iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

News: "There are no young people. Where are all the young people?" Me trying to cycle to work past a college just before lectures begin for the day: "Found them. "

Dog being squished between sheep. His bicycle is probably under there somewhere.

020

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Super excited with the kids for the solar eclipse today! We're getting up to 90% in 20min! #eclipse2026 #ColanderCam

Shadow of an eclipse focussed through a colander

051

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I spoke to some of my awesome scientific colleagues at work today, & each talked about how their contracts were ending & their PIs were juggling to keep them on. These are deeply skilled people spending their lives hanging onto employment by their fingertips. And that's normal. But it's not right

000

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I have, of course, since checked whether this is true. ONS data shows no deaths from cervical cancer in England in 20-24 year old women 2020-2024, a cohort with 88-91% HPV vax coverage, compared to the expected 23.1 deaths. See Sasieni & Falcaro (2026) Lancet. The nurse knew her stuff.

121

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Just got back from getting MenB Vax for kid#2, and they vaxxed kid#3 for HPV at the same time. Overheard from the nurse "...and the cervical cancers. They're just gone! There are none in vaccinated girls! It's a modern miracle!" Immunology for the win. Hell yeah! #BSI #Vaccines

152

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

The science is the what and the how, the arts and humanities is the why. Society can only flourish when we have both.

000

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

WFH unexpected bonuses. My teen's playing Resident Evil in the room next to me & as the sounds of screams & crashing accompany my emails I get to chide "Gentle hands! What have I taught you? It doesn't sound like you are using your gentle hands!" to her as she destroys zombies. Eyerolls achieved.

000

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I saw an AI today that helps you look through the literature for promising ideas, helps with research design, looks for funding opportunities and then helps you write the grant application. So the question is, will this break the current funding system?

010

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Daniel L. Barber, PhD @danbarberphd.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

So we blocked IFNγ in Mtb infected macaques and….the animals were fine. Turns out mice overestimate the importance of IFNγ in TB because IFNγ drives iNOS in mice but not macaques or humans. This means we don’t actually know how T cells suppress Mtb. rdcu.be/ff9GB #tuberculosis #immunology

rdcu.be

IFNγ blockade in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infected macaques alters the granuloma environment but not bacterial control

Nature Communications - Here, the authors show that IFNγ blockade does not impair resistance to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in macaques, opposed to what has been observed in mice, due...

24222

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

What a find! Cruising the second hand book shops for interesting reads when I found a reprint of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters back from Turkey ,including her observations on variolation from the 1720s. #vaccines #immunology #history

A page of a book with the first two paragraphs showing.

010

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Just biology being cool again.

000

Reposted by Simone Cuff

HUPO @hupo-org.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Don’t miss this chance to ROCK your abstract@ Join the HUPO ECR webinar with Reegan Burnell-Clarke, Taylor & Francis Group, and discover how to craft a clear, powerful, & engaging scientific abstract-plus choose strategic keywords that boost your visibility & impact us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

021

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Richard Jones @richardaljones.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

The way UK govt funds science is in the midst of a major transition, with creation of a much more direct link between government priorities & UKRI research funding. My attempt to set in context the biggest upheaval in UK science funding policy since the 1980s: softmachines.org?p=3252

softmachines.org

UK science policy in transition – Soft Machines, by Richard Jones

22621

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Yes, drawing helps me think. It also helps me get through zoom seminars where I disagree with the people giving them. The gently scruffy nature of this pony means I was mildly miffed at some of the points made at today's talk.

A scruffy pony sketch on the front of an envelope.

031

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

How likely is ‘likely’? Does ‘likely’ have a higher probability than ‘probable’? I put together a quick quiz so you can see how you interpret probability phrases, then see how you compare with others: probability.kucharski.io

32239155

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Don't worry, you're overthinking it! Your post made me feel better about my year, which has been an awful lot of sowing for not a lot of reaping. So that is one person it has worked for. Good luck for 2026!

