Fresh in @AmJBioeth: Hatherley @ colleagues introduce the concept of federation opacity (FO)—a valuable framework for understanding the ethical challenges of federated learning beyond privacy alone. Our commentary discusses the epistemic & ethical uniqueness of FO! urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

Federated Learning is Still Machine Learning! Epistemic vs. Ethical Issues Common Across Medical ML Models

Published in The American Journal of Bioethics (Vol. 26, No. 8, 2026)

urldefense.com

IABI (The International Academy for Bioethical Inquiry) is such a great community — scholars working across all kinds of topics, and this week we're at the beautiful Palazzola in Rome digging into the relationship between biology & culture. Love being part of it !

A few years back, Gus Skorburg & I argued for the #extended #health hypothesis in KIEJ: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... Now, with Jacob Neal & in conversation with Petersen & co, we argue dementia dyads look like extension—but aren't genuinely dyadic: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

In conversation with @salloch.bsky.social in AJOB on planetary health research ethics: J. Beever & I argue for a conception of health beyond the human-health-centric frame. Ad Planetam per Aspera! 🌍 #researchethics #environmentalbioethics #bioethics #health www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Ad Planetam per Aspera: Beyond Human Health Extensionism

Published in The American Journal of Bioethics (Vol. 26, No. 6, 2026)

tandfonline.com

In a special issue of The Pluralist (Vol. 21, No. 2), Rebekah Sinclair and @nmorar.bsky.social (@liberalartsosu.bsky.social) advocate for a culturally and epistemically pluralist approach to understanding genetic causation. 📄 on @projectmuse.bsky.social: muse.jhu.edu/pub/34/artic...

One of the joys of collaboration is being pushed to think differently—to expand your imagination, reconsider your assumptions, and tell new stories… in our case about land, clay and genetic causation. That's what we tried to do in our new paper with Rebekah Sinclair. muse.jhu.edu/pub/34/artic...

Feeling grateful to have wrapped up my research visit at @upf.edu Many thanks to Camil Ungureanu for his generous support and hospitality. It was also such a pleasure to catch up with Amélie Baud & @mireiavallesc.bsky.social. Thank you all for making this such a rewarding visit!

#Philosophie #Histoire 👨‍🦲 « #Foucault sans frontières » 🖥️ Les vidéos du colloque organisé par le Pr Didier Fassin, titulaire de la chaire Questions morales et enjeux politiques dans les sociétés contemporaines, sont disponibles. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/yh6k8e94

Congratulations to @danlor.bsky.social — The Foucauldian Mind is finally in the world ! A hundred years of Foucault's thought, gathered with such care into one living, breathing volume. www.routledge.com/The-Foucauld...

The Foucauldian Mind

Michel Foucault is one of the most influential, and controversial, thinkers of the twentieth century. His work has had a transformative effect on the study of the humanities and social sciences. His e...

routledge.com

Somewhere in the quiet exchange between microbe and mind, memory takes shape — not carved alone, but woven by a community too small to see. @acabirol.bsky.social et al. show us that remembering may be a collective act, written in part by microbial hands. Deeply moved ! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A defined community of core gut microbiota members promotes cognitive performance in honey bees | PNAS

Gut microbiota across animals have been shown to influence host cognition and behavior. However, it remains unclear whether these cognitive effects...

pnas.org

Great piece by @kristymferraro.bsky.social and Ann C. Thresher in @pnas.org about why environmental scientists need ethics training more than ever before ! The reverse is also true... humanities folks would also benefit from additional training in environmental sciences. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A microbial view of life pushes us to rethink our relationship to the smallest living things — and to be more thoughtful about how we harness microbiomes in the built environment. So proud to see this work in print! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Towards the responsible development of microbiome engineering in the built environment

This Perspective calls for a transdisciplinary framework for the responsible advancement of Microbiome Engineering of the Built Environment (MEoBE). Acknowledging MEoBE's potential to improve publi...

tandfonline.com

Particularly proud to see this paper out as an important & new invitation to think about microbiome stewardship! academic.oup.com/sumbio/advan...

