16 months after a young girl died in a gene-editing trial, the study's entry in clinicaltrial. gov has finally been updated to acknowledge the death. The move comes after @science.org and @retractionwatch.com revealed the fatality 1/ science.org/content/arti...

RFKJr claims Lyme disease was created by scientists,which is the closest he’s come to admitting that science exists. Meanwhile, Ötzi the Iceman, who died more than 5.3K years ago, had Lyme disease. Apparently prehistoric humans are part of the conspiracy. Get me off this timeline

Holy shit, another child gene therapy trial death in China! www.statnews.com/2026/08/05/c... Excellent @statnews.com piece by @jasonmast.bsky.social. This is a Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy trial. The piece is especially good on the "IIT" pathway, wh/Qiu also used. Yes, deaths happen in trials, but—

Once again, child dies in gene-editing trial in China, rekindling debate on transparency and safety

With a second delayed report of a child's death in China, criticism is rising of a looser form of clinical trial. One expert: what "bothers me is the lack of transparency.'

statnews.com

This is very good article in the Beijing News on the gene therapy trial death of a girl, a story broken in Borrell's stunning piece in Science. (At least it looks good in my laborious Google Translate version, despite quoting me) www.bjnews.com.cn/detail/17858... www.science.org/content/arti...

Looking forward to welcoming 175 IP scholars from around the world to @law.stanford.edu this week for the 26th Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference (IPSC). It was fun putting together an agenda with so many interesting presentations! #IPSC2026

Horns on Weiser. A cross next to Marx. Religious warmonger?

Ryan Calo@rcalo.bsky.social · yesterday

This is disgusting. Shame on the (desperate) Marx campaign

A new editorial by @utafrith.bsky.social on whether the term "autism" has been broadened so much that it's lost its meaning www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Autism spectrum disorder: has it lost its meaning and is it leading to misdiagnosis? | Psychological Medicine | Cambridge Core

Autism spectrum disorder: has it lost its meaning and is it leading to misdiagnosis? - Volume 56

cambridge.org

Uta Frith@utafrith.bsky.social · 2d ago

My thoughts about the autism spectrum: Autism spectrum disorder: has it lost its meaning and is it leading to misdiagnosis? Psychological Medicine. 2026;56:e240. doi:10.1017/S0033291726105376

Clever. But a little dark...

Brian Bilston@brianbilston.bsky.social · 2d ago

Today is Venn Day, in celebration of the mathematician John Venn, born on this day in 1834. To commemorate the occasion, here’s a poem in the form of a Venn Diagram.

ICYMI: Florida anti-FDA stem cell law is already a big mess ipscell.com/2025/05/upco... Many clinics & suppliers acting like it's a gold rush, ignoring FDA non-compliance, plus some operating outside limited scope of even FL state law. People will get hurt and ripped off by some clinics

Medicare is removing flexibilities that have allowed medical devices designated as “breakthroughs” by the Food and Drug Administration to leapfrog qualifications for extra payments. www.statnews.com/2026/08/03/c...

Medicare eliminates key pathways used by 'breakthrough' devices for extra payments

Medicare is removing flexibilities that have allowed 'breakthrough' medical devices to leapfrog qualifications for extra payments.

statnews.com

How to spoil your weekend: Read my new paper, “Putting the Brakes on a No-Drive List” papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers..... Its trying to get ahead of plausibly foreseeable repression. I hope it scares you. It scares me.

my neighborhood 7-11 closed a couple years ago and tried to reopen but couldn’t get the permit approved because there’s a preschool next door and 7-11s sell alcohol (the previous permit was grandfathered in). i saw a fence going up around the lot recently and looked up what was moving in: a gun shop

From @economist.com's US in Brief: "Heard on NBC News 'He grows anxious when he has an unexpressed thought.' —John Kennedy, a Rep senator, analyses the president’s thought process. He was reacting to Mr Trump’s anger towards the Justice Department for dropping charges against David Hearn last week"

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

What would be truly lunatic, as Christina says, is having any blanket "no-closure" policy for the future. We do not know the demographic that will be most vulnerable in the next pandemic. It could be children. 5/5

We should not be afraid to admit the harms of school closures, but neither should we pretend that leaving them open would not have had consequences (almost certainly including more deaths). /4

Under the circumstances tho', the closures were justified, in part as a precautionary measure. We have the opportunity now to be smarter in future. But much of the damage came because of exacerbation of existing inequalities. /3

One of the lessons learnt from the pandemic was that such closures should be avoided or minimized if possible. That might have been possible during Covid if the UK govt had acted faster and more decisively, instead of dithering. /2

Can't repost with comments for the thread by @chrischirp.bsky.social I just reposted, on school closures during Covid, but I'd say this: I think Christina's comments are spot on. School closures were one of the worst aspects of lockdown, and hard to discuss in a balanced way now. /1

Former Stanford Law School dean - best leader I've ever seen at close range.

Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · 5d ago

Glad someone senior from the sector is pushing back. Labour MPs need to understand the serious real anger from graduates and the people who produce them. And the dangerous financial situation they have allowed to fester, or indeed worsened, in one of Britain’s leading sectors.

My favourite conclusion to a #philosophy paper, by Bill Lycan:

Nothing to see here. Move along. These are not the droids you are looking for.

Nahel Belgherze@wxnb.bsky.social · 6d ago

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.

; ) Kind of like a bat, I suspect. But baseball, cricket, or hurling?

The US owes the Pan-American Health Organization $135 million in past dues. Trump's budget proposal cuts funding for PAHO entirely, even though our contribution is 0.001% of federal spending. The result will be even weaker defenses agst measles, dengue & more. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/h...

Former Officials Protest U.S. Plan to Defund Pan American Health Organization

The group of former health and national security officials warned that Americans will be more vulnerable to infectious disease threats.

nytimes.com

"Solar panels produced 51% of California’s electricity in May, the first time the clean energy source surpassed the halfway mark for an entire month." The globe’s first major economy to cross the 50% threshold: www.canarymedia.com/articles/sol... via @ember-energy.org and @danmccarthy.bsky.social 🔌💡

California was mostly solar-powered in May — a global first

No major economy had previously received over half its electricity from solar across an entire month. Thank the mild, sunny spring weather, and batteries.

canarymedia.com

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.

How quickly we forget. Same happened after 1918-1919 influenza. See the great The Great Influenza by John Barry. We even seem to remember the terrible things about wars at least a little longer than epidemics.

Peter Jacobs@pjacobs.bsky.social · 6d ago

Said this before, and will keep saying it: Prior to vaccine availability in the US, almost 1 in 5 people hospitalized during the pandemic DIED. For those admitted to an ICU it was more like 40-50%. The vaccines, and then the combination of vaccines and less lethal variants, changed everything.

The evidence supports the alt theory of a spillover from animals sold at the market. Spillovers also happen to account for all other novel infectious disease epidemics. I'm tired of writing about this since I'm tired of the harassment. Pretty much every science writer I know feels the same.

Ukrainian soldier Danylo Voronov lost his 18-month-old son, his parents, and his brothers and sisters today.

Cool! "Genetic" evidence about human mammoth hunting. www.cell.com/action/showPdf Solitary mammoth remains were 2/3 male, probably living alone. Group remains 70% female, probably from humans killing more females. Not shocking but kind of clever. Old DNA can tell us lots of things.