Sign in

Stuart Neil

@tetherin.bsky.social
2.1K followers 212 following 1.2K posts

Virologist, comparative virus/host interactions of HIV, Flu, Ebola and SARS CoV-2 Unashamed fan of loud shouty music. Not left-wing, not right-wing, not too fond of historical or present day fascists.

PostsRepliesMedia
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
US Gov fuckwittery and incompetence has not gotten a handle on H5N1 spreading in a mink farm - an animal through which WE KNOW the virus can acquire respiratory transmissibility and human tropism. But no - you can’t study these viruses under MAGA b/c scientists can’t be trusted….🤦 Stupid fuckers
1136
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Bryce Nickels thought the possibility of measles spreading was funny in 2024. Just a big joke.
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Thanks to Efforts of the “Biosafety Now” Bros, Richard Ebright and Bryce Nickels, We Are All More Vulnerable to Dangerous Viruses, Both Old & New, From Labs & From Nature, Exactly as I Predicted.
Professors Richard Ebright and Byrce Nickels used their voice to enable the "charlatans and quacks", the people responsible for the devastation of our biosafety response.
1237
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It’s amazing what these grifting psychotic liars will justify to perpetuate their grift. Perhaps Bryce K Incells has always been a closet antivax moron, but Ebright has the intellectual capacity to know better.
020
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Maybe if we had leaders who gave more of a shit about their future prospects and preserving a world for them rather than economic short termism and catering to the whims of reactionary pensioners who enjoy a life they will never have, they might feel better. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Young people are not snowflakes, head of mental health review says
Speaking exclusively to the BBC, Prof Peter Fonagy says being young is much harder now than it was.
073
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Stuck inside Jellycat in Selfridges with a 10yo. It’s been nice knowing you all, but I may not make it out.
030
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Niema Moshiri @niema.net · 11/09/2026
It's wild that it's been 25 years already. I was in 3rd grade and had just switched schools. I was born in the US, so I was scared like everyone else, but for reasons I didn't fully understand at the time, I went from "American" to "Middle Eastern" overnight. So began a quarter century of racism.
1337
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Farage would declare a "national emergency" to get his pledges through in his first hundred days to negate the Lords and the Courts. Sounds like what he might need is a fire and an Enabling Act. I wonder if there is an historical precedent for that? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Nigel Farage threatens to overhaul Lords and judiciary in Reform conference speech
The Reform UK leader promises to deliver on key priorities in the first 100 days of government, if the party wins power.
031
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Roland Pease @peaseroland.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
More of this please. Underlines the stupidity of the politicised health debate these days in the US. Gift link from one of the writers below. bsky.app/profile/chaf...
072
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Fantastic article about the life and work of Bob Garry that highlights both the personal and scientific costs that the conspiracy theory industry has had on Global public health and the scientists who have dedicated their lives to fighting infectious diseases www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
A Top Virus Scientist Stared Down Covid Lab-Leak Proponents. Now His Life’s Work Is at Stake
The battle over Covid’s origins has come for Bob Garry, who’s faced some of the world’s deadliest viral threats.
26532
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Everything is Awesome! @exponentialdave.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Vibes www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwz1...
youtube.com
The Nerd Reich
YouTube video by Jesse Welles
055
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Well it’s Sarah Knapton’s byline but I can’t imagine it wasn’t at least parsed by the Ridley filter
000
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Also like the qualifier ‘scientists say’.
140
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Amazing how the climate-skeptics are tying themselves up in knots over the Nepal disaster. Here the Telegraph uses the weasel term ‘changing climate’ because it can’t bring itself to use the correct terminology. What possibly could be causing temp changes that undermine Himalayan glaciers?
262
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I think it’s also important to think about the difference in selective pressures that are exerted during persistence vs those that are selected for transmissibility. They are not necessarily compatible. Escape from immunity comes with fitness costs that need the secondary fixers.