Microbiome Stewardship: Definition and Guiding Principles for Implementation

Abstract. Microbiomes are essential for ecosystem, plant, animal, and human health. There is accumulating evidence that changes to microbiomes from anthrop

academic.oup.com

@adrian-currie.bsky.social provides us a beautiful example of what a book review should look like: careful, generous, sharp... and fragile, which makes it worth reading ! Itching now to get to Robert Northcutt's Science for a Fragile World. ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/scie...

Science for a Fragile World

Maybe the world is like an armillary sphere. Metallic balls representing celestial objects are placed just-so along spherical rings, tracing an at-first...

ndpr.nd.edu

Beyond ecstatic to be able to put together this lineup for our little workshop on the Philosophy of Computational Methods in Science. #philsci

Book tour! Come by and help brainstorm how to fight together to protect democracy and make the world more just. @dryan149.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social #booksky

Got back to Eugene (OR) after an AMAZING one-year sabbatical in Barcelona… and my Swiss friend, Romain, took me - as a welcome back party - to see the stoner rock/ metal band from Sweden-#DOZER! They played a small venue but- OMG -they still played like there was no tomorrow… what a great band !

theonion.com/seek-funding...

‘Seek Funding’ Step Added To Scientific Method

PARIS—In an effort to modernize the principles and empirical procedures of examining phenomena and advancing humanity’s collective knowledge, the International Council for Science announced Thursday t...

theonion.com

The research group “Microbiome Researh and Race in ‘Local South’” investigates how categories of race and ethnicity are used in the production of local scientific knowledge in South Africa and Latin America Learn more about us here: www.uu.nl/en/research/... #hpbio 🦠🌱🐋@utrechthps

Microbiome Research and Race in the ‘Local South’

How can scientists in human microbiome ecology adopt epistemically fruitful, non-discriminatory, and locally relevant classification criteria of human diversity and race?

uu.nl

Such a fun an intense time @ishpssb2025.bsky.social with @nmorar.bsky.social @utrechthps.bsky.social Thanks for the amazing discussion!

And the ‘tour de force’ on how to think about #humannature continued at #ISHPSSB2025 with @theramseylab.bsky.social (chair of the session), Maria Kronfeldner, @matteomameli.bsky.social and Subrena Smith ! Thank you ISH community for such a great conference ! See you - hopefully - next year !

An amazing festival on how to think about ‘human nature’ with ‪ @edouardmachery.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social, and Aleksandra Knežević ! #ISHPSSB2025 totally rocks!

Continuing learning at #ISHPSSB2025 about values in ecology and conservation with @luciacneco.bsky.social and Alejandro Merlo ! Thank you for your great presentations !

Inspiring work by Denis Walsh on organism/ environment dialectic, along side @jonothingeb.bsky.social and Stuart Newman ! #ISHPSSB2025 is such a treat !

What a great talk with Mike Travisano about evolutionary innovation and the origin of life, alongside amazing panelists Ken Waters and ‪@mrebolleda.bsky.social ! So happy to be at #ISHPSSB2025 !

Beautiful piece by May R. Berenbaum, Editor-in-Chief @pnas.org , showing how the history of science/ biology can help us to understand our present time and its current challenges when it comes to political interference… www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The 2nd International Congress of Ecological Humanities is officially open ! With the unique @bea-labajos.bsky.social - amazing organizer ! #CIHE @publicpolicycenter.bsky.social

Truly inspiring work on the human microbiome with an eye toward clinical applications... with Stanislav Dusko Ehrlich & @bernatolle.bsky.social ! No better way to close two days at #BCNMicrobiome. Special thanks to the organizers of this event !

A masterclass in human microbiome studies (about the Dutch microbiome and microbiome transmission) with Sasha Zhernakova & @mireiavallesc.bsky.social ! #BCNMicrobiome

And, the learning continues with #BCNMicrobiome - from emulsifier and chronic disease to immune signatures in HIV vaccine responses with Benoit Chassaing & Alessandra Borgognone !