The Society for the History of Technology conference extended its call to late August, & this year’s conference will be all online. Details below if you’d like to submit. Also, I’m putting together a panel that has 1 or 2 more slots on it, so lmk if (1/2) www.historyoftechnology.org/annual-meeti...

2026 SHOT Annual Meeting (Virtual)

Visit the post for more.

historyoftechnology.org

We have made the news! #eshs-hss (overlooking the blandly sweeping statements made about Edinburgh and #histSTM) www.heraldscotland.com/news/2627512...

Thousands of academics descend on Scottish capital for 'landmark' event

The five-day conference is being held at Edinburgh University, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), and the National Museum of…

heraldscotland.com

Very very late, but this was my 2025 in fiction. Highlights: Piranesi and Babel (obviously); The Gods Below; Lake of Souls. Biggest Disappointment: The Book of Dust (I have OPINIONS™️😡). Most horrifying (complimentary) (won't be re-reading): Clay's Ark.

Dr Nicola Sugden@nicolasugden.bsky.social · 2y ago

2024 in fiction. An unusual year in that I read two entire books set in the present real world with no spaceships or magic. I track my reading on Bookworm, the only book app that lets you clothe a silly worm avatar: www.bookwormreads.co/home

“I don’t think people hoping to benefit public health by sharing their genetic data [All of Us] were really thinking that that’s the kind of company [Palantir] that would be handling their information.” -KHasson of @geneticsandsociety.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Palantir has a hand in NIH's most ambitious health initiative

The defense tech firm's work with public health data has largely flown under the radar.

motherjones.com

“We created this platform, the Palestine Museum Digital Archive, which is an unlootable archive,” says Amer Shomali the museum’s general director. The mission is to safeguard Palestinian history and make it available to those unable to visit Palestine.

How Palestinians Are Building a Digital Archive That Can’t Be Erased

Distributed backups, cyber resilience, and a half-million records are preserving Palestinian history beyond any single building or border.

wired.com

📣Call for Papers📣Workshop: Reconfiguring the citizen-patient through health and care data Join us on 3rd-4th December to think about how citizenship and patienthood are being reforged together in an era of intense datafication. Full CFP & further info: dare.ed.ac.uk/events/2026/... #STS #MedAnthro

Since September I've been working with an international group to develop what we hope can be a response from the mathematics community to artificial intelligence in maths. The Leiden Declaration is now posted and open for signatures: https://leidendeclaration.ai/ #LeidenDeclaration

Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

This declaration calls for action to address the challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence within mathematics research.

leidendeclaration.ai

I'd like to introduce everyone to my new colleague, Trixie. She is very small and has a marshmallow instead of a brain.

Our new exhibition Remembering Humberside is up-and-running @hullhistorycentre.bsky.social and @northlincsmuseum.bsky.social. If you're lucky enough to be on Humberside it's well worth a visit. For everyone else, there's a nice write-up in The Hull Story. www.thehullstory.com/allarticles/...

The rise and fall of Humberside — The Hull Story

By Martin Taylor , city archivist - based on the text of the exhibition, Remembering Humberside April 1 this year was the thirtieth anniversary of the abolition of Humberside County Council. Its l...

thehullstory.com

Couldn't help quoting Charles West: "bear in mind that the heart may break, or the reason fail, under causes that seem to us quite insufficient; the griefs of childhood may be, in proportion to the child’s power of bearing them, as overwhelming as those which break the strong man down."

Dr Nicola Sugden@nicolasugden.bsky.social · 5mo ago

"‘A Category for the Not-Yet-Known’: How Rheumatism Made Room for Winnicott’s Child Psychoanalysis'" is out now in Social History of Medicine: doi.org/10.1093/shm/.... First drafted as part of a PhD chapter c.8 years ago. It's never too late!

"‘A Category for the Not-Yet-Known’: How Rheumatism Made Room for Winnicott’s Child Psychoanalysis'" is out now in Social History of Medicine: doi.org/10.1093/shm/.... First drafted as part of a PhD chapter c.8 years ago. It's never too late!

‘A Category for the Not-Yet-Known’: How Rheumatism Made Room for Winnicott’s Child Psychoanalysis

Summary. Influential psychoanalyst and children’s doctor Donald Woods Winnicott (1896–1971) began his career in children’s hospitals and continued to work

doi.org

There's still time to submit to the our panel 'Caring for the Possible: In the Meantime of Healthcare’s Data-Driven Futures' at @easst.bsky.social 2026! (Extended CFP closes 9th March)

Dr Nicola Sugden@nicolasugden.bsky.social · 7mo ago

What happens to the promissory utopias of data-driven healthcare “in the meantime”? Join our panel at @easst.bsky.social 2026 to discuss 'Caring for the Possible: In the Meantime of Healthcare’s Data-Driven Futures': dare.ed.ac.uk/events/2025/...

Technology and risk in healthcare’s move to digital: Five lessons from the history of technology and STS dare.ed.ac.uk/blog/2026/te...

Theorising the data-care-learning nexus, with a little help from celestial mechanics: dare.ed.ac.uk/blog/2026/da...