151
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Although my university is all in on AI (eg, there's a pilot with OpenAI to provide free, unlimited access to ChatGPT-4o), I've had a few students who have deliberately avoided using it for any purpose at all (I also don't use it) It looks like there are real benefits to NOT using AI for learning
37122
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
A rather amusing self-own by the Viscount Ridley (he of the extraneous o according to colleagues). The self sealing ‘logic’ of conspiracy theories requires that their promoters double down in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
160
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It’s been tried. When he and Bryce Nickels (also of Rutgers) were slandering colleagues, calling them frauds and murderers and paralleling them with way criminals in such a way that led to threats of death or sexual violence by some of their followers, Rutgers shrugged and sent the letter to them
110
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
And he doesn’t care what gets burned down. The intersection between vulture capitalism and nihilism
010
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
@mrjamesob.bsky.social Ash from Northampton is right. The reason is Trump’s entire strategy is chaos from which he and his goons make money.
120
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Just imagine how much the country could save if we ban Reform voters from accessing benefits. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Reform UK benefits ban for foreign nationals would include EU citizens
The move would require renegotiating the UK's Brexit deal and could risk stripping British expats living in the EU of similar rights.
100
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Peter Jacobs @pjacobs.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Many who took the time to understand how much Lab Leaker conspiracism was cross-pollinating with extant conspiracy beliefs like antivaxx noted that vocal Lab Leaker nuts would increasingly center those other crank views as evidence for COVID-19 supposedly being engineered failed to materialize. 😬
A screenshot of a tweet from 2022 showing a latecomer vocal Lab Leaker espousing pro vaccine views.A screenshot of the same vocal Lab Leaker from 2026 trafficking in classic anti-vaxx idiocy.
0149
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
It’s also scary that people have such strong hatred for someone they hadn’t heard of the day before, because performative hatred is rewarded.
0363
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
My god, relentless 🧵 of a few hours in the perennially online life of Richard Ebright on a Friday celebrating the apparent suicide of Jason Arday with many of his friends and fellow travelers Clearly he invented parts of his life and many have q’s to answer.….but deserving death? Fucking ghouls.
4152
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 15/08/2026
He has been an openly racist poster for years ("DEI must die", "scum will be scum") and yet people like @engber.bsky.social or @hnirom.bsky.social thought it was still fine to quote him. I did not imagine that Ebright could sink any lower in his racism, but cheering on someone’s suicide does it.
1505
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Niema Moshiri @niema.net · 15/08/2026
I try to avoid reposting screenshots of bad X posts on here, but this is insane. This is how Richard Ebright, the same Rutgers professor who's been harassing scientists for years, reacted to tragic news of someone taking their own life. A fucking sociopath whose behavior Rutgers admin ignores
47817
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Richard Ebright: Pride of Rutgers. Abusive, misogynist, cheerleader and unofficial advisor for MAHA and the destruction of US public health, scientifically illiterate peddler of falsehoods about the origin of COVID….and now a celebrator of suicide.
2450091
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
It came through when I was reversing my car. Bloody alarm which though meant I was about to hit a kid I hadn’t seen!
130
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Awful. And sadly predictable. Irrespective of his apparent behavior, he has been hounded to his death by a merciless press, with horrid racist overtones in some quarters. And Cambridge has failed both in their hiring procedures and in their duty of care. A plague on all their houses
0132
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I do wonder whether the Times and the Guardian have anything ready for Sunday to take the edge off The Count of Dodgy Crypto’s stunning victory over a bin.
060
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
"I am damned if I am going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory... and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies," Farage told supporters….and then has his lackeys claim that Essex Police warned him not to attend his count. Naturally Essex Police said that wasn’t true.
0142
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
A real Pink Floyd-esque image Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
020
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The NYT, New Yorker and Atlantic have been very poor on this subject
010
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Torygraph here with a backhanded acknowledgement that despite what they want to believe, small boats crossings are down…..and missing a key point. Larger boats are easier to detect and stop.
020
Reposted by Stuart Neil
ℝ𝕖𝕓𝕖𝕝𝕓𝕝𝕦𝕖 @rebelb1ue.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I’m not an immunologist, but there appears to be a strong positive correlation between vaccine skepticism and being an insufferable asshole.
