Just dropped the most beautiful slice of absolutely perfect artisan bread (for you Germans out there, brot) and it landed butter-side up. For the record. gwern.net/doc/science/...
Very cool story noting the significance of indigenous oral history for interpreting some of these structures & how the results are consistent with early European reports of dense Amazonian populations. The original research article is also available open-access here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Over 20,000 precolonial earthworks in the Southwest Amazonia - Nature
Using canopy-penetrating LiDAR data, the northern part of southwestern Amazonia appears to contain as many earthworks as previously estimated for the whole of Amazonia.
nature.com
alan yuhas@ayuhas.bsky.social · 6d agohundreds of ancient geoglyphs found in the Amazon www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/w...
Yay! It’s here
Bad Ancient/ Owen Rees@badancient.bsky.social · 6d agoThe Bad Ancient team's interview with @iflscience.com is live! Inspired by the Odyssey film, it focuses on the question of the Sea Peoples and 'collapsing civilisations'. Also, it is the first time we have ever been called a 'ragtag team' and I like it. We should put that in a bio somewhere!
The data report from the first three months of the Australian social media ban has now been released: www.esafety.gov.au/research/soc... Some thoughts:
esafety.gov.au
For a disease as spectacularly scary as smallpox, its history is remarkably mysterious. Here is my look at what ancient DNA from the viruses is revealing. Gift link: nyti.ms/4vTU11D
‘This Is Very Strange’: Ancient Smallpox May Have Been Less Deadly (Gift Article)
Scientists have found smallpox viruses in the remains of people in Chile from around 500 years ago, revealing how the virus may have evolved into a global killer.
nyti.ms
The only taxidermied blue whale in the world, 1865 CE, now housed at the Natural History Museum in Sweden. The public was allowed to enter the whale up until a couple was found having sex inside it. Now the whale’s jaws are opened only for special occasions, such as Swedish election days.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Human Nature by the climate scientist @drkatemarvel.bsky.social is a shocking book, all the more because the passion is controlled, the tone lyrical, the rants absent, the shocks measured. I deny denial but must confess complacency. No more. Read it. Soon!
Trump’s systematic assault on science “By attempting to politicise scientific research today, the current administration risks hampering US leadership in the technologies of tomorrow.” giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Trump’s systematic assault on science
The government is politicising funding for basic research
giftarticle.ft.com
My favorite depiction of the Trojan Horse, and the earliest known version. I love the windows, like an airplane, and that the windows go up the neck too.
I wrote something years ago that I suspect is much longer than you're after, but the first couple of sections (Introduction / The great odds ratio debate) might be kinda useful? cameronpatrick.com/post/2023/07...
You are what you ATE: Choosing an effect size measure for binary outcomes – Cameron Patrick
Wherein I try to make sense of ongoing debates in the statistical community about how to analyse and report clinical trials targeting binary outcomes, and then write some R code to practice what I hes...
cameronpatrick.com
It's a long article, did anyone consider the crazy possibility that this deadly human experiment was based on fraudulent preclinical research?
Jacqueline Antonovich@jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 2w ago"The girl was slipping behind her peers in kindergarten. She still spoke in simple sentences and ate with training chopsticks. Underneath it all was a single mutated DNA base, a T that should have been a C."
New open-access book for #MedievalSky on Jewish craftspeople in the European Middle Ages, with chapters on weavers, book binders, metal workers, and more: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... #HistSTM @dgb-mem.bsky.social
'I think it should go without saying that if removing amyloid deposits from the brain really helped Alzheimer’s patients that you would expect much more benefit than this, because there seems little doubt that these antibodies do accomplish that.' @dereklowe.bsky.social
Tau In the Clinic, Again
science.org
I cannot find any source to verify this (that he invented the asterisk system). Is this apocryphal, I wonder? He was generally critical of the unthinking use of p-values though.
American Statistical Association History of Statistics @hos-asa.bsky.social · 2w agoFew statisticians know that Frank Yates, pioneer of experimental design, is responsible for the annoying practice of indicating 3 tiers of statistical significance by stars (*p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001). He soon regretted it and “vehemently opposed its unthinking use”. And here we are.
This story is indeed insane. They literally *discounted his correct answers* (on questions about the Constitution) so that a Trump supporting girl who wants to go to Hillsdale College could win $25K and be televised meeting Trump. So. Gross.
Charlotte Clymer@charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 2w agoThis story is crazy. It would appear Trump admin officials rigged their nationally televised high school civics contest to keep a young man from a Sikh family out of the finalists. www.notus.org/national/ame...
