I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

New @ntrjournal.bsky.social pub from @joemcclernon.bsky.social @otg2014.bsky.social @danarubenstein.bsky.social Patrick Barnwell & me

We identified 2 latent classes of dual cig/ENDS users based on motivations for ENDS use, w/ implications for research, treatment, & regulation
tinyurl.com/bddvdn4a

A new study led by Cristine Delnevo, Director of Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies (INTS), suggests that nicotine pouches may offer a path to reduced tobacco harm ➡️

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

FORTUNATELY, for everyone we have a fun way to tell your House rep that you think Bobby Jr is a quack and has to go…

For $3 we will hand deliver (by a man in a duck costume) a rubber ducky with a message to “impeach the quack” to your rep!

QUACK-O-GRAMS!

act.standupforscience.net/fundraising/...

He called the CDC a cesspool of corruption that lied about the COVID vaccines. Now someone has committed violence because of the same misinformation.

The NIH can’t award ANY grants to outside researchers under new WH restriction, reports @wsj.com.

The pause came in the form of a footnote from OMB Director Vought, in a document that doles out federal funds to the NIH.

Prelude to rescissions, especially after his comments over the weekend?

This technology is so incredible

I wrote today about why we should shudder about ICE and CBP adding 19,000 new agents and officers — because we should terrified of WHO would want to join CBP and ICE amid politicized authoritarian images like this: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/four-fears...

“Historically, no one lived past age 35”

"I’ve heard *so* many versions of this claim, including recently from a menopause doctor (implying menopause is not “natural” because noone lived long enough to go through it). Every time someone states this “fact,” a demographer loses a piece of their soul"

Excited that my JAMA Pediatrics article with @jeremyfaust.bsky.social @bhrenton.bsky.social @hmkyale.bsky.social and others is now published. It turns out that permissive firearm laws aren’t great if you want to reduce pediatric firearm deaths. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

From the makers of Zyn. How is this Rocket Pop Cigar ok? Who knew summer could taste like a carcinogen?

Woooo hooo! Go Peter!!!

This is your friendly reminder that generative A.I. is not "intelligence" and it's not the "wave of the future."

No.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are super-expensive bullshit machines that suck up a fuck-ton of stolen data, including private info and creative content, in order to badly mimic it.

2025 ESIL awardee, @juliachensankey.bsky.social, will deliver her lecture in the second of three NIH ODP Early Stage Investigator Lectures of 2025 on June 5 at 10 a.m. ET.

Register now ➡️

prevention.nih.gov/news-events/early-stage-investigator-lecture/2025-awardees

@rutgerssph.bsky.social

Only 34 vape products—just 4 flavored—are FDA-authorized, yet thousands are still sold. @kevinrjschroth.bsky.social of @ru-ints.bsky.social @rutgerssph.bsky.social proposes targeting distributors through lawsuits to stop illegal vape sales & bring shelves into compliance.
Read more: loom.ly/oG8aE8k

Poisoning the air of a Black community for a fucking chatbot.

I hope everyone working on LLMs has reckoned with their role in building a technology that, so far, has offered little to no benefit to humanity — while causing real harm by degrading art, undermining labor in creative industries, and straight up automating political propaganda

At this point I'm honestly just calling my reps and bluntly saying you're old between the two of us I'm the one more likely to survive an ecoli infection. Maybe do something about this.

There are few things as cost effective as Narcan, especially in a country where (entirely preventable) opioid overdoses have been a leading cause of death for years. For every 6 kits distributed 1 OD is prevented. The $56M in this grant trained >66K people and distributed >282,500 kits in 2024 alone

Out today in @jama.com, me and @nathancortez.bsky.social examine how the drastic staffing cuts at FDA run counter to FDA's many statutory obligations and the bargains embodied in user fee provisions - and put public health, innovation, and all of us at risk.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Well, my main thought is that it is too mid to be destroying labor and the earth for.

These are all good questions.

Important to note that the user fees that fund FDA's Center for Tobacco Products ($712 million/year) are set by statute and can ONLY be used for purposes relating to tobacco regulation.

Don’t want unqualified political appointees across NIH?

Comments can be made at www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...