iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Hank Greely

Killed. NSF’s SBE was killed, in violation of law. The President does not have the power to choose to kill programs at a whim by defunding them. The imperial presidency was a mistake and we are in a separation of powers constitutional crisis.

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worm @rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If you ever wondered why visible light is those particular wavelengths, it's because life evolved to see in the narrow range where water is transparent

Diagram of absorption of emf by water. There's a gap right that dips in the 500 nm range

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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This is a bit of a parlor trick and is being hyped. The images are not being generated de-novo. They are being matched with a known set of prior images or text, meaning that they reconstruct the signals recorded by brain when shown images during training. Verrrry different than reading thoughts.

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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The postmenopausal ovary is often dismissed as a “shriveled husk.” A new Science perspective challenges that idea: the ovary keeps changing after reproduction ends. What it does in those decades deserves much more attention. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Does the postmenopausal ovary still matter?

Ovaries may influence health long after their reproductive function ends

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Reposted by Hank Greely

International Neuroethics Society @neuroethics.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

We invite scholars to submit research for Neuroethics 2027. We welcome research from any field that addresses any topic or issue related to #neuroethics. The event includes opportunities to participate online and in-person in #Madrid on April 7-9, 2027. neuroethicssociety.org/meeting/neur...

Three up images of art and architecture in Madrid with the conference color scheme overlay

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

So glad that this quote can be added to my forthcoming article on AI and Epistemic Dispossession because I had to say that they will absolutely be using AI to erase science and history but I didn’t yet have the ‘he admit it’ smoking gun

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Oh I have been waiting for someone to dig into this issue. 👏 "The spectre of population collapse serves highly concrete economic purposes...world-building and market domination go hand in hand in the current fertility obsession manifested by tech elites." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

Tech oligarchs’ obsession with pronatalism and fertility markets

Published in Science as Culture (Vol. 35, No. 3, 2026)

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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Biotech founder Cathy Tie calls editing human embryos a "moral imperative." Scientists say the work is nowhere near ready, and that even a perfect tool can't guarantee safety. That raises a bigger question: What would safe enough actually look like? My story @wired.com www.wired.com/story/biotec...

wired.com

A Biotech Founder Makes the Moral Case for Gene-Editing Human Embryos

The practice of editing the genes of embryos remains highly controversial and risky, but Origin Genomics founder Cathy Tie argues its a “moral imperative” to address hereditary diseases.

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Mirror life in @economist.com: www.economist.com/science-and-... I have already said publicly that we should worry about this & pay attention to it, but not panic. Not yet, and maybe never. But the path forward is tricky. Can we know how dangerous this would be without trying it? Wicked hard problem

economist.com

It may soon be possible to create “mirror life”

Such research poses risks for humanity and the planet

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Putin's victory theory is to freeze Ukrainians, esp in Kyiv, over the winter in a gross violation of the Laws of War. Ukraine has generally been good about observing those laws. But at some point SHOULD it retaliate by taking out Moscow's power? It hasn't. But I bet it can. Should it? Real question

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Editorial in @nature.com: Lab-grown brain organoids: time for international oversight. www.nature.com/articles/d41... Discusses and supports efforts, including ours at Asilomar, to create such a mechanism. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... and dana.org/resources/to... Nice to see! : )

nature.com

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I am actually somewhat a fan of Colossal & its de-extinction & endangered species efforts. But I am NOT surprised to see that it has finally given up its always "ambitious" goal of having mammoth calves in 2028 & pushed it back to the 2030s. No one else is surprised either nypost.com/2026/09/26/s...

nypost.com

Woolly mammoth to be resurrected with the help of AI: scientists

Colossal Biosciences says its woolly mammoth de-extinction project is now targeting the early 2030s, not 2028 as first promised, after discovering it must edit over 150 genes — not 60 using A…

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Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Animals are really a great analogy, we have a legal construct already for "thing that you own which behaves unpredictably" and the standard is "you are responsible for the damage it causes so make sure you restrain it appropriately."

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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'm very excited about this one! It integrates genetics, development, and evolution (as well as neuroscience and behavior) to present what I think is a powerful new way of thinking about how the genome encodes the form and nature of an organism. 😊

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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's done! 😊

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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I saw an ad for pumpkin spice bacon and thought that was the most American thing I’d ever heard, but nope…

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yes. When I first saw a comment about this I thought "Wow, DOJ is actually going after a criminal ICE employee?" Then I read it again. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

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Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And as icing on the cake, granting certiorari on "[s]uch other questions that the Government determines are appropriate for the proper disposition of the case" is a giant flashing neon sign that the fix is in www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

supremecourt.gov

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Spotted parked along a street on Stanford campus, what I think must be THE FIRST of the Calif license plates, coming just after 9ZZZ999. New format reads right to left: 1 #, 3 letters, 3 #s. Go Card! Fear the Tree!

