it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people remember that COVID lockdowns were unpleasant and from there just extrapolate that they were therefore bad policy
Eric von Otter
@ericvonotter.bsky.social
Interested in all things, passionate about a few. 🔬🪱🧬🦠PhD working in pharma. Spent a decade abroad in 🇨🇳🇸🇬🇬🇧, now back in 🇸🇪. Centerpartist. He/Him.
It’s important to understand that when 1.2 million Americans are dying from a disease, any government action is excessive and tyrannical, but if a dozen trans women want to play soccer no government action can go far enough
Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.
‘It’s too fast, too big’ Yup - the penny is dropping Across the entire geological record, our world has NEVER heated up as rapidly as it has in the last hundred years or so www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘It’s too fast, too big’: speed of climate crisis is devastating crops, say farmers
Drought and extreme heat are killing plants, driving up prices while also making some farms economically unviable
theguardian.com
A comment about this sensationalized headline. They buried the lede. "Anthropic said that, unlike OpenAI’s models, its technology had not purposefully broken out of its testing environment. Instead, the issue was human error, the company said. 1/3
Anthropic Says Its A.I. Systems Broke Into Computers at 3 Organizations
The disclosure followed OpenAI’s report last week that its own artificial intelligence had hacked into the network of an online library.
nytimes.com
It’s completely nuts that Trump won by less than 2M votes with near universal media help and worldwide rage at incumbents and the media treated this like a permanent sea change towards MAGA and now less than 2 years later he’s the least popular President in history and there’s no media reckoning
Reminder that on his last day of his first term, Trump awarded a commendation to Dr Fauci "in recognition of his exceptional effort on Operation Warp Speed"
putting on my $3,000 tuxedo to go get called a piece of shit on worldwide tv by a 100 year old rapist
The greatest global threat to both peace and a habitable planet is the government of the USA. It has been so for a long time, but Trump has nixed the deniability. We should stop treating it as an ally that has mysteriously gone astray and start treating it as a hazard to be avoided and contained.
Happy that our most recent paper on nucleotide excision repair mechanisms has now been published in Science Advances. This project was led by @natalia-mg.bsky.social and @callumhaste.bsky.social and focused on visualising early steps of the NER process by #cryoEM. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Visualization of stepwise derepression of TFIIH in global genome nucleotide excision repair
Cryogenic electron microscopy captures nucleotide excision repair complexes assembling on damaged DNA templates.
science.org
This 2012 electron microscope video is from James Tyrwhitt-Drake, a scientist at University of Victoria’s Advanced Microscopy Facility. In order, you're looking at: An amphipod (~5 mm = 5000 microns) A diatom (50 microns) A bacteria (1 micron). Life at every scale! (📷: James Tyrwhitt-Drake)
Argentina can still win this match if Mike Pence has the courage.
“Sverige har för många personer som inte är en del av den etniska svenska befolkningen” säger SD:s migrationspolitiska talesperson, och markerar därmed en vändpunkt: Nu är det så normalt att vara rasist att de inte behöver dölja det längre www.etc.se/ledare/sd-sa...
Nu säger SD öppet att de vill ha ett Sverige för vita
Efter fyra år i Rosenbad känner de sig äntligen tillräckligt trygga för knyta upp den där åtsittande slipsen.
etc.se
John Boyer has created The Plato Reader to accompany his Aristotle Reader which is a free website which makes the corpus available in both Geek and (public-domain) translation and also makes the texts fully searchable. This is so useful. johnhboyer-sys.github.io/plato-reader/
The Plato Reader — Complete Works in Greek & English
Read the complete works of Plato with the original Greek and a facing English translation, side by side — with click-to-parse morphology, dictionary lookup, Stephanus citation, and full-text search ac...
johnhboyer-sys.github.io
every dead senator gets a thoughtful obituary lauding their “courage” and then if you look it up the courage was filibustering the Give Medicine to Cancer Kids act
Lindsey Graham was one of the main subjects of a @theatlantic.com cover story I wrote in 2020, on why people collaborate with regimes they know are immoral. Here's a gift link: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
History Will Judge the Complicit
Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?
theatlantic.com
I just fulfilled my annual pledge today by donating 21% of my income this year to clean water projects in DRC and Somalia. The biggest aid cuts took place over a year ago, but because of runways & emergency bridge funding, some of the worst effects are still to come. We can help reduce them.
We don't have to sit back and just watch the horror unfold
This month, I signed a pledge to donate at least 10% of my lifetime income to effective charities.
scientificdiscovery.dev
Breaking: Microsoft's AI boom collides with its climate goals, with emissions up 25% www.axios.com/2026/07/09/m... via @axios.com
Microsoft's AI boom collides with its climate goals
It's the latest big tech report to show emissions and resource use climbing with AI growth.
axios.com
We are looking for someone to lead the new Facility for Protein Biochemistry & Biophysics at the MPI of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg — please spread the word and apply if you are interested!
Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics@mpi-ie.bsky.social · last mo.🚀 Job alert: We’re starting a new Facility – and you can lead it! The MPI-IE & @mariekeoudelaar.bsky.social are hiring a Head of Protein Biochemistry & Biophysics to launch and lead a brand-new Core Facility in Freiburg 🇩🇪. Once-in-lifetime-chance. Details ⬇️ jobs.ie-freiburg.mpg.de/jobposting/b...
Sources told the Guardian that Trump made three calls to Fifa beginning on Wednesday in an effort to secure the reversal. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, while Fifa declined to comment. www.theguardian.com/football/202...
Trump confirms he asked Infantino for review of Folarin Balogun red card
Donald Trump says he personally asked Fifa to review Folarin Balogun’s red card, insisting he did not pressure officials to overturn the suspension
theguardian.com
I’m beginning to suspect FIFA isn’t completely untouched by corruption.
We solved a high resolution structure of the nucleosome core particle directly from nuclear extract from a single T25 flask (3 mL culture). No affinity purification. No sucrose gradients. Just lysate on grids. Raw data available now for anyone who wants to reprocess. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
For a very brief window, the state of the art in fire-making technology involved sulfuric acid, platinum wool & a steady stream of hydrogen, but no sparks. Let's talk about Döbereiner's lamp, invented 1823 & produced until about 1880. It starts with sulfuric acid in a jar!
The average life expectancy of a new Russian recruit—from arrival at a training ground to death in a combat zone—lies somewhere between 10 days and three weeks. Once sent onto the battlefield, they survive an average of 20 to 35 minutes. @peterfrankopan.bsky.social foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/25/r...
As the Tide Turns Against Putin, Beware the Drowning Man
Like a struggling swimmer, he may take desperate measures to stay afloat.
foreignpolicy.com