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Magsmanston

@magsmanston.bsky.social
243 followers 670 following 2K posts

Personal account of a Biologist. General nerd (computer games, physics, Raspberry Pi, tinkering, stats). Likes frogs and fish. Runner.

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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Yeah. I can see what they're getting at. It's perhaps a good way of nudging the economic effect into the right place when you're considering the macroeconomics. But it's done with a slightly silly pretense and seriously trying to say it's not immigration is rather OTT.
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Mark Wallace @wallaceme.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
It would be wrong to “ban” books. Except that has not happened. Rooney’s books are still legal to sell (indeed they’re still on bookshop shelves). Rather she chose to pledge her royalties to fund a proscribed terrorist group - which is a crime in this country - so her publisher can’t pay royalties.
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Felicity Hannah @felicityhannah.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I am extremely proud of today’s Money Box Live looking into the crisis at Capita. It was public service journalism that held a large company to account and is already inspiring parliamentary letters
bbc.co.uk
Money Box - Money Box Live: Capita, What Went Wrong? - BBC Sounds
Why are thousands of civil servants facing long delays to get their pensions?
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
This is what's bemusing me about a lot of it. So many people seemingly very willing to be replaced. It's useful but it doesn't do a metric shit tonne of human stuff and never will. Get on with that!
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The post on the Franklin DNA work by @matthewcobb.bsky.social is fantastic, though Matthew has understandably disabled comments, so mine are going here. The tl;dr is that history (including the history of science) is generally complicated and resists simple retrospective narratives (such as here...
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Is that... Simon Pegg playing a US politician?
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Phew!
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Zebrafish Rock! 🎃 @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Stunning movies from @bellecmaelle.bsky.social that capture individual mRNA molecules (magenta) and their nascent translation (cyan) 🐟 (She's on the job market btw!)
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Watch out for the ol' Kidney stones.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Yes and the US / societal mood over there is happy to vote in Trump & is likley to vote in someone simlilar in the future. This is bad & good - it could / should / is to an extent spur(ing) EU action to become more independent in terms of security. But makes the world genrally much more dangerous.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Yeah international leadership is increasingly stocked with rather... bellicose characters. In a world where the US is run by someone on the edge of dementia picking fights & isolating itself, several large countries are now churning out weapons & trading them widely, the circular AI economy, etc.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Call me old-fashioned, but I just think that if you are announcing £10bn of spending, then if the Shadow Treasury team and the leader's office are doing their jobs properly, the leader should have clearer answers to these questions:
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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I just finished reading the academic paper that this news article briefly describes. It's terrific, and anyone teaching molecular biology might benefit from reading it. doi.org/10.1007/s107...
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
True though as we have agreed, it’s unclear how much W&C thought that DNA alone was the genetic material pre-discovery. By early 53 she had realised that the sequence of the bases could be infinitely variable and could therefore explain specificity of gene function, suggesting a similar insight.
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This thread is a nice summary of the latest Franklin / Photo 51 story. Important point which a lot of the chatter that I've seen overlooks: what constitutes a scientific "discovery" is generally read back into the narrative, and (re)defined with the question of priority in mind.
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Nathaniel Comfort @nccomfort.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Exciting new historical work on Rosalind Franklin continues to appear. This is a neat bit of sleuthing by historian @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and crystallographer Brian Sutton. Here's the DOI to the actual article (it's OA): 10.1007/s10739-026-09866-7 The main finding is an x-ray image of exactly
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Nathaniel Comfort @nccomfort.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Most histories take the double helix as the obvious goal of xrc on DNA fibers. If we want to honor Franklin, we need to stop trying to explain her work as almost getting the double helix. We need to understand her on her own terms. The Sponsel and Sutton paper takes us a good step in that direction
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Nathaniel Comfort @nccomfort.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Reposting for the morning crowd my mini-thread from yesterday on the new Sponsel & Sutton paper on Rosalind Franklin's work. tl;dr: Why didn't Franklin find the double helix? Because she wasn't looking for it! She had her own DNA project that had nothing to do w/ the gene.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Brings to mind people more worried about pensioner radicalisation than teenage brain rotting when it comes to social media bans.
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Ste Jormur @stejormur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
In both directions - obviously it's a waste of ministers' time, but also the bus stops themselves don't benefit from the input of someone whose only research/briefing time appears to have been watching a couple of bike crash videos on X in the free minutes between meetings on HS2 and Heathrow!
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
One reason why I am a nut for devolution is this: central government ministers shouldn't spend their working hours thinking about the correct design of bus stops.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Seems to be the compromise which pleases nobody? NIMBYs will be raging. YIMBYs will be nonplussed.
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David Anderson @bricksilk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Letter printed in The Times today
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"Dear Diary, There were six by-elections in England and Scotland this week and Reform lost all of them. Two of them were seats we previously held. The problem with running councils is that people can see how useless we are."