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Greer Donley @greerdonley.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I loved participating in this story abt a new crop of cases challenging abortion bans based on the pregnant person's right to life. Kind of wish I hadn't cursed on the record, but 🤷‍♀️! Grateful for the shout out to "From Medical Exceptions to Reproductive Freedom" (co-authored w @dsc250.bsky.social)

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 28/09/2026

“It’s not just about attacking warehouses so that we won’t have food. They also want to intimidate us — to make it so that we can’t work, study, do scientific research or really do anything at all.” nyti.ms/4dKfh3F

nyti.ms

Russian Drone Strikes Ukraine’s Science Academy, Causing Fire in City Center (Gift Article)

A Russian jet-powered drone hit Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, the source of almost all of the country’s major scientific discoveries.

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FactPost @factpostnews.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

At least 6 babies in Pennsylvania have been born infected with measles.

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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

OK, this delighted me.

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Good @theatlantic.com article on post-retirement life, leading w/Stanford's Distinguished Careers Institute, dci.stanford.edu. I've given talks to those cohorts on occasion and had some in my classes. Seems like a very good program, at least for some people. www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

theatlantic.com

The New Old Age

What a new life stage can teach the rest of us about how to find meaning and purpose—before it’s too late

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Michigan Law @umichlaw.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Michigan Law #MorningRead "Uncorrected." By Professor @nicholson.bsky.social and Janet Freilich in the Boston University Law Review. www.bu.edu/bulawreview/...

In addition to making rules and deciding outcomes, the legal system
generates, curates, and shares information. When the system gets rules and
outcomes wrong, it is obviously a problem, and much effort (and scholarly
attention) goes into identifying those mistakes and fixing them. But the system
also gets information wrong, a problem mostly overlooked by policymakers and
scholars. Those information mistakes matter too—they are prevalent and
harmful. We show here that even when the mistakes are widely known and the
errors broadly acknowledged, the information very often goes uncorrected. As
a result, people make decisions based on bad information from a system that
should be trustworthy and authoritative: builders build houses in mislabeled
floodplains, patients use medical devices that are not really safe and effective,
background checks disqualify potential employees based on crimes they did not
commit, and inventors rely on falsified data in patent disclosures, to name a few.
Why are so many legal information mistakes uncorrected? We identify
multiple reasons, including lack of support for public correction mechanisms,
lack of robust private mechanisms, challenges in communication between
institutions, and an overreliance on self-interest. An underlying problem,
though, is that information mistakes just are not given enough focus as the major
trans-substantive problem they are. That is its own mistake, because in a world
where an increasing number of decisions incorporate an increasing amount of
information, mistakes in that information matter more and more. Thankfully,
technology makes that task somewhat easier, as does increased attention toward
improving incentives and allocating responsibility. It is worth tackling the

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Reposted by Hank Greely

Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 27/09/2026

NEW: A Texas woman died after being denied an abortion and her family sued the state and her doctors for violating her right to life. They say the ban should be struck down. It's one of several cases challenging abortion laws under state constitutional rights to life and liberty @autonomynews.co

autonomynews.co

New Lawsuits Argue That Pregnant People Also Have a Right to Life

Lawyers are fighting abortion bans in state court by establishing that pregnant people have a right to life and liberty—or at least self-defense.

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Reposted by Hank Greely

Sara Gibbs @sararoseg.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

He imposed Shania Law

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Cahir O'Kane @cahirokane.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For "Muslim" today, substitute "Irish" in previous generations, and the bigotry sounds horribly familiar. All the more reason why racists in Ireland, and the greater number who turn a blind eye to them, should know better.

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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

To see measles spread so wildly—so much so that congenital measles has now returned—has long been a dream of RFK Jr, arguably the world’s most extreme & dangerous anti-vaxx activist & eugenicist Now that he runs the US federal health system, RFK is able to make his longstanding dreams come true 😢

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Wow. Just wow. Ad hoc cheating or was corruption involved? And, if so, of whom with what?

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Maryn McKenna @marynmck.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fake. USDA. Seals. Used by an NC meat processing plant on 83.5 TONS of meat. Produced entirely outside the federal inspection system, according to news reports. We are pretty close to The Jungle (second ed.) now, no? www.scrippsnews.com/life/recalls...

scrippsnews.com

Interactive: Meat recall linked to fake USDA labels

Pork, beef and goat products are being recalled after a company allegedly used fake USDA inspection labels. Explore our interactive guide to see which products are affected and what to look for.

