Adam Rutherford
@adamrutherford.bsky.social
I had a marvellous time ruining everything.
Scientist. President of @Humanists_UK Lecturer in Genetics @UCL
Genetics, race, eugenics, books, cricket, +–=÷×
@kbjmanagement
adamrutherford.com
Scientist. President of @Humanists_UK Lecturer in Genetics @UCL
Genetics, race, eugenics, books, cricket, +–=÷×
@kbjmanagement
adamrutherford.com
Pinned
Right. Hitler's DNA. Brace yourselves for a deluge of misinformation and bad science.
I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.
I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.
Yes, medical fryambial and &runctitional features.
Well done all involved.
Well done all involved.
November 27, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Yes, medical fryambial and &runctitional features.
Well done all involved.
Well done all involved.
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇
Notes from Beethoven’s genome
Wesseldijk et al. compare the genomic information collected from Ludwig van Beethoven
with population-based datasets used to quantify musical achievement.
www.cell.com
August 7, 2025 at 11:10 AM
If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
A delightful anatomy of one of the ever-expanding Polygenic Score fertility companies, this one engaging in some seriously snake oil-smelling marketing...
totalhealthoptimization.com/2025/11/21/c...
totalhealthoptimization.com/2025/11/21/c...
Concerns about the legitimacy and integrity of Nucleus Genomics – Total Health Optimization
totalhealthoptimization.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:25 AM
A delightful anatomy of one of the ever-expanding Polygenic Score fertility companies, this one engaging in some seriously snake oil-smelling marketing...
totalhealthoptimization.com/2025/11/21/c...
totalhealthoptimization.com/2025/11/21/c...
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
What other Starter Pack brings together @adamrutherford.bsky.social, @profaliceroberts.bsky.social, @iandunt.bsky.social, @jimalkhalili.bsky.social, @stephenfry.bsky.social and so many other lovely humanists in one place?
November 25, 2025 at 12:01 PM
What other Starter Pack brings together @adamrutherford.bsky.social, @profaliceroberts.bsky.social, @iandunt.bsky.social, @jimalkhalili.bsky.social, @stephenfry.bsky.social and so many other lovely humanists in one place?
Radiohead have been the soundtrack to my life for the last 30 years. Each album, each track puts me in time and place.
Tonight will be my 8th time seeing them live.
Tonight will be my 8th time seeing them live.
November 24, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Radiohead have been the soundtrack to my life for the last 30 years. Each album, each track puts me in time and place.
Tonight will be my 8th time seeing them live.
Tonight will be my 8th time seeing them live.
This is true. Also: a clip from Crick ON Start the Week from 1994. The other guests were Salman Rushdie, Maya Angelou and Tom Stoppard, Melvyn the host.
Stand by your radios at 09:00 UK time! I’ll be on R4’s Start the Week with @adamrutherford.bsky.social talking about CRICK. Also with Alison Bashford talking about science and the occult in the history of palmistry and Charlotte Houldcroft describing her work on DNA viruses.
November 24, 2025 at 7:44 AM
This is true. Also: a clip from Crick ON Start the Week from 1994. The other guests were Salman Rushdie, Maya Angelou and Tom Stoppard, Melvyn the host.
Fun fact: Over the years, I have spoken to 6 male scientists who were funded or entertained in some capacity by Jeffrey Epstein. Every single one of them distanced themselves by declaring he was a ‘creep’.
November 21, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Fun fact: Over the years, I have spoken to 6 male scientists who were funded or entertained in some capacity by Jeffrey Epstein. Every single one of them distanced themselves by declaring he was a ‘creep’.
If there was any doubt, test match cricket is the greatest game that humans have invented, and possibly the high point of evolution.
November 21, 2025 at 9:50 AM
If there was any doubt, test match cricket is the greatest game that humans have invented, and possibly the high point of evolution.
Checks TMS.
Oh
Oh
November 21, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Checks TMS.
Oh
Oh
I reviewed Joe Sacco's latest book, the Once and Future Riot. It's as good as anything he's done, and that is a high bar.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
The Once and Future Riot by Joe Sacco review – a masterclass in visual reportage
The author of Palestine turns his attention to the legacies of Indian partition in this brilliant portrait of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:26 AM
I reviewed Joe Sacco's latest book, the Once and Future Riot. It's as good as anything he's done, and that is a high bar.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
On rewatching the original Day of the Jackal on a plane: I used to think Fox was the ultimate assassin, but he’s absolutely shite at his job. He has to kill loads of people cos he’s horny, crashes his car driving on the wrong side of the road, looks like a weird fop and misses the shot. Hopeless.
