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Andrew Bissette

@andrewbissette.bsky.social
1.5K followers 1.2K following 2.3K posts

Recovering prebiotic chemist. Editor in Chief at Cell Reports Physical Science @cp-cellrepphyssci.bsky.social. Personal account, views not my employer's, etc.

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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 5h
Tfw the haunted Victorian pencil is the one making sense
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 16h
I don't believe for a second this charlatan is doing this for real, but the fact he's encouraging others to is sheer evil.
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Yonaka are so good live
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Mike Elgan @mikeelgan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Even without a camera, you can't trust Ray-Ban Meta Glasses. Here's why. www.computerworld.com/article/4228...
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Chuck Pearson (he/him/etc.) @shorterpearson.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Thanks to @kvasquez.bsky.social for a wonderful conversation that contributed to her reporting on generative AI in the chemistry classroom for Chemical and Engineering News. cen.acs.org/education/un...
To Pearson and many other educators, learning how to problem solve is one of the most valuable benefits of a college education. “We teach problem-solving in a more structured form at the undergraduate level so that students can deal with the unstructured problems they’re going to encounter in research and in the workforce,” Pearson says.

He’s begun emphasizing this idea to his students. “You have to make a decision as a student that the process of learning is worth putting aside [generative AI] initially,” he says.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 02/10/2026
The rush to accuse, without anything approaching due diligence, artists of using "AI," should be treated with contempt. An artist gets their work *ripped off* to train a plagiarism machine, which then shits out inferior versions of that work, so then you accuse the artist of using "AI"? Fuck you.
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Roger @arbejdsmyren.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In Denmark a scientist plotted data and research findings into Claude, only to see Anthropic publish the findings as something the LLM had conjured up on its own. The theft of one scientist’s data and work translates into false claims about the model’s ability to generate research #ai #eupol
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The 2026 version of drowning your Sims, but it requires carpeting the earth in data centres rather than a 200 MHz processor and a few MB of ram.
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Stu Cantrill @stuartcantrill.com · 01/10/2026
One for #ChemSky 👇
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Replicating proto-cells with heritable states? Bah, who needs nucleic acids for that? My latest for @chemistryworld.com (Why the pepper moth? Read on.) www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/auto...
chemistryworld.com
Autocatalytic networks could lie at the beginning of evolution
New modelling suggests how compartmentalised cross-catalysing networks can evolve adaptations that are passed on through chemical states
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Some people say working with LLMs is not a skill. But a couple of years using them at work is really helping me run rings around the terrible chat bot my letting agent uses for repair reporting.
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Gavin Lingiah 🧬⚖️ @gav1nx.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Andy Burnham: We shall improve society a little bit. Conservatives:
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For a while back there I was concerned Rollie didn't like boxes. But croissant mode has been activated.
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David K Smith @professor-dave.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
One of the most interesting biographies I discovered during my #DecolonisingChemistry project for the @chemistryatyork.bsky.social curriculum was that of Alice Ball a black chemist, whose leprosy treatment, using carbonyl chemistry to build on traditional medicine, was stolen by a male colleague.
Portrait of Alice Ball including images of the Chaulmoogra plant and its conversion into a leprosy treatment.
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The craziest compound-impurity story I’ve ever heard:
science.org
Now That's An Impurity Story
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I think he's starting to trust me
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"A sort of 2 and half lock" - yes, that's what it sounded like. Hardly doom.
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is now a Rollie stan account
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Alice Roberts @profaliceroberts.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Reform want to indoctrinate our children. Freedom of (and from) belief is a human right. humanists.uk/2026/09/10/s...
humanists.uk
Reform UK Braverman promises 'consequences' if pupils don't sing hymns
Reform UK has said schools will face ‘consequences’ if they fail to make pupils regularly sing hymns and the national anthem under a Reform government. The party’s education spokesperson, Suella Brave...
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Jill "Bury a Friend" Pantozzi @jillpantozzi.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Last month, a Google alert directed me to an interview I did with cartoonist Matt Furie—creator of Pepe the Frog…only I haven’t done any interview and I’d never even met Furie. So I clicked. "None of this is true": AI, content farms, and one completely made-up article. bsky.app/profile/then...
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This very brave boy came home with us today and is already coming out to say hello
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"I believe that science derives its authority from something more than mastering the pipeline from data generation to publication. Rather, it comes from interactions within a community of people trained to interrogate evidence and answer for the conclusions they draw from it." Brandon is spot on.
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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 28/09/2026
EVs are now up to 9x cheaper to drive than diesels in UK www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-evs...
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Alejandro Montenegro @aemonten.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
That the Oxford comma is essential, and I will add it to all your manuscripts.
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Alejandro Montenegro @aemonten.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I'm sorry, what now? www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
cell.com
Direct cell-to-cell transmission of retrotransposons
Retrotransposons can infect neighboring cells using a mechanism that relies on a small fusogen-like protein rather than on the envelope protein that is typically required for infection.
