Hi 👋 I’m Simon. I’m a chemist with a PhD. I spent years learning how science actually works. Now I spend far too much time on the internet watching people confidently explain how it doesn’t. So I write about chemicals, food, agriculture, medicine, AI and evidence. I make complicated science simple. I challenge claims that don’t survive the evidence. And I explain what the headlines leave out. Science is complicated enough. The internet doesn’t need to make it worse. Welcome.

Wait until you discover that lettuce and spinach contain DNA too.

Got my COVID and flu vaccines yesterday. Understanding science makes vaccines less frightening, not more.

We used science to make life safer. Then used social media to make people terrified of science.

We have people demanding chemical-free food while using smartphones powered by chemistry to complain about the chemicals in their food. Humanity is fascinating.

Social media has discovered something terrifying about human psychology. Truth is optional. Outrage is profitable.

The most effective attack on Europe is one Europeans don't even recognise as an attack. Make energy expensive. Undermine food security. Discredit scientists. Divide allies. Destroy trust in institutions. Turn Europeans against each other. Once you see it you can’t unsee it.

There is a lot of Russian propaganda in Europe. They have invested as much money in it as in weapons during this war. This is a massive financial program spanning decades. Russia has been waging a hybrid war against Europe, including Italy, France, Britain, and Germany, for a long time. It just isn't waging a full-scale war against them as it is against us. Because we had the same thing – a hybrid war. Russian narratives across absolutely all television and media platforms, on the internet, and on social media. People should not be pierced through and brainwashed by waves of narratives from the Russian Federation. Because it is up to France, Ukraine, Italy, and Spain to decide how to live and whom to elect. Russia cannot influence Italy's choices and freedom. Italy is a free country, just like Ukraine. The Russians will seek to exploit far-right movements, religious movements, faith, migration, and gender. Russia doesn't care what issue can divide society: from religion to language, Russia will always find it and strike there. We are seeing this now not only in Europe – they also have influence in the United States of America. They have a very significant wave going on there, and their network is operating. From an interview with Corriere della Sera. (3/3)

Imagine you were a foreign agent tasked with weakening Europe. What would you do? Weaken energy security. Spread fear about nuclear power. Increase dependence on imported energy. Make electricity more expensive and industry less competitive. Weaken agriculture. Spread fear about pesticides, biotechnology and modern farming. Make food harder and more expensive to produce. Weaken public health. Undermine trust in vaccines, medicine and science. Turn public health into a political battlefield. Weaken military security. Undermine support for NATO and Ukraine. Divide European allies. Make collective defence harder. Destroy trust in institutions. Convince people that scientists, journalists, governments and regulators are all lying to them. Then divide the population. Turn immigration, religion and politics into permanent culture wars. Make Europeans hate each other more than they fear external threats. And finally, destroy the idea of objective truth itself. Flood social media with so much outrage, fear and misinformation that nobody knows what to believe anymore. You don't need a conspiracy when a country can be persuaded to undermine its own resilience.

Apples contain cyanogenic compounds that can release cyanide. Potatoes naturally produce toxic glycoalkaloids. Coffee contains hundreds of chemicals. And somehow humanity survived breakfast. Chemistry is about exposure, not scary names.

You don't have to trust every scientist. But you should understand why a thousand independent experiments matter more than one viral video.

Your mitochondria have their own DNA. They’re descendants of ancient bacteria that became permanent residents inside other cells. You are the result of a biological merger that happened billions of years ago. And people still think genetic engineering is unnatural.

If your opinion about a scientific subject cannot be changed by evidence, it's not a scientific opinion.

Chemistry has saved more lives than chemophobia ever will.

I want to hear from all the scientists on X. Chemists. Biologists. Physicists. Engineers. Doctors. Researchers. What is one thing the public consistently misunderstands about your field? Let's make some actual expertise visible.

Water can kill you. Drink far too much too quickly and you can dangerously dilute the sodium in your blood. The substance essential for life can become lethal. The dose makes the poison. Even when the substance is water.

You want to permanently ban mRNA? Congratulations. You’ve just banned protein production in every living cell in your body. You’re not protecting yourself from biology. You’re demonstrating that you don’t understand it.

I posted about the riots in France yesterday. Saying that: “You have the right to protest. You have the right to be angry. You have the right to demand change. You do NOT have the right to burn, loot or attack people.” What happened in the comments was disturbing. Racism. Hatred. Attacks on entire communities. People openly trying to divide France and Europe. And it made me wonder. How much of this anger is genuine? And how much is being deliberately amplified? We know Russia has conducted influence operations designed to exploit divisions in European democracies. And here’s the clever part. Russia doesn’t need to invent racism. It doesn’t need to organise riots. It doesn’t need to create political divisions. It just needs to make existing divisions worse. Turn French citizens against each other. Turn Europeans against each other. Make everyone distrust the police, the government, the media and democratic institutions. And watch us do the rest. Am I saying the accounts commenting on my post were Russian bots? Maybe. But I have no evidence of that. But we should all be asking who benefits when our conversations become increasingly hateful. Because you don’t have to be a Russian agent to amplify Russian propaganda. You just have to stop questioning what you’re sharing. The easiest way to weaken a democracy is to convince its citizens to turn against each other. And judging by some of the comments yesterday, we have a problem.