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William Lees

@williamlees.bsky.social
392 followers 330 following 151 posts

Scientist and European. Computational biologist: B cell and T cell receptor repertoires and genomics.

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Reposted by William Lees
Prof Bill McGuire @profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“What we are seeing now is a complete explosion of these melt rates, leading to the disintegration of glaciers. They’re really just falling apart" Europe's glaciers are accelerating even faster on the road to oblivion www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘Explosion of melt rates’: 20% of Swiss glaciers lost in five years
Alpine regions in Europe experiencing extreme glacier collapse due to heat-trapping effects of fossil fuel pollution
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Caw Yar Bluff @j-leslie3k.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Russians have seen from earlier US and European response that they can commit extreme war crimes and nothing will change. From a strategic point of view not only do war crimes make sense the Russians are practically being encouraged to commit them. This is the war we have created in the modern world
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conifergirl.bsky.social @conifergirl.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
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George Eaton @georgeeaton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The tax trap means a parent with two children needs to earn £137k until they are better off in cash terms than when they earned £99k. This is one of the most severe tax distortions in the world. www.arguably.uk/p/britain-ca...
arguably.uk
Britain can’t afford the £100k cliff edge
High marginal rates are penalising work rather than rewarding it
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jakobheinz.bsky.social @jakobheinz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I’m excited to share our new preprint introducing HipHap, a tool for assigning long reads to haplotype-resolved diploid reference assemblies! With Max Marin, Matthew Meyerson, and @lh3lh3.bsky.social Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵 1/6
biorxiv.org
HipHap: Haplotype Assignment and Confidence Scoring for Diploid Reference Genomes
Diploid genome assemblies are now routinely available, but most read aligners were designed for haploid references, which have long been the gold standard. When reads are aligned to a diploid assembly...
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
You can have your views on the end of the world etc but the real here-and-now worry is how much we can trust these models to manage our lives, write our software, work in our businesses when the people who make them either can't or won't keep them honest and under control.
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Kilian Schober @kischober.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
New preprint from our lab, now on bioRxiv! We are VERY excited about this one! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... How does Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) immunity become linked to multiple sclerosis (MS)? (1/8)
biorxiv.org
A pro-inflammatory effector-memory T cell program links peripheral EBV priming to CNS autoimmunity
T and B cell-mediated immunosurveillance of the central nervous system (CNS) can become maladaptive in multiple sclerosis (MS). Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a likely driver of MS, yet how exactly EBV-s...
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Your waitress will be here momentarily”. “Couldn’t she stay a little bit longer?”
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 26/09/2026
Trump fucked up the *American* renewable transition but he might have had the largest positive effect on the global transition of any president ever
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 25/09/2026
Why is the U.S. public so much more negative on AI than almost anyone else? Well, I think the fact that the U.S. AI industry is being lead by a bunch of very visible, crazy weirdos who talk about how AI will take everyone’s job and maybe kill us all the time is a pretty key factor.
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Rayner is correct: these proposals are economically damaging and politically counterproductive. Pretty clear that view is now almost universal in the Cabinet/Labour Party and the informed public. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
thetimes.com
Angela Rayner condemns Labour’s migrant visa crackdown
Speaking before the party conference, the housing secretary says Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plans would affect care workers
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Depressing to see how many people are continuing to suffer from ME/CFS many years after conventional treatments were clearly shown to be making patients worse not better. The idea that people are just making it up is just too appealing to authority figures and budget cutters.
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Those absolute head bangers have convinced themselves that Churchill, King Charles, Henry V and Brunel aren’t proper English. Robert the Bruce isn’t Scottish. They are modern phrenologists. They spend the weekend working out what George Best was.
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Probably not a good idea to remind people what No. 10 was spending 'our' money on during lockdown.
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Esheru @esherukweku.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is why the media in this country needs regulating. I can guarantee there isn’t an iota of truth to anything that’s being said here. Their only intention is to keep this nonsense on top of the news agenda.