000

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I went into science for exactly that. We were all out of geography so here was the last place left where you could truly explore. When I realised the reality of science in the modern world - valuable only if finding or making stuff to exploit - it was heartbreaking.

010

Reposted by Simone Cuff

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Santa has come early! New issue out now, full of festive treats for all the family. Biochemical functions and quantum fluctuations! Weyl tiles and ordinal scales! Mass extinctions, artificial neural networks and much more…Find it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/bjps/cur... #philsci #philsky

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Volume 76, Issue 4

Table of Contents

Editors' Choice Article:
Semanticization Challenges the Episodic–Semantic Distinction
By Sara Aronowitz

Why the Weyl Tile Argument Is Wrong
By Lu Chen

Biochemical Functions
By Francesca Bellazzi

The Bohmian Approach to the Problems of Cosmological Quantum Fluctuations
By Sheldon Goldstein, Ward Struyve, and Roderich Tumulka

A Hybrid Theory of Induction
By Adrià Segarra

Bayesian Merging of Opinions and Algorithmic Randomness
By Francesca Zaffora Blando

Against Prohibition (or, When Using Ordinal Scales to Compare Groups Is OK)
By Cristian Larroulet Philippi

Are We in a Sixth Mass Extinction? The Challenges of Answering and Value of Asking
By Federica Bocchi, Alisa Bokulich, Leticia Castillo Brache, Gloria Grand-Pierre, and Aja Watkins

A Falsificationist Account of Artificial Neural Networks
By Oliver Buchholz and Eric Raidl

General-Purpose Institutional Decision-Making Heuristics: The Case of Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty
By David Thorstad

The Typical Principle
By Isaac Wilhelm

0133

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Superbugs 🦠🔬🏫🧒🏽 @superbugs.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Prof. Matthias Eberl @eberllab.bsky.social: "A Microbial Horror Show — Devastating outbreaks of disease that shaped how we fight infections" Public Lecture Thursday 27th November, 7:00 pm UK time @cumedicengage.bsky.social 👉🏼 tinyurl.com/microbial-ho... 🦠🧫🔬🤒🏥

1106

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Given how hard it is to find reviewers there is a very real danger of this.

020

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Just saw ChatGPT and its AI LLM ilk called stochastic parrots and it is just the most fabulously satisfying, accurate metaphor. When you are being formal: LLM. When you are saying what you think: SP.

020

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

To celebrate this (urp 🤢) exciting new journal series, we made a mini game! Can YOU guess which journals are Discover, MDPI, or both? No cheating! There's even the challenge mode "APC Ladder." Share your high score with the hashtag #ResearchIntegrity pagoba.shinyapps.io/publi_guess/ FUN!! 🤮 6/n

23416

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Tech giant creates a green space only to be horrified that they are accidentally creating a valuable ecosystem rather than a token piece of bio-art.

051

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Paige Byerly, PhD @paigebyerly.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

A female Western Gull was recorded riding 150km in a garbage truck from San Francisco to a compost facility in Central CA, probably to forage. TWICE. An innovator, an icon, a genius. This is one of my favorite @waterbirdsociety.bsky.social papers I've ever handled as managing editor #ornithology

5833331124

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Robin Bisson @robinbisson.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Here's our piece on the £86bn R&D budget The govt calls it a “bumper funding package” worth more than £22.5bn a year by 2029–30 In reality it's a real-terms freeze, accounting for inflation, using OBR forecasts But probably as good as the research sector could hope for

researchprofessionalnews.com

Rachel Reeves to set £86bn R&D budget over four years - Research Professional News

Research escapes real-terms cut in static spending review settlement, as regional innovation funding expanded

22627

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Dave Goulson @davegoulson.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Our latest research shows spot-on flea treatments on dogs are released into water when dogs swim even 28 days after treatment - in contrast to the label which suggests dogs can safely swim 48 h after treatment. www.newscientist.com/article/2482...

newscientist.com

Dogs pollute water with pesticides even weeks after flea treatment

When dogs given spot treatments for fleas go swimming, they release levels of pesticides dangerous to aquatic life for at least a month after the treatment

5153118

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

See also statistics and critical thinking. But mainly because this not only has an excellent point, but because it is a damn good read.

