Geneticist @Otago. Pure + applied science. Gaffs/typos due to lack of coffee, time, and maybe mind-altering parasites. Rebel just for kicks.

Dunedin City, New Zealand
Think I am done here. Now hanging out here.
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Funding for science, innovation and technology has been badly missing from this year's election coverage despite being a big difference in where we'll end as a nation up in 10 or 20 years. This article does a great job of hitting key points. newsroom.co.nz/2026/10/30/sc…
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Neil Gemmell retweeted
The Australien Government has made an ad about its latest Bullshit™, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative 🌏🌳🐨 #auspol
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this is unironically the level of woke i’m at rn
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My grandfather built motors that powered big machines. In a lab not so different from his workshop, my colleagues and I uncovered the assembly of the bacterial motor. Today, this discovery has been published in @NatureMicrobiol #MolecularNodes #Discovery nature.com/articles/s41564-0…
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Replying to @nattyover
Here is another animation I made. Toward the end, it illustrates the role of the flagellar motor in bacterial motility. And here is the research paper: nature.com/articles/s41564-0…
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We've been doing wastewater metagenomics for 2 years. In the first 20 months we never detected measles once. However, in the last 4 months we've detected it 10 times across numerous states. It's going endemic again; good reason to get vaccinated. health.hawaii.gov/news/newsr…
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A new Nature study just mapped >16 million immune cells across 300+ people. The punchline: immune aging follows a predictable, programmable transcriptomic drift. Aging is software. Not entropy. @Molecule_sci @vitadao @BioProtocol 🔗 Paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
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Must have been watching some old tape of a classic rugby number 8 forward move.
Todd Monken has gone completely psychotic (heavy compliment)
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The Govt quietly announced a loosening of climate rules last night, including: - Decoupling the ETS from Paris - Shifting ETS resets to every 2 years - Delaying the public sector target by 25 years - Removing CCC advice from *before* emission reductions plans:
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Jon has a sit-down with the Godfather of AI, @geoffreyhinton to discuss the many ways that artificial intelligence could disrupt politics and everything else across the globe. New episode available now! #theweeklyshow #jonstewart #politics
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Why does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan and healthspan of any rodent, nearly 40 years? A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today! Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…
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A study uncovers genes behind an extreme symbiosis: Pygmy seahorses perfectly mimic the gorgonian coral they live within, are resistant to the coral's venom, and are protected from infection by the coral’s antimicrobial compounds. In PNAS: ow.ly/r87850WPbla
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A little town in Sweden - Tomelilla - is pioneering what it means to put Doughnut Economics into practice. This can be great inspiration for many towns and villages seeking to create a different kind of future... check out this article in today's Guardian theguardian.com/environment/…
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Happy Publication day! The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney @LiamMcIlvanney @ZaffreBooks liveanddeadly.net/2025/07/03…
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You don’t cut global health funding by 83% and walk away without grave consequences. A new Lancet forecast warns of 14 million deaths by 2030 - including 4.5 million children under age 5.
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Wow! The Regulatory Standards Bill could force taxpayers to compensate polluters, stop any efforts to help nature/climate & cost tens of millions of dollars a year?! Treasury and Ministry officials confirm Seymour's Regulatory Standards Bill is a hot mess. #nzpol
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Read the whole thing, but particularly the last line
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This is the big one: Kennedy is firing the entire #ACIP in a move he says is needed to restore confidence in vaccines. "It scares me to think of what’s ahead,” Mike Osterholm of CIDRAP told me. statnews.com/2025/06/09/rfk-…
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