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ariskatzourakis.bsky.social
Viruses, Evolution, Education, Trade Unions, things like that. Prof at Uni of Oxford, NEC member for UCU. Posts mine, reposts not.
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This is phenomenally important news - for anyone that hasn't been following, lenacapavir is likely to be transformative for HIV infection, with twice yearly injections almost completely preventing people becoming HIV positive. www.who.int/news/item/19...

Great read from @drjenndowd.bsky.social on the claim that “Historically, no one lived past age 35.”, and the importance of child mortality and means..."Every time someone states this “fact,” a demographer loses a piece of their soul." jenndowd.substack.com/p/there-were...

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬 Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

Don't get me wrong, exercise is a great thing. But there is sensible scientific reporting and headline writing and then there is this. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Michael Rosen on the 'island of strangers'. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih0W...

'return hubs' now, after 'island of strangers'? Are we serious? If we wanted those policies we would have voted for the parties that were offering them.

Sorry but if someone is in the Labour party and is not only speaking up against the 'island of strangers' line but actively defending it, benefit of doubt is instantly removed.

"UK decision not to suppress covid raises questions about medical and scientific advice" Five years on, analysis by Anthony Costello. www.bmj.com/content/389/...

No idea who the intended audience and intended political benefit of the PMs speech on immigration this morning was. Can guarantee it will only loose votes, and shift the rhetoric further rightwards. Top tip-get a new political speech script writer.

It will take many years to come close to recovering from the damage that is being done to scientific innovation and progress globally. Not much time to waste!

The recency and geographical origins of the bat viruses ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Without wanting to downplay Lysenko, but I think, at the very least, he would get a run for his money from what is happening now.

Who woulda thunk it. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

There is still one day left to apply for our 4 year postdoctoral position here in Vienna...!

A type of squirrel turns out to be one of the animal reservoirs of Mpox. www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6...

Countless examples of lived experience of secondary infections shortly after covid positivity, so very useful to have this effect examined and quantified in this cohort study. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

I'll try and have a go at a few simple lessons learned, its quite sad these need to be repeated. 1) NPIs work. 2) If they are needed, the sooner they are implemented, the more lives saved, and the shorter they need to be.

Seeing rather bizarre attempts to reframe the early pandemic narrative apropos five years since lockdowns, and yeah sorry science doesn't work like that. Doesn't matter who is in the white house or heading up the department of health.

When people in charge suggest we should just let a virus run its course through millions of birds and focus on the survivors, you realize this was exactly the policy espoused by some during the COVID pandemic *IN PEOPLE* (leaving aside the wisdom of making millions of virus evolution Petri dishes)

Big genomes doesn't even come close to describing lung fish, honestly. Top quality from @xkcd.com.

Who could have foreseen.. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Of course it would be political. As would keeping him in be. There isn't an apolitical decision that can be taken on this either way. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

“Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously” www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Με προβληματισμό, αν και χωρίς έκπληξη, παρακολουθούμε την προσπάθεια να παρουσιαστούν οι κινητοποιήσεις για την υπόθεση των Τεμπών ως μέρος σχεδίου «πολιτικής εκτροπής και ανωμαλίας».

A lesson for the conspiracists, Nature is much better at engineering viruses than humans... @ariskatzourakis.bsky.social @angierasmussen.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

No. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Massive respect to the team, and the science produced. Dear headline writers - why. www.independent.co.uk/news/science...