iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The housing stock comparison is better. If he could somehow convert his shares into cash, he could afford to buy every home north of Bradford, or almost every home in London.

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Nope. His paper wealth is greater than the GDP of every country in the world apart from about 17/18. UK GDP is a bit under $4tn so it’s about a third.

Medical students make ‘landmark’ breakthrough on deadlies...

What were you doing at the age of 26? Guessing it wasn’t publishing a landmark study on a type of brain cancer that had been a mystery for 50+ years. observer.co.uk/news/health/...

observer.co.uk

During breaks from their training, two students discovered how diffuse midline glioma tumours spread – and how they might be weakened

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To get your head around Musk’s fortune, first understand ...

Musk’s wealth is so obscene we need to think of it in global terms. The Musk-to-GDP ratio is about 1% for the world. It’s more than everyone in the UK pays in personal taxes. observer.co.uk/news/busines...

observer.co.uk

The SpaceX president has spent the past 24 years making her boss’s dreams come true as the ‘adult in the room’

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Nothing to forgive Danny - we’re all rooting for you

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

If Stokes isn’t captain, how secure is his place?

The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Reposted by James Tapper

Alzheimer’s researchers desperate for more drug trial participants Uk charities are calling the government to change how the disease is diagnosed so testing and access to treatment can be expanded, reports James Tapper bit.ly/43YxJA9

bit.ly

Alzheimer’s researchers desperate for more drug trial par...

Uk charities are calling the government to change how the disease is diagnosed so testing and access to treatment can be expanded

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Reposted by James Tapper

The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

How Richard Dawkins evolved into a novelist James Tapper writes that The Selfish Gene writer has begun a Jurassic Park-stye tale about bringing Homo erectus back from extinction – but the wider scientific community isn’t sure it’s wise… bit.ly/4xftduF

bit.ly

How Richard Dawkins evolved into a novelist | The Observer

The Selfish Gene writer has begun a Jurassic Park-stye tale about bringing Homo erectus back from extinction – but the wider scientific community isn’t sure it’s wise…

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Reposted by James Tapper

Cat Neilan @catneilan.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Some people shrug off the use of illegal (ghost or cloned) licence plates as low level crime, evading speeding tickets and congestion charges etc But increasingly police are aware of their role in organised crime, and even murder - like that of 21-year-old Kyron Lee observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

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Reposted by James Tapper

Hannah Harris Green @whatsitlike.me · 03/06/2026

When I was a kid, I ❤️ Lunchables, although they didn’t taste great. But I got to squeeze chocolate frosting onto a “pizza!” For a kid, what could be cooler? Philip Morris was using the same psychological techniques to hook kids on ultra processed foods it did for adults w cigarettes. My latest.

theguardian.com

Big tobacco uses cigarette playbook to help sell ultra-processed foods, journal reveals

New issue of the American Journal of Public Health focuses on parallels between marketing for cigarettes and UPFs

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Reposted by James Tapper

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I see Simon Heffer, in Michael Gove's Spectator, is once again repeating his lie that Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech wasn't about race.. I debated Heffer recently (at the Oxford Litfest) - here's what I said. archive.ph/bqKZF

So, that’s the economics. But let me address the topic directly. No doubt Simon Heffer will argue that, like his hero Enoch Powell, he is raising “legitimate concerns”. Simon has written that Powell’s predictions were remarkably accurate, and that those who, like me, describe him and his acolytes as racist are deliberately lying. He has also said that Powell’s famous Rivers of Blood speech should be taught in schools, since it is so rarely quoted accurately. So I will quote it accurately

“Eight years ago in a respectable street in Wolverhampton a house was sold to a Negro. Now only one white (a woman old-age pensioner) lives there. This is her story. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. “Racialist,” they chant. When the new Race Relations Bill is passed, this woman is convinced she will go to prison. And is she so wrong?”
So 3 points here.
First, none of Powell’s classical allusions later in the speech can conceal the gutter-level racism here. And let’s not hear any crap about “everyone spoke like that then”. No they didn’t which is why mainstream politicians of both parties instantly recognised the speech as unacceptable racism
Second, Powell is obviously lying. “They cannot speak English”? Seriously? Black kids whose parents were from the Carribbean?
Third, and most important, this gives the lie to Simon’s repeated claims the speech isn’t about race or racist. The direct target of the speech is the Race Relations Bill. This was not about immigration, obviously; it made it illegal to discriminate on grounds of race in employment or housing.

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

No. Hunger is the dawn chorus - a flutter of birdsong from inside that swells until you know it’s time to eat. Food noise is the roar of traffic that drowns out the birdsong so that you can’t hear your body properly. You eat because you mistake every murmur inside you for hunger.

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I think it’s more accurate to say that Berkshire and Essex got Crossrail but to some extent people mean the south east when they say London.

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Reposted by James Tapper

Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

there are two phrases in bonobo speak: "wanna smash?" and "yes"

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Apparently they have at least 14 ways of saying that …

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

If only they used algorithmic search tools

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Reposted by James Tapper

Peter Graystock @pgraystock.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

How climate change & pesticide interact to affect bee performance; looking ahead at var. approaches (incl. microbes) to help bees tinyurl.com/2s3ndu3j @theobserveruk.bsky.social highlight work from richjgill.bsky.social and @pgraystock.bsky.social Labs at @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social

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James Tapper @jamestapper.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I think Trump saw Being John Malkovich and made it a life goal www.nytimes.com/2026/04/28/u...

nytimes.com

The Latest Place Trump’s Face Will Appear: Some U.S. Passports

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3. I think there’s a big difference between shortening life by hours/days/weeks, and by years verging on a decade. If it’s okay to have an AD because quality of life is lower, then it seems also okay for diseases that don’t progress or progress slowly. Perhaps that’s fine, but see point 1.

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2. Coercion can happen at any point in someone’s life and it might be easier to coerce when the event feels further away. Will disputes are not unknown so why should living wills be different?

1. There would be a lot more opposition to AD and it would be harder to pass. How do we choose the point at which consciousness fades into sentience? And what is that like to experience when you have no insight that it’s happening?

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Great, thoughtful piece but I think extending AD to dementia is a much bigger leap and the opt-in idea wouldn’t resolve the coercion issue.

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This is very confused. 1. If those views are legitimate, then it's legit for Reform UK to propose them - the views don't magically change because the party does. 2. If it's legit to propose them, why is it unacceptable to oppose them? 3. How is opposing them the same as wanting mass deportation?

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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Good memory. And I've just gone through the same thought process all over again: shouldn't we get employers to help > but shit employers won't, leaving the good ones to pay > actually it might be fairer for the whole of society to pay instead, through benefits > but people need a purpose so...

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Reposted by James Tapper

NEW: More than 160,000 private renters on low incomes face rent shortfalls worth up to hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year due to Labour’s housing benefit cuts Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are particularly badly hit By me, for the Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/housing...

bigissue.com

'Terrified of rent increase': How housing benefit cuts hit renters

The government froze local housing allowance, which effectively meant a real-terms cut to housing benefit. This is what it means for renters

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I'm sure that's right and your point about path dependency, if I understood it, deals with that doesn't it - ie people on sickness benefits might have been on UB40.

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I had a good conversation with Anna Stevenson at Turn2Us last year about how the nature of work had changed to become more physically demanding and more stressful. There's no slack in companies to put someone on "light duties".