Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 9h

Best wishes is normal (British). Never regards, sincerely for formal letters (included as attachments)

Reposted by Ben Hall

Nature @nature.com · 16h

A run-in with some artefact-laden AI-generated analyses convinced Lei Zhu that machine learning wasn’t making his role irrelevant, but more important than ever

go.nature.com/4hd7MCU

‘Am I redundant?’: how AI changed my career in bioinformatics

A run-in with some artefact-laden AI-generated analyses convinced Lei Zhu that machine learning wasn’t making his role irrelevant, but more important than ever.

go.nature.com

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 1d

Thing by me on today's Econ nobel in @alphaville.ft.com : www.ft.com/content/b8aa...

Idealist and/or materialist theories of economic growth

[FREE TO READ] Nobel committee: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

www.ft.com

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Alasdair Munro @apsmunro.bsky.social · 1d

Pleased to share my new post looking at the recent successes and turbulence in the development of therapeutics for infant RSV protection

Much progress made - but there’s more to do still!

#IDSky #PedsID 🧪

Protecting babies against RSV

The last two years have changed the landscape of RSV disease prevention

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Peter Kenny @pwk2024.bsky.social · 1d

Andrew Smith asks whether should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of computing 🧪
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didn’t see in the movies

The Oxbridge-educated boffin is feted as the codebreaking genius who helped Britain win the war. But should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of comput...

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Erin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 2d

I counted up the number of ways (platforms, accounts, apps) that people in my professional and personal lives plus healthcare systems and kid’s school are contacting me and uhh. This is objectively impossible.

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Benjamin Werner @benjaminwerner.bsky.social · 3d

The continued move to open science and data and code availability is great.

In cancer evolution, most publications now make data and code available, helping to speed up subsequent discoveries enourmesly.

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Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 5d

That’s a lovely celebration of him.

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Alexis Barr @alexisbarr.bsky.social · 5d

Many of you know, we lost Béla Novák this year. John Tyson, Francis Barr & I tried to capture his wonderful character & great mind so that those that didn't know him can see what a fantastic person he was.

Thanks to @jcellsci.bsky.social for publishing.

journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Béla Novák (1956–2025) – a legacy of scientific discovery and personal charm

In February 2025, we were shocked and deeply saddened to hear about the death of Béla Novák, Professor in Integrative Systems Biology at the University of Oxford, UK, and a beloved grandfather, father...

journals.biologists.com

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Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 5d

Hmm a quick search suggests that’s not quite fair www.science.org/content/blog...

The Business of Scientific Publishing

www.science.org

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Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 5d

I’m not completely on my history of publications but is that when journal publishers started taking a more active interest in developing them as profitable ventures? I think Robert maxwell may have been one of the pioneers

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 5d

WTF happened circa 1985??

"The fraction of published articles classified as reviews per year in PubMed from 1900 to 2024, covering approximately 40 million publication records, stratified by publication type"
A Hauser in @emboreports.org

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Toby Nangle @tobyn.bsky.social · 5d

Japan at the vanguard of so many (genuine) first world problems. Always worth following how it deals with them. on.ft.com/4oeQJ5O

Japan has an ‘enshortification’ problem

An ageing workforce is affecting all sorts of professions

on.ft.com

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Steve Senior @stevensenior.bsky.social · 6d

NHS estimates it costs £25 per dose to deliver. So that's £1.5 million to £2.5 million per (non-critical care) hospital admission avoided. Numbers to prevent a critical care admission or death are substantially higher still.

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Steve Senior @stevensenior.bsky.social · 6d

Bit nerdy, but it's worth having a skim over the number needed to vaccinate figures here. E.g. to avoid one hospitalisation in otherwise healthy people JCVI estimated 60-100k would need to be vaccinated (based on Autumn 2024 data).

www.gov.uk/government/p...

Appendix A: estimating the number needed to vaccinate to prevent a COVID-19 hospitalisation in autumn 2024 in England

www.gov.uk

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Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 6d

Congratulations Inigo!

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Inigo Martincorena @imartincorena.bsky.social · 6d

Our latest work is out in Nature today. In this paper, we introduce an improved version of NanoSeq, a duplex sequencing protocol with <5 errors per billion bp in single DNA molecules, and use it to study the somatic mutation landscape of oral epithelium in >1000 people www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Somatic mutation and selection at population scale - Nature

A new version of nanorate DNA sequencing, with an error rate lower than five errors per billion base pairs and compatible with whole-exome and targeted capture, enables epidemiological-scale studies of somatic mutation and selection and the generation of high-resolution selection maps across coding and non-coding sites for many genes.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Wellcome Sanger Institute @sangerinstitute.bsky.social · 6d

A hidden evolutionary process has been uncovered in sperm — where certain harmful DNA changes are naturally favoured as men age.

This gives some changes a competitive edge and increases the risk of genetic conditions. 🔬

Read here 👇
www.sanger.ac.uk/news_item/hi...

Hidden evolution in sperm raises disease risk for children as men age

Researchers reveal how certain harmful DNA variations become more common in sperm as men age, raising genetic disease risk for offspring.

www.sanger.ac.uk

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre @crukcamcentre.bsky.social · 6d

Cambridge researchers show that whole genome sequencing for breast cancer patients is likely to identify unique genetic features that could guide treatment or help match patients to clinical trials - which could benefit over 15,000 women a year.

🔗 crukcambridgecentre.org.uk/news/researc...

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Reposted by Ben Hall

James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 6d

Interdisciplinarity is fun because it’s something job ads in humanities HE say they want but it often feels like it actively disqualifies you (in the sense of having degrees in, and published in leading journals of, multiple distinct disciplines). Everyone believes you’re not in their discipline.

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 8d

Delighted that Sebastian Brandner will open the computational cancer seminar series this year with his seminar “Prediction of genomic and epigenetic alteration in meningiomas: a project proposal”!

Tuesday 21st October 12pm, LMCB at UCL! Full details and registration below:

UCL Computational Cancer Collaboratorium Seminar Series

On-going seminar series

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Reposted by Ben Hall

Laura Howes @laurahowes.bsky.social · 7d

I still love this nugget, but I also love the email I got yesterday evening (my time) that said "Dr. Ramsdell is currently living his best life and is off the grid on a pre-planned hiking trip."
I wonder if he knows yet?

bsky.app/profile/gilm...

Michael Gilman @gilman.bsky.social · 8d

Love this story about one of today's Nobel winners, Mary Brunkow.

(She and colleague Fred Ramsdell, working at Celltech (RIP), uncovered the role of Foxp3 in the development of Tregs.)

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Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 8d

Delighted that Sebastian Brandner will open the computational cancer seminar series this year with his seminar “Prediction of genomic and epigenetic alteration in meningiomas: a project proposal”!

Tuesday 21st October 12pm, LMCB at UCL! Full details and registration below:

UCL Computational Cancer Collaboratorium Seminar Series

On-going seminar series

www.eventbrite.co.uk

1 1

Reposted by Ben Hall

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 9d

"the quickest way to get a collaborator to return edits on your manuscript is to write down their affiliation wrong" (ancient academic proverb)

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Ben Hall @hallben.bsky.social · 9d

Congratulations!