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Greer Donley @greerdonley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

So happy that "The New Abortion Battleground" (co-authored with @dsc250.bsky.social & @rebouche.bsky.social) was cited yesterday by the Sixth Circuit in finding a Tennessee law unconstitutional that criminalizes helping a minor obtain an abortion (even out of state where it is legal)

law.justia.com

Welty v. Dunaway, 25-5738 (6th Cir. 2026)

After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Tennessee enacted a near-total abortion ban and later passed the Underage Abortion Trafficking Act, which included the “Recruitment Provision.” This provision...

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WarTranslated (Dmitri) @wartranslated.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Russian terrorists struck a school in Ivankiv, Kyiv region.

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Russia keeps targeting civilian targets. Why is there not more outrage? Yes, Russian civilians sometimes die in Ukrainian strikes, but I DO believe they aim at legit targets. Sometimes people working there die or the drones miss or Russian defenses kill their own. But Russia does it w/intent. Vile

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

More on the CIRM & Fanconi anemia "New Era at the $12B California Stem Cell Agency w/Changing Priorities; Stanford Falls Victim" Stanford isn't the victim but the (admittedly few) patients. Over peanuts ($12m). CIRM seeking only big impact, short time frame? david293.substack.com/p/new-era-at...

david293.substack.com

New Era at the $12 Billion California Stem Cell Agency with Changing Priorities; Stanford Falls Victim

Proposed Fanconi in utero clinical trial rejected despite high scientific score

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

From The Download, of @planetarysociety.bsky.social. "A recent survey witnessed the formation of roughly one new lunar crater around a few meters wide every hour and a half." Wow! The study www.aanda.org/articles/aa/... I wonder what Earth;s #; we're a bigger target but the atmosphere must help!

aanda.org

NELIOTA: New results and updated statistics after 6.5 years of lunar impact flashes monitoring | Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)

Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is an international journal which publishes papers on all aspects of astronomy and astrophysics

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

No magic bullets, but it would be a promising start.

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Ryan Calo @rcalo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I don’t even care what your tech policy question is, the answer is restore the Office of Technology Assessment 🔥

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

CIRM says no to the $12m Fanconi anemia grant. david293.substack.com/p/stem-cell-... I don't know enough to know whether that was the right decision, but it does make me sad. I hope they can find other philanthropic funding; $12m isn't THAT much.

david293.substack.com

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An Gé Mhór | Великий Гусак @derk-mcguirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"She is so thoroughly a daughter of Erin that I never see her without thinking of a hod of mortar and a potato." Benjamin Disraeli, talking about the Irish wife of one of his friends. He also summed up Irish people as every other Tory did in the nineteenth century:

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Stanford Law School @law.stanford.edu · 24/09/2026

When can states redraw congressional districts? Can the White House change mail voting rules through the Postal Service? Prof. Nate Persily talks to Stanford Legal discussing the legal battles over 2026 election rules—& what's at stake for democracy. law.stanford.edu/stanford-leg...

law.stanford.edu

U.S. Elections Under Pressure from White House | Stanford Law School

Nate Persily joins Pam Karlan to discuss efforts to change the rules governing the 2026 elections and the legal battles over how those changes would affect voting.

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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The ovaries don't just shut down after menopause. They keep changing—and may take on new roles as they age. But are those changes protective, harmful, or both? Scientists are only beginning to find out. My latest for @wired.com www.wired.com/story/ovary-...

wired.com

The Ovary Is Surprisingly Active After Menopause. Scientists Are Trying to Figure Out Why

A growing body of research is putting the ovary in a new light, not as an egg factory with an expiration date, but as an organ that shapes women’s health long after the fertile years have passed.

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Some spurting at Kilauea. Hasn't been fountaining for an unusually long time during which another vent opened. We'll see what happens! Visible mainly on webcam 1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HggW...

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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Good piece on an interesting decision point for Calif Insti for Regen Med (CIRM). "Backers of $12 Million Plan to Cure Ultra-Rare Disease in the Womb Launch Effort to Stave Off its Rejection". VERY promising approach to very rare disease, but time frame issues. david293.substack.com/p/backers-of...

david293.substack.com

Backers of $12 Million Plan to Cure Ultra-Rare Disease in the Womb Launch Effort to Stave Off its Rejection

Proposal ranked 90 out of 100 by scientific reviewers, but CIRM staff says it not likely to achieve its objectives

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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Keeps finding new ways of making me ashamed of my country and of the people who thought he was fit for office.

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