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 22/09/2026
Hard to think of a campaigning organisation that did its members more harm than Farmers For Brexit.
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Antifa CEO 🐸 @antifa.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Canada 🇨🇦 + EU 🇪🇺 = ❤️
Canada 🇨🇦 + EU 🇪🇺 = ❤️
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Peter Griffith @carboncyclist.org · 18/09/2026
If you know me, you know I love NASA. I'm glad that this can be posted at all. I'm sad that they can't say "climate change" science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...
science.nasa.gov
Summer Goes Out With a Heat Dome - NASA Science
Temperature records toppled across the central and southern U.S. as the autumnal equinox approached.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Could govt explain to the majority of liberal, progressive voters in this country why our genuinely legitimate concerns - about the rise in racism and flag-waving thuggery on our streets, are repeatedly brushed aside while they pathetically pander to the racist angst of a nasty, uninformed minority?
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KuroSan @kurosanarts.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I've been saying this for a while now, especially when it comes to the hire bikes. I've suggested a scheme where you take a basic safety test like the CBT for mopeds, where passing gets you discounted bike stuff or money off bike hire costs.
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I think there are many who have started cycling without bothering to think or learn about the rules. A public information campaign would help, also cycle training in schools. Wouldn't hurt to have some more education out there for drivers as well.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 15/09/2026
I remember a world where if you tried to sell the US out for Russian money you went to a Supermax jail for the rest of your life.
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Fionna O’Leary @fascinatorfun.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/prea...
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Dr Stylite @columnist.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I appreciate that on multiple levels it sucks not to be in the EU but that’s the point — it sucks. There’s no magic to make it all better — you have to make a very meaningful offer that contends with all the difficult parts. Otherwise just accept it sucks — which ofc is the British malaise.
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Fionna O’Leary @fascinatorfun.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The price 👇of over reliance on oil & gas and the fact that UK underinvestment in the grid infrastructure means we are of the grid is the price we have paid for our high prices
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
it reflects his position on Canada ofc
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A serious democratic society simply cannot allow this. That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas). The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much. It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 11/09/2026
"...solving problems is only a tool and proxy for achieving the primary goal of conceptual understanding and insight. Forgetting this in the world of AI may turn the tool against the primary goal."
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Is there an impossibly long compound German noun for a media campaign out of all proportion to the proposed measure they are campaigning against? Sadly, however, I fear we might soon need an even longer one for when a spooked government gives into that campaign.
Front page of Telegraph on the tourist taxFront page of the Mail on the tourist tax
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Directionally this feels right to me: memory shortage will turn to glut, models will move in-house to control security and cost, inference hardware will get smarter and cheaper. Will Apple be the ultimate winner? There's a lot of momentum in China these days.
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William Lees @williamlees.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Good to know there's at least one politician in the world that is getting to grips with the detail! Halfway through the article I was ready to reply 'and also the closed models cheat on performance' but then read this gobsmacking section.
this is an account of OpenAI claiming to have found a proof of a challenging mathematical conjecture with their latest model, followed by a methematician who uses their models in his work suggesting that it kight have made use of his sessions with the model.
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 10/09/2026
If you're in government watching criminal-led blackshirt thugs in balaclavas wage war on the RNLI and you're hedging your bets because you're not sure who the majority of the country will side with, why do you even want to be in government? Why would you WANT to lead people you think so little of?
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 09/09/2026
"a massively unfortunate incident" Also entirely predictable www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Protesters outside Portsmouth hotel mistake Pakistan U19 cricket team for asylum seekers
A group of masked agitators gathered outside a four-star hotel in Portsmouth after reports a group of asylum seekers had been taken there, when it was in fact Pakistan’s under-19 cricket team on a tou...
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Paul Hebden @paulhebden.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
What a ridiculous question. Once again the BBC drives a nail into it's own coffin.
