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Michael W

@michaelwood8.bsky.social
597 followers 647 following 2.3K posts

Medical journalist, Sydney, via Leeds. I post stuff about my travels in China and random 1980s music and telly. Blog at josephrock.net

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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 8h
It’s a promising result but the SMH is just exaggerating and creating false hope for clicks
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11h
Another example of AI colourisation (1926 Nat Geo article by Joseph Rock)
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 13h
Why is the SMH suddenly doing so many uncritical hype stories about new drug treatments? Yesterday it was Alzheimer’s, today Parkinson’s. A study of 40 people that shows changes in surrogate outcomes is not a ‘staggering’ breakthrough!
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 22h
Been fiddling with colourisation of old B&W images from a Joseph Rock article about his Yunnan expedition a century ago
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Here's some good coverage of the landmark trial highlighting the failure of Lp(a) lowering to make any difference to heart disease. Big Pharma and some big specialist egos are very heavily invested in this pathway to produce the post-statin blockbusters www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/pel...
peoplespharmacy.com
Pelacarsen Failure: Heart Drug Lowers Lp(a) but NOT Heart Attacks
Cardiologists are stunned by the Pelacarsen Failure: Lp(a) plunged, but heart attacks, strokes and deaths did NOT. A bombshell disappointment
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
A certain professor who is heavily invested in the Lp(a) hypothesis was quite rude to me when I asked him about real-world outcomes vs surrogate endpoints. Will be interesting to see his reaction to these results. #karma
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
What if Mao’s main rival had prevailed? I visited a forgotten battlefield in the Hexi Corridor. On the Long March, Zhang Guotao had three times as many soldiers as Mao. But his armies were annihilated when he marched west instead of north michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com/p/the-lost-a...
michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com
The lost army of the other Long March
When the Long March split into two groups in 1935, one group of troops commanded by Mao’s arch rival Zhang Guotao marched west into oblivion. Did Mao want it that way?
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Rebel Wilson does not come out well from this archive.li/FT4CV
archive.li
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Sign in a Yunnan park says China will defend its interests around the world, including its investments and sea lanes.
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
SMH article on Alzheimer’s ‘breakthroughs’ is all hype. No new treatments have significant efficacy. No cure. No stopping the progress. At best a modest reduction in progression. The two promising therapies cited in the article failed in phase 2 trials. So why talk of ‘game changers’?
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My flight from Zhengzhou to Sydney has been diverted to Manila due to a medical emergency. This is going to be a very long journey … might even have to return to Zhengzhou and start again 😟
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
So many people in China playing microdramas or reels on their phones in public, with speaker on. And often at 2x playback speed (or is that how they are posted?)
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Another chapter from my 2025 bike ride along the Yellow River substack.com/@michaelwood...
substack.com
Cycling the Yellow River. Chapter 20: Longyangxia
A gruelling mountain ride to a massive reservoir and hydro dam that marks a major bend in the Yellow River
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
doesn't go that far, might go tomorrow from Honghe
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Built in 1909 to connect Hanoi and Kunming
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Reposted by Michael W
riwoche རི་བོ་ཆེ་ @riwoche.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Phenomenal travelogue — we seldom hear reports of the Tibetans in Xunhua (or the Salar, for that matter) and the winding route through Hualong Hui Muslim County. In addition much appreciation for the helpful reminder of warlord Ma Bufang and the ransom payment to release the young XIV Dalai Lama:
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Awayday on the low speed train: the French-built narrow gauge railway at Kaiyuan station #China
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My 2025 cycle trip along the Yellow River: meeting the Salar Muslims of Xunhua michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com/p/cycling-th...
michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com
Cycling the Yellow River. Chapter 19. Xunhua and Kanbula
The edge of the Tibetan plateau, where Muslim and Tibetan communities intermingle around the birthplace of the Dalai Lama
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Leica lens on the Xiaomi 17T is not bad. Saying this as someone who is still using a M3 with film #Kunming #Yunnan #China
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Postcard from Tengchong michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com/p/postcard-f...
michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com
Postcard from Tengchong
Where else will you find a fake German town in a balmy sub tropical resort just a few miles from a vicious SE Asia civil war?
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Yes there was in Tengchong. Jingpaw, Lisu and Dai food
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Baoshan
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Could be both but just random bouncing around China on the high speed train right now!
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Good things to buy in Tengchong: Burma jade, Burma stout #Myanmar #China
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Kunming and Dianchi lake panorama from Western Hills
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Off to Kunming.
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Today's chapter from my Yellow River cycling trip: pedalling the wide flat horizons of the Hetao plain in Inner Mongolia michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com/p/cycling-th...
michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com
Cycling the Yellow River. Chapter 13. Baotou and the Hetao Plain
In the flatlands of Inner Mongolia
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Leaving Wuhan
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Correction: it’s more like 15km according to AMAP
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
What about Harry Enfield and Martin Clunes youtu.be/Zh9XzFhGI8g?...
youtu.be
Harry Enfield - The Playboys
YouTube video by TheUTubeTeamSucks
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Fast enough for you
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Nice reflections at the brand new Xi'an East station
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Goodbye Xi'an
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Yes. But almost all trains are some kind of high speed now, aren’t they?
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
These hair styles are unusually popular in Xining #China
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Going to Xi’an
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Did someone say free cake? Xining, Qinghai, #China
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Battlefield of one of the biggest military defeats you never heard of. Bigger than Bataan, Arnhem and with greater consequences. The annihilation of the West Route Army of the Long March, 1937, Hexi Corridor. michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com/p/the-lost-a...
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Anyway the nosy dude was impressed. He told his mates the French are more 通情达理 (reasonable and amenable) than Americans!
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I must say I think I nailed the accent and bonus points for the body language: shoulder shrugs, pouted lips accompanied by a ‘paf’ or ‘bah oui’
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
On train I pretended to be French to avoid a guy who wanted to practice his English. But he then used a translation app to bombard me with questions in Francais digitale. After exhausting my O level French I had to resort to ‘C’est la vie. Pierre Cardin. Je ne sais quoi.’ Etc. Vive la difference!
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Mogouyuan (磨沟沿) is the place to go for noodles
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Yes exploring a bit of Qinghai and Gansu. No bike this time.
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Wonderful weather to be exploring the Danxia landscape of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu. And searching for the Liyuankou battlefield where the Western Route Army made its last stand before being annihilated in 1937. Story here: michaelwoodhead190074.substack.com/p/the-lost-a...
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A key aim of the anti-expertise Project 2025 cultural revolution is to smash the four pillars of fact-based reality: *Evidence-based ideas and inquiry *Evidence based peer reviewed literature *Evidence-based professional associations and standards *Evidence-based findings put into practice
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Kumbum kats
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I tried to take a photo of Kumbum monastery from the same spot as this one taken by Mark Kauffman in 1947. Frustratingly I climbed over a fence, slogged up a hill to some prayer flags but the view is now blocked by trees. So only this attempt from lower down
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I am on the 909 city bus to Kumbum, a rather incongruous way to get to one of the most revered sites of Tibetan Buddhism.
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Michael W @michaelwood8.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Probably some fresh yak meat. And that look between the girl and the dude is just because they both went to see the Abba show in Baotou.
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