Salil Tripathi
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saliltripathi.bsky.social
Salil Tripathi
@saliltripathi.bsky.social
1.4K followers 180 following 180 posts
Writer of books / drinker of coffee / hater of cilantro /

Senior advisor - @ihrb.bsky.social / Senior associate - @cisl.cam.ac.uk / Contributing editor - @indexoncensorship.org, Singapore Unbound / Board member - PENinternational.bsky.social
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Reposted by Salil Tripathi
neilpollyticks.bsky.social
Alt text version. Thanks for sharing Harry.
Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec I), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: "If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?" With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of "adjuvant systemic chemotherapy", ", and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients' survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL r.
December 2, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Salil Tripathi
brian-goldstone.bsky.social
I really appreciate that @pbsnews.org ended the interview with this graphic.

It captures, in the simplest and starkest terms, the brutal arithmetic driving this country's homelessness catastrophe.
Graphic that reads: "The average hourly wage necessary to afford a one-bedroom apartment in the United States is $28.17. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25." -- National Low Income Housing Coalition
November 30, 2025 at 1:33 AM
saliltripathi.bsky.social
Chip shop?
November 27, 2025 at 7:55 AM