November 18, 2025 at 4:12 AM
On rewatching the original Day of the Jackal on a plane: I used to think Fox was the ultimate assassin, but he’s absolutely shite at his job. He has to kill loads of people cos he’s horny, crashes his car driving on the wrong side of the road, looks like a weird fop and misses the shot. Hopeless.
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
posted by a friend who is Professor of Molecular Biophysics. PM me if you have any ideas and want to be put in touch.
November 17, 2025 at 8:03 PM
posted by a friend who is Professor of Molecular Biophysics. PM me if you have any ideas and want to be put in touch.
Science's Adam Rutherford thinks not.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei thinks AI could help find cures for most cancers, prevent Alzheimer’s, and even double the human lifespan. cbsn.ws/4oRZ8Nm
November 17, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Science's Adam Rutherford thinks not.
Jaws, Blood on the tracks, Horses, Wish You Were Here, Born To Run, The Heat Is On, Mister Magic.
That was a good year for music and films. Everything else was worse.
That was a good year for music and films. Everything else was worse.
"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
November 15, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Jaws, Blood on the tracks, Horses, Wish You Were Here, Born To Run, The Heat Is On, Mister Magic.
That was a good year for music and films. Everything else was worse.
That was a good year for music and films. Everything else was worse.
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
“That Hitler himself had a condition that was discovered and named by a Jewish man who also held some responsibility for the scientifically misguided murderous policies of the Nazis is at least a reflection that history is often imbued with a sense of complex and confusing irony.”
Addendum: I quickly wrote something partially about the results, and the potential for misunderstanding, but also about history's profound irony.
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
November 13, 2025 at 7:27 PM
“That Hitler himself had a condition that was discovered and named by a Jewish man who also held some responsibility for the scientifically misguided murderous policies of the Nazis is at least a reflection that history is often imbued with a sense of complex and confusing irony.”
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
Addendum: I quickly wrote something partially about the results, and the potential for misunderstanding, but also about history's profound irony.
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
November 13, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Addendum: I quickly wrote something partially about the results, and the potential for misunderstanding, but also about history's profound irony.
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
Addendum: I quickly wrote something partially about the results, and the potential for misunderstanding, but also about history's profound irony.
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
November 13, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Addendum: I quickly wrote something partially about the results, and the potential for misunderstanding, but also about history's profound irony.
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...
Right. Hitler's DNA. Brace yourselves for a deluge of misinformation and bad science.
I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.
I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.
November 13, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Right. Hitler's DNA. Brace yourselves for a deluge of misinformation and bad science.
I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.
I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.
Surely the attendance of AI-generated pupils is going to be zero?
November 12, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Surely the attendance of AI-generated pupils is going to be zero?
Reposted by Adam Rutherford
OK, I have set up a Substack and posted an article there going into much more detail about Francis Crick and the poet Michael McClure. If the link between science and art is your thing, or you just like psychedelic poetry, have a read:
The Powerful Knowledge: How the Poetry of Michael McClure Influenced the Scientist Francis Crick
In July 1959, the co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, Francis Crick, took a psychedelic trip on peyote through the power of poetry.
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:34 PM
OK, I have set up a Substack and posted an article there going into much more detail about Francis Crick and the poet Michael McClure. If the link between science and art is your thing, or you just like psychedelic poetry, have a read:
Please read this on Jim Watson, by his most thorough biographer
Okay, here are some first reflections on Watson.
Watson's life is a tragedy, really of Shakespearean proportions. He did not, as most bios will tell you, do one great thing when he was young and then collect laurels for it for the next 60 years. His career arc was unlike any in science.
Watson's life is a tragedy, really of Shakespearean proportions. He did not, as most bios will tell you, do one great thing when he was young and then collect laurels for it for the next 60 years. His career arc was unlike any in science.
November 9, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Please read this on Jim Watson, by his most thorough biographer
James Watson made some tremendous contributions to science, and expressed many grotesque views, which were racist, sexist and ignorant. These are all well documented.
November 8, 2025 at 3:24 PM
James Watson made some tremendous contributions to science, and expressed many grotesque views, which were racist, sexist and ignorant. These are all well documented.