071

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Microbiology Society @microbiologysociety.org · 03/06/2025

🚨 We're recruiting! The Journal of Medical Microbiology is seeking two Editors for our Molecular and Microbial Epidemiology section. Help shape the future of microbiology research. 📅 Apply by 20 June 2025 🔗 microb.io/News

028

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Superbugs 🦠🔬🏫🧒🏽 @superbugs.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

We have officially moved in. Our Pop-Up Science Shop will be open to the public from 7th July until 3rd August 3025. Find us in the St David's shopping centre in Cardiff near John Lewis, Zara and Apple. Learn about the microbial world in, on and around us. Including the black death.

12211

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

An institute focussed on economic outcomes recommends economic outcomes as a metric of higher education. This comes back to asking what universities are for. If they are for churning out finance graduates & CEOs then this makes sense. If they are as centres of learning then it is a false metric.

000

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Yes, but the skeletons it was found in were geographically distant from one another as well, suggesting wide distribution by 1000 years ago rather than a newly emergent disease.

060

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

The nature of status-seeking in society (and by some elements in science especially) normally makes me despair. LLMs enabling that without effort even more so. This blog post suggests a refreshingly subversive take on both.

195

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Michelle Wille @duckswabber.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Mass mortality of Black-legged Kittiwakes, Norway, 2023: more than 15,000 birds dead, population reduction of 50%. genotype EA-2022-BB 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

03121

Reposted by Simone Cuff

European Research Council (ERC) @erc.europa.eu · 19/05/2025

Are you based in the U.S. 🇺🇸 or Canada 🇨🇦 and thinking of doing research in Europe? ERC grants offer up to €4.5 million to support groundbreaking, investigator-driven frontier research in all fields. Watch the dedicated info session for researchers in your region👉 youtu.be/92QYink1Lik #ChooseEurope

youtu.be

ERC Grants: EU funding for your bottom-up research proposal (2025)

YouTube video by EURAXESS North America

06444

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Ervin Fodor @efodor.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Exciting job opportunities! Two postdoc positions are available in the Fodor Lab at @dunnschool.bsky.social to study influenza virus transcription, genome replication, nuclear export and assembly. More info: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

02825

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Defector @defector.com · 25/05/2025

Close reading is for everyone: defector.com/close-readin...

But close reading is not just for academics, and it deserves a bigger audience. Not because it’s virtuous. Not because it makes us better people. (I know some great close readers who are real assholes.) But because it’s a thrilling way to think with others, to claw back some of the time taken from us daily by tech oligarchs (I have looked at Twitter impulsively several times while writing this pointedly long, difficult sentence), and relearn some of our capacity, atrophied into passivity by algorithms, for aesthetics, a term that arose in modernity to name a storehouse of values in dialectical opposition to those of capitalism: above all, treating texts as ends in themselves rather than as means to productive ends—treating them, that is, as art.

016360

Reposted by Simone Cuff

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 22/05/2025

"According to his research, worldwide AI energy demand is now set to surpass demand from bitcoin mining by the end of this year" New paper from Alex DeVries on what proportion of total data centre demand is for machine learning applications

wired.com

AI Is Eating Data Center Power Demand—and It’s Only Getting Worse

A new analysis of AI hardware being produced and how it is being used attempts to estimate the vast amount of electricity being consumed by AI.

47232

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

The 10am Tuesday method and the 1am Saturday method may not always be the same method.

000

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

I've just learned that adding "-ai" to your Google search will get rid of those annoying, often inaccurate AI summaries which otherwise appear at the top. The info was gifted to me and now I gift it to you. 😊. Now, if only I could get rid of SEO...

140

Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Would love to, but the letter states the undersigned study politics. I'm sure a lot of well informed academics from other disciplines would also like to put their support behind the letter.

200