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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
“My profession smiles at hard-right figures when they walk into a TV studio and are given a disproportionate amount of air time to make their fact-free assertions while nodding along to their scapegoating of the weak.” ✍️ Patrick Howse
bylinetimes.com
The BBC Is Just Nodding Along
The corporation's news coverage has lost its soul as a bulwark against unaccountable power and extremism, writes a former BBC News producer
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Cllr David Gregg @dtgregg.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Blackshirts on the streets of Britain should trigger alarm bells for all of us. We have multiple examples *in my lifetime* of how allowing masked organisations to thrive heads to horrible places.
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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
hahahahaha
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Daniel Moser @dmoser.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.
Map showing Lower Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.
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Simon Nixon @nixonsimon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Really striking how overwhelmingly Brexit is rejected by those who never got a vote on it
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SANTA CLAUS @santaclausalaska.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
FUN FACT If we switched to all renewable energy, the number of ships crossing the ocean would fall almost in half, slashing global CO2 emissions. Because those ships are JUST carrying coal, oil and gas. ~ Bill McKibben SUPPORT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES!
Fun Fact: If we switched to all renewable energy, the number of ships crossing the ocean would fall almost in half, slashing global CO2 emissions. Because those ships are just carrying coal, oil and gas.
- Bill McKibben, Climate Activist
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Britain could cap political donations tomorrow Burnham said he supported donation caps So why is his government briefing against Stella Creasy’s proposed amendment to cap donations? For shame
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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 01/09/2026
Today the UK officially became a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The offer? £2 billion a year for the UK economy (in the long run). Basically a rounding error in comparison to the £92 billion on the table from EU membership.
bestforbritain.org
EU membership is the best deal for the UK economy - Best for Britain
The economic boost of at least £92bn via the UK's renewed EU membership would vastly eclipse gains from the new trans-Pa
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Fionna O’Leary @fascinatorfun.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Cameron’s austerity model built on a Harvard paper “Growth in a Time of Debt” that suggested the Keynesian model (that Gov should spend in times of recession to promote growth) was erroneous and that Governments should reduce debt. But there was a problem that took some time to uncover
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
He is literally saying "reality is not my ideology." He has gone to war against science; science as a description of reality will win in the long run because science as reality doesn't go away even if you close your eyes and yell.
"The National Academies seem dead set on using taxpayer dollars to push their radical climate agenda and influence court decisions, but not on my watch. My office flagged their fraudulent behavior back in February and gave them the chance to make things right, but instead they doubled down and created yet another biased
document to force their ideology on Americans,"
- Attorney General Austin Knudsen
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Shammy Gatt @thatshaggymatt.noveltytoast.com · 28/08/2026
My nephew took a programming class for his senior year of high school. And the assignments were "prompt ChatGPT to write a program that does this." He was *furious*.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 27/08/2026
When I think of all the amazing scientists that have lost their jobs here in the states because of Trump/Vought/Musk/RFK Jr/the GOP, it makes my blood boil to see the US interfering in a single overseas postdoctoral appointment matter to advance a white supremacist agenda.
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
What is so important to the ultra-rich that they must seize and destroy the world's resources, hold down wages and crush organised labour, capture politics to reduce the tax they pay, fund the far right to stifle democracy? Here's an answer. A Hermes Birkin 35 Diamond Bag. On sale for £449,555.68
Hermes Birkin 35 Diamond Blanc Himalaya Matte Crocodile Limited Edition Bag
£449,555.68
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Matthew Barnfield @mbarnfield.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
What I think it the most interesting part: at least *three quarters* of those who oppose net zero think that a minority of the public is in favour of it; only 4% of them think it has majority support. In reality ~60%+ of Britons support net zero.
Bar charts showing that three quarters of those who oppose net zero think that support for the policy is the minority view in the British public
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
New immigration stats show that the numbers of asylum seekers in hotels is down to 16k - falling 50% in a year. Small boat crossings down 23% in the year to June. Numbers waiting for initial decision down from almost 180k to 40k.
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