Larry Hunter
@proflhunter.bsky.social
Knowledge based biomedical data science, artificial intelligence for discovery in molecular biomedicine, computational bioethics, theory of mattering. University of Chicago / Big Island HI
ICE collected ~1,000,000 DNA samples last year (including from children) and deposited them into the FBI’s CODIS database, which used to hold only DNA from people convicted of a crime. There are no guardrails, it’s already being used for other purposes. Very dangerous! www.wired.com/story/ice-dn...
i had long idly wondered about the origin of the name “Escherichia"
c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 4d agoThe headlines are still covering the cyclosporiasis outbreak from lettuce, but let's talk about a different summer, long ago. The headlines in Bavaria would have called it "summer diarrhea" & it was killing babies. Enter our hero, Professor Theodor Escherich of the Julius Hospital, Würzburg.
Good advice for scholars, even for those not in Theoretical CS.
Clément Canonne@ccanonne.github.io · 4d ago"We're all worried," as what it means to do research (in my field, Theoretical CS) seems to be shifting, and shifting fast. What to do? Senior researchers must lead by example, knowing that not everything will pan out. What I'm suggesting below may not work everywhere, but here's my own advice: 1/
The last few months have been as big a shift in the world of AI as the original release of ChatGPT was. The world has to get ready for the changes. For @the-independent.com, I looked at how China appears more ready than anyone else www.independent.co.uk/tech/artific...
China is preparing its citizens for AI upheaval in a way the West can only dream of
From humanoid helpers to a ‘ban’ on AI companions and a radical overhaul of its education system, China is preparing its citizens for the future in a much more advanced way than the West. There are le...
independent.co.uk
A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Informa of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges.
Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges
iStock A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges…
retractionwatch.com
Endometriosis takes nine years to diagnose. That’s about to change. NICE has approved two tests: a saliva test reading microRNA markers, and a gut-sensor test returning results in 45 minutes, sparing women the keyhole surgery currently needed. buff.ly/QX3jHk8 #ShareGoodNewsToo
Rapid endometriosis tests to be made available on NHS in England and Wales
Saliva and gut sensor-based tests hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for millions of women who can wait years for diagnosis
buff.ly
Pretty much all the billionaires are despicable, but there must be a special place in Hell waiting for Alex Karp.
Infosecsie (ツンデレ)@myraccoonhands.com · 4d agoOh, for sure! In fact, they’ve already openly admitted to that. futurism.com/artificial-i...
"Exclusively for UChicago on-campus housing residents, students can borrow original artworks for their dorm rooms—for free—all school year long." artsmidwest.org/stories/art-...
Dalí in Dorms: Midwest Museum Loans Art to College Students
Art isn’t always meant for white gallery walls behind rope. Sometimes, it lives amid loft beds and term papers—if even just for a moment.
artsmidwest.org
the average American says that a quarter of all Americans are native! But I do not think they actually *believe* that, I think they're just really bad at numbers.
*That's a lot of Delvish-sounding English text, for official advice which is simply: "Hide and don't take any pictures." #GrayZone #missilestrikes #Iran #SaudiArabia *What if you wander your own neighborhood, document the mayhem and upload it with indignant commentary? Even bigger trouble
*Well, yeah. What he said, about Dario *Except it's even worse, because the AI itself radically fertilizes all those eccentricities. *If Albania was the only country on earth with AI now, we'd all think they'd gone completely insane
Ted Underwood@tedunderwood.com · last wk.I respect the candor here. But I don't agree with the geopolitics, at all. The line between democracies and autocracies is not as crisp as this pretends. How much do we trust, e.g., an AI company in a competitive-authoritarian state that launches sneak decapitation attacks & bombs schools?
I respect the candor here. But I don't agree with the geopolitics, at all. The line between democracies and autocracies is not as crisp as this pretends. How much do we trust, e.g., an AI company in a competitive-authoritarian state that launches sneak decapitation attacks & bombs schools?
Our position on open-weights models
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on open-weights models
anthropic.com
*Why does Dario imagine that Trumpistan, of all the places in the world, can safely manage and regulate AI *If Trump was the President of some place like Albania, no one would trust that government or its industrial leaders with even a burnt-out match www.anthropic.com/news/positio...
Our position on open-weights models
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on open-weights models
anthropic.com
What amazing art!
Carolina A. Miranda@cmonstah.bsky.social · 4w agoAn artist became a private investigator and used her license to make art which launched an investigation, which is now being turned into a play. I write about the absurd and poignant work of Julia Weist — which explores the ways we are saturated in surveillance: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/t...
Heritage diets are disappearing as food systems homogenize. A Comment article in Nature Medicine discusses the World Diet Initiative, which offers a framework to document heritage diets and investigate their health effects before they are lost. go.nature.com/3Tj8F4U 🍎📃 🏺 🧪
Many scientists are working as hard as they can to police bad actors in our “sector,” but it’s not enough. Impunity of elite bad actors is a society-wide crisis, and requires everyone to pitch in.
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief."@nocatsnomasters.bsky.social · last wk.This. A major part of our current epistemic crisis is elites assuming that they didn't need to police bad actors in their own sector.
A bunch of volunteers out planting trees at Pu’u Wa’awa’a today
Great take on AI biosecurity risks and hours to deal with them. youtu.be/f-7A-IpI610?...
ISMB AIxbio risk talk July 2026
YouTube video by Michelle Holko
youtu.be
a very good read, didn't realize Moravec is still alive or about his seemingly timely prediction made in the 80s about the estimated arrival of AGI
Hans Moravec Was Right About AI. Is He Right About the Fate of Humanity?
Hans Moravec predicted human-level AI by 2028. Now he contemplates our species’ end—and his own.
nymag.com
Whew, the editors of @science.org are getting real.
The Assault On Science Funding Continues
science.org
*Chinese AI guy launching "Moonshot" and "Kimi" is super into Pink Floyd and Haruki Murakami *Not, like, an Elon Musk eccentric of any kind. Everyday Chinese dude en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Zh...
Yang Zhilin - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
What a harrowing story and an incredible work of #scicomm in the reporting. 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
science.org
The pro-peptide stacked FDA advisory committee voted to lift the ban for BPC-157, as expected. This ban lifting is baseless and will give the public a sense of legitimacy for a peptide with no clinical trial data to support safety or efficacy. Pathetic.
"The Trump administration hates academic science funding... They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands."
Derek Lowe@dereklowe.bsky.social · 2w agoThoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:
Federal agency AHRQ, focused on health care quality, cancels $109 million in grants At least 78 grants have been affected. The notices left health services researchers concerned about the future of their field. www.statnews.com/2026/07/22/a...
Federal health quality research grants worth $109 million ended early
At least 78 AHRQ grants worth $200 million have been affected by "non-award" notices; it's estimated those grants had $109.2 million in funding remaining.
statnews.com
An understatement: The “call for the administration to de-prioritize “life sciences,” which encompass molecular biology, genetics and other fields in biomedicine, as well as clinical trials aimed at testing new therapies, raised alarms among biomedical researchers and academic medical centers.”
Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities
Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.
nytimes.com
NEW: At least five media companies are using algorithmic pricing to decide how much news subscribers should pay. If you've been told that your news subscription price was determined by an algorithm using your personal data, please take the survey at the end: www.niemanlab.org/2026/07/this...
“This price was set by an algorithm”: News subscribers are surprised by a new line in their renewal emails
Outlets like Wired, NJ.com, and The Wall Street Journal are setting renewal prices just for you — and being forced to disclose it.
niemanlab.org
