launchpad for disinformation ops flooding Europe with lies to sow chaos and division. Africa is paying in blood. Europe in instability

my favorite genre of international dialogue

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Xi told Trump that a major question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the “Thucydides Trap,” according to an official English translation of his remarks broadcast by CCTV. @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2026/05/14/t...