New: our zine about ICE surveillance is here! People who bought a custom printed copy will get in the mail soon. We're also releasing the PDF for free for anyone to download. Also releasing a version in Spanish so more people can read about the tech ICE is using. Get here: www.404media.co/icezine/

Our Zine About ICE Surveillance Is Here

Download a PDF of our first ever zine here.

404media.co

New from 404 Media: here is the user guide for ELITE, the tool Palantir made for ICE. A map shows people on a map; ICE clicks them, brings up their dossier. ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target. We obtained it, you can now read the document for yourself: www.404media.co/here-is-the-...

Here is the User Guide for ELITE, the Tool Palantir Made for ICE

404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for ELITE, which lets ICE bring up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address.

404media.co

This is worth paying attention to particularly for those who have concerns about Palantir's involvement in NHS data.... www.bmj.com/content/392/...

ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

US immigration agents are using an app developed by Palantir that draws on the health records of millions of Americans to find and detain illegal immigrants. The revelation comes as the US’s Immigrat...

bmj.com

What happens to the promissory utopias of data-driven healthcare “in the meantime”? Join our panel at @easst.bsky.social 2026 to discuss 'Caring for the Possible: In the Meantime of Healthcare’s Data-Driven Futures': dare.ed.ac.uk/events/2025/...

thanks i hate it openai.com/index/introd...

Introducing ChatGPT Health

A dedicated experience in ChatGPT designed for health and wellness.

openai.com

If you're looking for #history networks on BlueSky in 2026, our Starter Pack - recently updated - has details of 150 leading societies, organisations and groups active in the UK and Ireland bit.ly/4ptl0On #Skystorians

Societies & groups for historians, UK and Ireland

Join the conversation

bit.ly

I'll be sharing some thoughts on chatbots, therapy, and the mental health crisis next week:

AI Ethics & Society@aies-edinburgh.bsky.social · 9mo ago

✨exploring empirical encounters with computational 'intelligence' - an in-person event with Edinburgh’s DARE project researchers @nicolasugden.bsky.social, Abby King and Max Perry, looking at how data is being used in UK healthcare and biomedical research. ⬇️ sign up below! shorturl.at/Yj91W

Autism ableism seen through research abstract contents: A mixed-methods analysis of language in NIH-funded genetic and genomic autism research

netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/26/t... great overview of the history and evidence on ID cards by Wendy

The absurdity card

Fifteen years ago, a new incoming government swept away a policy its immediate predecessors had been pushing since shortly after the 2001 9/11 attacks: identity

netwars.pelicancrossing.net

2/ In 2001, Borsook said tech "libertarianism" reflected an adolescent mindset, with a craving for unchecked independence & resistance to constraint. She warned that tech libertarians wanted an anti-human world that worked more like a computer. From "Cyberselfish," a book based on her 90s writing:

In case you were wondering, two of the thirteen projects funded by the NIH's $50m Autism Data Science Initiative (ADSI) talk about prevention in their project abstracts: dpcpsi.nih.gov/autism-data-...

Dr Nicola Sugden@nicolasugden.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We also tentatively identified some concerning themes across the sample, with researchers describing autism as 'disastrous' and something that needs to be prevented: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

How do genetics and genomics researchers write about autism? Well... When we looked at abstracts for NIH-funded research and we found potentially ableist discourse and language to be ubiquitous: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Autism ableism seen through research abstract contents: A mixed-methods analysis of language in NIH-funded genetic and genomic autism research - Nicola Sugden, Lily S Barna, Kaylee Foor, John Kee, Chr...

In recent years, genetic and genomic autism research has come under increasing scrutiny, moving to the center of debates about ableism, neurodiversity, autism a...

journals.sagepub.com

“Universities are in crisis and this inquiry couldn’t come soon enough.” @drjogrady.bsky.social After sustained pressure from UCU, The Education Committee has launched an inquiry into university finances. We’ll be submitting evidence. Full statement here: www.ucu.org.uk/article/1405...

Our branch stands firmly for trans inclusion and trans equality, and will not cease in protesting against discriminatory and inflammatory claims about trans people! www.ucu.org.uk/article/1404...

Employment Tribunal rejects claims University and College Union discriminated against members on grounds of their gender critical beliefs

The University and College Union has successfully defended claims against it in an Employment Tribunal from two UCU members who claim they had been discriminated against and harassed by the union beca...

ucu.org.uk

The Pathways to Work Green Paper sets out plans to cut billions from health and disability benefits. Instead of getting people into work, these cuts will push hundreds of thousands into poverty. Our new report looks at the impact of cuts to PIP, UC health & scrapping the WCA (🧵)

Excited to see the EMU’s work published yesterday in @jscicom.bsky.social! We studied the science communication (scicomm) landscape at NIH (obviously pre-2025). jcom.sissa.it/article/pubi... Congrats to AJ Hilliard, @nicolasugden.bsky.social, and Kristin Bass for their work on this.

Survey-based analysis of a science of science communication scientific interest group: member feedback and perspectives on science communication

Coordinated attempts to promote systematic approaches to the design and evaluation of science communication efforts have generally lagged behind the proliferation and diversification of those efforts....

jcom.sissa.it