📢 We’re looking for a writer to join our team at Our World in Data!
What we’re looking for is quite unique: someone who writes excellent narrative articles on large global problems, finds memorable framings to make hard ideas easier to understand, while being genuinely obsessed w/ technical details
Finally, after putting it off for ages, I have a new website. It has all my pubs, the links & slides for my thinking Critically About AI lectures, links to as many podcasts/conference presentations I could find. Most importantly, it has sparkles, friendship bracelets, & Taylor lyrics
www.drjrm.org
Applications open for Lords Social Mobility Work Experience Programme 9 April 2026
Great opportunity for year 12 students to do work experience at the House of Lords. Apply by 22 April
www.parliament.uk/business/new...
Our colleague needs your help keeping a 1,200-year dataset alive!
If you have botanical expertise or are based near Arashiyama, Kyoto — DM her or email tuna@ourworldindata.org.
This was a huge project, with enormous credit due to the CoS team who conceived and co-ordinated it. And this ⬇️ is the key take-home:
A new report out on alternative publishing platforms and their role in the publishing ecosystem… pre-registered on Octopus.
Conclusions: we need collective action, reform of research assessment, investment in digital infrastructure.
There are action points for everyone.
zenodo.org/records/1773...
I realise this is the definition of a needle in a haystack, but I'm looking for someone who is taking an orphan drug for a rare disease (eg something like Gaucher disease or Fabry disease).
If you know anyone, please do put me in touch!
Hertford College’s bridge in Oxford, lit up against a clear midnight blue sky with a few stars twinkling. The buildings a glowing orange and two old-style street lamps light New College lane going off into the distance, with warm orange light.
@hertfordcollege.bsky.social in Oxford looking stunning tonight.
Clear skies - will we see the aurora?
A flaming Oxford sky at @hertfordcollege.bsky.social tonight
#breastcancer
A reminder. If you, your family or your patients are interested in understanding the potential side effects of common treatments for breast cancer the PREDICT breast web site has got you covered. Please repost.
side-effects.breast.predict.cam
It’s just over a week before I start as Principal of @hertfordcollege.bsky.social. The College is fundraising today for its new library and the comments people are leaving about why they have donated show what a special place Hertford is: hertford.givingday.co.uk/donor-wall
It will continue to be!
A hummingbird hawk moth feeding on primroses on 1st March in Oxfordshire.
The earliest I’ve ever seen a hummingbird hawk moth in the UK, feeding on primroses this morning! Spring!
OpenSAFELY is open from today! Huge thanks to all who supported this vast collaboration: whole population GP data; in a productive platform; innovative privacy protections; unprecedented support from professions, privacy campaigners; &c
Now it's over to users!
www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/02...
V useful piece dispelling myths about NIH policy on open access
upstream.force11.org/cost-of-conf...
Bad that DHSC haven’t corrected the information, but the mistake is down to the crazy IARC system.
Grouping ‘things that can increase cancer risk’ according to
‘how sure we are that they can increase cancer risk’
NOT
‘how much they increase cancer risk’
is very counterintuitive and unhelpful
We love it when people use our open API and build features they would like to see on Octopus.
@andreasthinks.me has created Octosphere - a way to connect Octopus with the decentralised system behind BlueSky, the ATmosphere.
It’s a prototype, but shows what can be done:
octosphere.social/dashboard
This was a huge effort from the Winton team: several years of reviewing all the side effects information available, and working with patients on how best to display it.
Thank you to everyone who helped put it all together. It’s so nice to know that patients have this info now and can better prepare
A genuinely fun event to take part in!
@berndpulverer.bsky.social had to defend the current publishing system whilst @alexandrafreeman.bsky.social got what seems like the easier job of arguing for complete reform…
but the audience voting gave it a surprise twist!
Proud to have been involved in the design of Predict (Breast & Prostate) to make sure that its results are clear and easy for patients and professionals to understand.
Fantastic to see how many people it has helped.
If you’ve seen - or produced - some good, balanced information to help people make decisions in the last year then submit it now!
It is now possible to embed video within the main text of your Octopus publications.
We heard that this was important for, e.g., video methods, artistic performances, sign language and behavioural studies.
Your video has to be hosted on Vimeo first. That is because of privacy and cookies settings.
I agree. I think that partly comes from setting your goal correctly. Biomedical goals often don't match people's (patients') goals. I think knowing where you want to go puts you on the path of finding the right 'scientific' methods (which might be a lot more from social sciences).
You can't 'follow the science' as science doesn't know where you want to go.
If you decide where you want to be - what you want to be able to do - science can help you find the best route to get there (if it's possible).
We all need trustworthy information that isn’t trying to persuade us but to help us make up our own minds.
It’s amazing how rare this is: communication done for the audience’s sake rather than for the communicators’ own purposes.
If you’ve seen a good recent example - nominate it!
Formatting ‘standards’ should only ever support the actual job of formatting which is to help communication of the content. Not undermine it.
(Perhaps not this case, but many ‘formatting standards’ are about branding and where that gets in the way of content then it speaks volumes about priorities)
Bar chart showing publication views on Octopus.ac 2023 - 11,676 views 2024 - 15,461 views 2025 - 41,915 views
We've got our 2025 statistics now, and it's clear just how well-read publications on Octopus are - it's a fast-growing platform.
(Bots removed from the data)
Lots of new features in 2025 - such as being able to find UK government research priorities and link your work to them.
More features soon!
Yes - page 5 here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6155f6...
We did some work on evaluating SAGE’s communication of uncertainty: doi.org/10.57874/3g0... (not all studies published yet!). Some conclusions here: doi.org/10.57874/k5k...
New preprint from COS and @ip4os.eu: a summary of a small circle meetup on open science held at the Metascience Conference in London (1 July 2025). It captures key themes of the discussion—open science priorities, policy developments, and what's on the horizon.
Read more: osf.io/preprints/me...
Join our Replicability Project: Health Behavior!
We have 55 replication studies underway, our target is 65-70.
We are only recruiting for secondary data replications--i.e., using existing data to test the original question.
Here's a list of studies we think could be feasible.
If interested...