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It's also why you're right in that migrants tend to come here after the education (-ve) and often leave in their dotage (retire back home, when they become have again). Also I'm not sure how well it takes into account pensions.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I think the main reason this intuition isn't correct is because it's cohort effects all the way down. What society sees & uses to function is a huge net +ve from the working pool supporting the early & late years of everyone else. This is why demographics & increasing elderly get worrying. But...
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Could the "LLMs can't do anything" crowd and the "LLMs can do everything" crowd go somewhere private to yell at each other so the rest of us can have a normal "this new tech can do things previous tech couldn't but is limited in various ways, let's figure out best uses and regulations" conversation?
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Brentrée (the mangling is the point)
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
UAE officials have warned the UK that a severe punishment for Man City could hurt future Emirati investment in Britain, Bloomberg reports. This is the perfect argument for keeping foreign money out of football.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I find myself getting quite frustrated with this 'well it's a contested definition'. It's only contested if you think the views of ignorant people are as valid as those who know what they're talking about.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
No; the principle is applied consistently or it isn't. If it isn't why are you applying it here specifically harder than elsewhere? Why is that seperate thing not the framing rather than the general principle of "stolen land therefore it's existence is racist"? Why mention it at all?
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Latest Badenoch: “If [Andy Burnham]’s not calling an election, why’s he talking about things happening in 2030?” - alarming the extent to which so much of our political class cannot process the idea of “planning for events four years in the future”.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I got a bit high on gas and started wittering to the colonscopy tech about the Ouroboros and how watching the screen of your own insides was kind of a bit like that and almost like swallowing your own tail but with your eyes. They nodded poilitley and turned the gas down.
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Thomas Ableman @freewheeling.info · 02/10/2026
Seriously?!? After the Labour conference in which Burnham put forward more new ideas than all PMs in the last decade combined, the BBC focuses on a front-page gotcha splash by Chris Mason on football. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Chris Mason: Why Andy Burnham's about-turn on Manchester City matters
The prime minister's comments on Man City were revealing on several levels - and leapt on by many in football, the BBC's political editor writes.
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 02/10/2026
There is no perfect voting system.
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TeeDixie ✊🏼 @teedixie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Chris Dixon posted this on LI and I had to share it here. It’s just too good, the @jonronson.bsky.social twist is superb…
The image shows a film poster “The men who stare at Boats” featuring, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, Danny Tommo, Ruper Lowe and Angry Balaclava man.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ahh, now the endless screeching starts.
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Centre for Cities @centreforcities.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Britain is *bad* at getting people into city centres. 🔗 buff.ly/QxcAsZo
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
That last bit really irks me about a lot of state careers provision.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Indeed. The child graduating uni with that will be in a great position and have a lot of flexibility - if not the connections.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Yeah. I sort of think everything at once here. Oral components are a 'quick win' but not scalable. 45Min is utterly bonkers. Essays aren't that good - but we do still have to *teach students to write*. It does help thinking! We also need to roll with the AI thing - it's the new word processor.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Makes me quite miffed that these guys are effectively therefore mugging real artists like this - they seem to run several AI 'bands' and their socials are wall to wall AI nonsense. While the real band we saw are working their socks off being super available for photos signed CDs etc.
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Elderly relative was going to watch a live (folk) band with us recently, but couldn't make it due to health challenges. A shame as it was a fantastic gig. It kicked off them listening to more stuff at home & they 'discovered' this 'band': youtu.be/XhGa81cvico?... They won't be convinced it's AI.
youtu.be
Wolfskald - Mother Told Me | ( Official Video Music ) | Sea Shanty | Part II #seashanty #music #sea
YouTube video by Wolfskald
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When you have no concept of how people engage with music
nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Me and my grunge friends would’ve killed A.I. with hammers I can tell you that much
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Same with books! I do not want a personalised reading experience centred on myself. I read to catch a glimpse of other people’s souls.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Every private conversation in Westminster: "Well the triple lock obviously has to go at some point". Every commentator on Burnham: "completely mad to propose getting rid of triple lock - political suicide".
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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 29/09/2026
The rush to speculate that asylum seekers are responsible for every crime in the news is a sort of opportunistic informational terrorism. Until it’s disproved it stokes fear and hatred. When it is disproved there are no adverse consequences and they know that they only have to be lucky once.
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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Bloke apparently chooses ti launch himself headfirst at two of the most dangerous bits if political territory he could (and, seriously, the fuck) and this is still the headline. Reflex narratives
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Magsmanston @magsmanston.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is the nub. When the union leaders start sounding slightly reformiste in their thinking I find that a little worrying. I hardly think Farage will decide to cosy up to them & accept funding but it's yet another level of pull in that direction.
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