350113981986
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
‘Once I beat a bin with a much slimmer majority than I had because I didn’t want to answer questions about corruption in my finances, and then i find myself back where I was 6 weeks ago with everyone asking the same questions…..then we will be ready for government’
011
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Great discussion and update on @guruspod.bsky.social with @kgandersen.bsky.social, Eddie Holmes, Mike Worobey on the weaponisation of the origin SARS CoV-2. Frustrating as fuck that they still need to do this in 2026! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/d...
podcasts.apple.com
Lab Leak Groundhog Day: COVID Origins in 2026 with Worobey, Andersen, and Holmes
Podcast Episode · Decoding the Gurus · 10 August · 1hr 45min
2237
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
This article on BioRXiv was also a major source that led to the Lancet letter condemning conspiracy theories of the origin of SARS2. It was then recycled by lunatics like Angus Dalgleish (the ultimate stooped clock ‘scientist’) and his little outfit that included Richard Dearlove.
095
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Neither SARS CoV-2 nor anything closely related enough to be a progenitor of SARS CoV-2 has ever been identified in bats. The closest relatives known in the SARS2 branch of the sarbecoviruses are still at least 1000 nucleotides different across their genomes.
170
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
As a Brit I find it wryly amusing that Quay named his cancer startup Atossa (for unoriginal classical allusions). The last 6 years of his laughable, malicious and biologically illiterate SARS2 theses prove only that he is undoubtedly a tosser.
020
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
There wouldn’t be anything crazy about asking the question in Feb 2020 (when those accused of a cover up did despite what the republicans would have you believe) But in 2026 when we have more evidence for how SARS CoV-2 emerged than any pandemic in history, implicating the market, it is.
1121
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 29/07/2026
I will be following Anthony Fauci's hearing today, and I will post comments in this thread with the hashtag #faucihearing. Feel free to mute it! ▫️1/🧵 www.hsgac.senate.gov
screenshot of the HSCA Committee on Upcoming Hearings
Full Committee Hearing
Testimony of Anthony Fauci
July 29th, 2026
at
8:30am
Senate Dirksen Building, SD-342
412561
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I’ve read some great books this year, but this is probably the most moving and profound. And unfortunately probably more relevant now in the Western World that it has been at any time since its publication in 1946.
063
Reposted by Stuart Neil
Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Thanks to @jeremymberg.bsky.social for laying this out so clearly and transparently. Here's a quick comment about why this matters.
2206
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I’ve been reading a few ‘great American novels’ recently and I am continually stuck by commentary saying novel x or y is ‘one of the most challenged books’ in US high schools. In a country that deludes itself that it is free and the first amendment is almost as sacrosanct as the second.
000
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The whole odyssey is posted on x for free - a platform owned by a South African white supremacist ketamine fiend so butt hurt that a black woman was cast in a significant role that he is establishing his own film company to remake it….🤔 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
The Odyssey: Millions see leaked copy of movie on X
Film studio Universal takes down a high-quality bootleg version of the film, which appeared on X.
043
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I love the ‘evidence is stacking up’ The evidence stacked up years ago but your lot claimed scientists were making it up
020
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Even the Telegraph’s resident Catholic fundamentalist now gets it. But where is the column from their self-appointed arbiter of all scientific knowledge, climate change denialist and (bizarrely) coal mining magnate Viscount Matt Ridley?
270
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
No other hypothesis is either consistent with the extant evidence or stands up to biological scrutiny - no matter how much one stacks the deck of ‘Bayesian analysis’ with contrived priors. But that isn’t the goal of Rand Paul, Ebright and co It is state-wielded fascistic vengeance against experts
0143
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
However, even the IC state that there is no evidence that puts SARS CoV-2 or any potential progenitor in the WIV - nothing known was phylogenetically close enough And all the epidemiology and forensic evidence places the emergence in Wuhan squarely at the SW corner of the Huanan Market.
190
Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
But what couldn’t they rule out? Well PO is very clear. The sequence data at the time ruled out that it was the product of manipulation of known reverse genetic systems based of SARS-like viruses. What they couldn’t rule out was an accident with a novel isolated and unpublished virus.
180