"Кримські динозаври, мезозойські крокодили та безліч інших знахідок з території України сьогодні зберігаються у колекціях музеїв Росії. До них не мають доступу українські дослідники, а світова наукова спільнота може сприймати їх як частину російських наукових здобутків". Докладніше 👇
Імперія на кістках. Навіщо деколонізувати природничі колекції
Як Росія привласнила українську природничу спадщину
kunsht.com.ua
Once again, @sholtodavid.bsky.social catches scientists obtaining beautiful and meaningful results with a totally unsuitable antibody. forbetterscience.com/2026/07/21/d...
Do bacteria grow old as we do?
“Once again I am left wondering what to make of these research teams that cheerfully go on generating impossible results, either they don’t write the methods truthfully or they don̵…
forbetterscience.com
People need to grapple with the fact we're in an epistemic crisis that's starting to corrode countless elements of human knowledge.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w agoAl-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk
There are two possibilities here. Taylor Farms paid a shit ton of money to get the FDA to say this. Or DOGE decimated the FDA so significantly that they managed to fuck up a basic sample test. Neither one is great!
Dr. Lucky Tran@luckytran.com · 2w agoThe FDA now says that Taylor Farms finding is a false positive. What a mess.
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time! Some uncomfortable discussion, and much insight. It puts into context professional developments that I was aware of, but hadn't put it all together. Smart, incisive, very readable. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
We Have Never Been Woke
How a new “woke” elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status—without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged
press.princeton.edu
Ironically, as @mart1oeil.eu showed, there are telltale signs that the piece was edited with ChatGPT: many links include "?utm_source=chatgpt.com" If even Science editorial team cannot afford good human editing, that's worrying
Jed Brown@jedbrown.org · 3w agoEditor in Chief of Science: AI in scientific publishing: Slower, worse, and more expensive.
It's great to see this spelled out so clearly. Also, the best sci-fi is not about predicting the future but creating imagined worlds to explore the anxieties of the present. Silicon Valley totally fails to get this.
Aeon Magazine@aeon.co · 3w agoTech billionaires like to claim their work is inspired by science fiction, but in truth, they are using its ‘chrome-plated aesthetic’ as a fig leaf to further what the social theorist Ali Rıza Taşkale labels ‘reactionary futurism’
Really nothing else to add after 13 years of this.
Dr. Jonathan Foley@globalecoguy.bsky.social · 3w agoThis is a great read about why the "Ocean Cleanup" project didn't work as well as hoped. There are so many parallels with other well-intentioned efforts -- including in the climate space -- that don't pan out because folks ignored the science.... therevelator.org/why-ocean-cl...
I just came across this astonishing 20-year-old work. By transplanting embryonic mouse gum-forming tissue to the beak-forming region of chick embryos, the researchers showed that the chick epithelium could be induced to make teeth. But the best part is... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Waking‐up the sleeping beauty: recovery of the ancestral bird odontogenic program
Recent advances in molecular and developmental genetics have provided tools for understanding evolutionary changes in the nature of the epithelial–mesenchymal interactions regulating the patterned ou....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Arizona State University's Rogier Windhorst makes the case: Save the Hubble Space Telescope! #planetsci www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Save Hubble: the race to preserve the space telescope kicks off
The orbiting observatory’s unique vision and public support continue to be crucial for understanding the Universe.
nature.com
My review of Evolution. The BBC series, not the concept. But to be fair, I'm a big fan of both. @chrisgpackham.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/c6c0...
Why new BBC series Evolution is a giant leap forward for science on TV
Adam Rutherford salutes a show that finally links the spectacle of natural history with the science that explains it
ft.com
The sub-par science of the social media ban - Part 2: What even is social media anyway? open.substack.com/pu... Part 2 of a series on the evidence behind the incoming UK social media ban asks how can you legislate about something if you won't even say what it is? #SocialMedia #Ban #politics
The sub-par science of the social media ban - Part 2: What even is social media anyway?
A series of posts that takes a deep dive into the published evidence that supposedly supports the UK government's ban on social media for under 16s, and finds it very worrying indeed
open.substack.com
Ridiculous! Are glucose monitors a good thing for 2-year-olds? www.statnews.com/2026/07/08/d... via @statnews.com "... the onslaught of information will create a culture of hyperfocusing on data, leading to unnecessary panic & restrictive food behaviors." "...really premature right now."
Are glucose monitors a good thing for 2-year-olds? Experts look at risks, benefits
The newly approved over-the-counter CGM offers a new approach to tackling childhood obesity but also raises a host of questions.
statnews.com