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Jay W @jaydeedouble.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Hitler Shit…
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monk @warisaracket.me · 25/09/2026
I believe this is the reverse centaurism that @doctorow.pluralistic.net warned us about...
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Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪 @diygeochemist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Hey #ChemSky and other environmental types: I'm looking for a few papers to read in the seminars we do in my Environmental Chemistry class. I have the aqueous environment pretty well covered, but I could use more suggestions for atmospheric papers.
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Chemistry World @chemistryworld.com · 25/09/2026
‘Every hour a chemist spends deciphering figures or images to see what has already been made is an hour that could instead be spent on chemistry discovery,’ says Mirit Eldor, life sciences managing director at Elsevier. #ChemSky www.chemistryworld.com/news/elsevie...
chemistryworld.com
Elsevier teams up with AI firm to extract chemical structure data from papers
Publishing giant will host data on Reaxys but researchers have concerns about independently validating the method
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
PSA: sending an abusive email and then asking for a favour isn't a great way to do business.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
BBC "broadcast a livestream" Other outlets (Times, Metro) see slashing the dinghy as the headline
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It is probably right to make it the headline. To omit it entirely while finding space for "organised recent protests" looks like bowlderising the news out of some curiously skewed idea that being even handed means out leaving out the facts www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Far-right activist Daniel Thomas slashes dinghy in Channel with blade while rescue worker onboard
Thomas called followers to protest against arrival of asylum seekers in Gosport, but Border Force instead transported them to Dover
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The BBC news report simply says Mr Thomas broadcast a livestream. This seems highly inadequate in quite a lengthy report, leaving out such key details: what he did; the French stating the behaviour was unlawful www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Dozens of migrants taken to Dover after more than 30 hours at sea
Protesters had earlier gathered in Gosport after an initial report that the small boat would be brought further west.
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Dr Zubaida Haque @zubhaque.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
And they thought Muslim women choosing to wear hijabs (headscarves) and niqabs (face veil) was a threat to British values lol
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/09/2026
...and at the end of it John Henry is like 'well, it felt kind of efficient using two hammers but I’m not sure what the point was.'" -Rusty Foster, Today in Tabs www.todayintabs.com/p/meta-s-new...
todayintabs.com
Meta's New A.I. Agent For Losers
Also: "fast as hell and built for sickos?" That's what they called me in high school.
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Aaron Huertas @aaronhuertas.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This really puts stuff like publicly funded third spaces in perspective for me. It's so relatively cheap to build out community centers, gyms, makerspaces, studios etc.
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP Stylebook warns against anthropomorphizing AI systems: “Avoid language that gives them human characteristics… Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”
APStylebook @APStylebook
X.com
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
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Max Renner @maxrenner.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Maybe those antibody vendors should have just said their validation western blots were AI-enhanced. Then it would all be fine 😌
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Will @popher.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
BBC news has been by and for the far right for many many years.
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dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
it's weird that ai got too dangerous to keep advancing right around the time money got more expensive to borrow
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Decades of cowardice and appeasement of the far right by successive governments has led us to a place where volunteers in lifeboats are at risk from armed thugs.
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Compound Interest | Chemistry infographics @compoundchem.com · 22/09/2026
Happy Birthday Michael Faraday! 🎉 Faraday was born #OTD (22 Sep) in 1791. He made significant contributions to electrochemistry, including popularising many of the electrochemical terms used today ⚡ wp.me/s4aPLT-faraday #ChemSky 🧪
This graphic titled "Today in Chemistry History" commemorates Michael Faraday's birthday on 22nd September 1791. It features a portrait of Faraday alongside his birth and death dates, noting his work establishing modern electrochemistry, studying electromagnetism, and discovering benzene. Below, it illustrates Faraday's laws of electrolysis with a labeled beaker diagram showing an anode, cathode, and electrolyte. A bottom note states he popularised terms including ion, anode, and cathode.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
From @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me on what we should take from the 2026 summer of AI hype: www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...
technologyreview.com
Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype
Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 22/09/2026
I don't know, maybe all those non-"straight white dude" people won their awards because their books were actually really fucking good, how about that as a hypothesis
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Dalmeet Singh Chawla @dalmeet.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A study tracking diamond open-access journals has found an increase in titles switching to other publishing models — especially over the past few years. My latest for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Hundreds of ‘free’ academic journals have started charging fees
A study tracking diamond open-access journals has found an increase in titles switching to other publishing models — especially over the past few years.
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
My two brains
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Andrew Bissette @andrewbissette.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Whoever decided all images should be webp instead of literally any other format needs a slap
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Stefan @zin5ki.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Steles are up.
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
If Democrats continue to focus on elite issues like the price of diesel fuel instead of on kitchen table issues like chem trails and racial purity, they're going to get walloped in November.
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