gordonwells.bsky.social
@gordonwells.bsky.social
You're going to have to do episodes on Oliver Sacks and Twin Studies now, aren't you @stuartjritchie.bsky.social @tomchivers.bsky.social?
December 14, 2025 at 12:28 PM
May have found a new favourite font

monaspace.githubnext.com#learn-more
Monaspace
An innovative superfamily of fonts for code
monaspace.githubnext.com
December 11, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Dare I say it, but I think we're gradually turning from chokers into stranglers.

I hope the WTC winnings get put to good use.
If SA's first innings versus India lasts just 10 more overs, it will have persisted for the same number of overs (140) as the entire 1st Ashes Test in Perth.
December 3, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Reposted
If you treat a five day Test as a five-day match, you greatly diminish your likelihood of defeat.
November 23, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted
To break the ice, I asked a biosecurity guy what his favourite bioweapon was, but he didn't find it amusing
December 3, 2025 at 8:36 AM
The evolution wars might come back.

Next, flat eathers at NASA and NOAA.
New: HHS employees were asked Monday evening to fill out a survey (it's voluntary/not required) about any religious discrimination they have witnessed or experienced, in an attempt to comply with Trump's "Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias" executive order from early this year. So that's cool.
December 2, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted
For their research showing that rape is generally motivated by sexual desire, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer were subjected to death threats and hounded in their personal and professional lives. And yet, they were right.
The Unwelcome Truth about Rape
For their research showing that rape is generally motivated by sexual desire, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer were subjected to death threats and hounded in their personal and professional lives. And yet, they were right.
quillette.com
November 27, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted
Great writeup from @startswithabang.bsky.social of an extraordinary hypothesis: the reason the two sides of the moon are so different might come down to tidal locking when the moon was still forming, and chemical gradients in the proto-lunar material due to radiant heat from the Earth!
The Moon's two faces don't match, and we think we know why
The far side of the Moon is incredibly different from the Earth-facing side. 66 years later, we know why the Moon's faces are not alike.
bigthink.com
December 1, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Reposted
i’m so happy for him
November 26, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Ah good, I have a drive to the Berg coming up this weekend.
Imagine you lived in the 18th century.

Smallpox kills 1 in 3 cases. Yet you can’t culture pathogens, don’t know germ theory, and have no idea what a virus is. How would you invent a vaccine?

In a new episode of HARD DRUGS, we trace the history of vaccines!
The history of vaccines
open.spotify.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:33 PM
While she was still foreign minister SA hosted the Sudanese RSF warlord. Let her be welcome there.
November 23, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted
You will never in a million years guess to whom this post is referring
The damned in hell are not more powerful for the fact that the fires do not consume them; it is part and parcel of their torment.
November 23, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted
Home Alone, 1990. Dir. Werner Herzog
November 23, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted
A new special issue of Philosophical Transactions B takes on one of science’s biggest questions: how life begins.

Rather than retracing Earth’s history, the authors look for the universal conditions that could make life possible anywhere, approaching the question from many fields and angles.
How life begins and where it might happen again
A recent special issue of Philosophical Transactions B takes on one of the biggest mysteries in science: how life first began. Instead of trying to replay Earth’s exact history, the issue’s authors lo...
www.santafe.edu
November 21, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted
Guidelines for T cell nomenclature

In the 1960s, lymphocytes were first parsed into two subsets, B cells and T cells. This was not without controversy; it was initially noted publicly that B and T were the first and last letters of ‘bullshit’

www.nature.com/artic...
Guidelines for T cell nomenclature
Nature Reviews Immunology - This Consensus Statement clarifies the existing subset-based nomenclature for T cells. Furthermore, it proposes an alternative modular nomenclature that is designed to...
www.nature.com
November 19, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Upgrading conda is starting to give me gentoo flashbacks
November 19, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Motte and bailey games. If you want to address health disparities don't poison science and medicne with identity politics and pomo BS.
Thoughtful piece on the importance of "DEI" in health research, published in Time Magazine.

time.com/7333975/dei-...

This presents the case in the context of lupus.
DEI Isn’t Wasteful. It’s Necessary for Good Medicine
Lupus patients pay the price when we erase inclusion from medical research.
time.com
November 19, 2025 at 6:16 PM
In SA we've had similar kerfuffles about reading Herman C. Bosman in school. We read Unto Dust in std 5. At about the same time my parents took us kids to see Patrick Mynhardt perform his HCB Oom Schalk readings. It was obviously critical satire.

Don't underestimate the kids. They can be exposed.
Two iconic children's cartoons created by illustrators with very sweet origin stories.

But how should we feel about the racism and imperialism within their pages today?
November 18, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted
The woman and the goose: A 12,000-year-old glimpse into prehistoric belief ⛏️🪿 phys.org/news/2025-11...
The woman and the goose: A 12,000-year-old glimpse into prehistoric belief
A 12,000-year-old clay figurine unearthed in northern Israel, depicting a woman and a goose, is the earliest known human-animal interaction figurine. Found at the Late Natufian site of Nahal Ein Gev I...
phys.org
November 18, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Reposted
It's Ashes week and who can forget when our volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull brought European airspace to a total halt in 2010? For a time, we had the world's most talked about new export industry.
November 18, 2025 at 8:50 AM
And so one of the greatest mashups was also made possible
November 18, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Reposted
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Dir: Martin Scorsese
November 17, 2025 at 9:10 AM
They're a woke version of reciting the Nicene Creed. And they're dumb because most arguments from autochthony are dumb. Especially when multiple populations have passed through over tens of thousands of years.
my wokest opinion is that land acknowledgements are fine. people knowing a little bit about the land you're on, even if one isn't invested in a land back project, is not particularly worse than the status quo, even if one comes by this info in a way that is somewhat cringe and forced
"my least woke opinion is---"

That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.

Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
November 14, 2025 at 1:12 PM
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Adding citations of people who might review the paper
November 14, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Reposted
DUN3
November 12, 2025 at 4:40 PM