If, like me, you mostly think about skeletons around Halloween, those magnificent bones need attention in all seasons.

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

Tile map of US states captioned “How many privately insured individuals use free preventive services jeopardized by Kennedy v Braidwood?” Data are shown for each state including the proportion of enrollees receiving at least one free service, which ranges from around 20% to more than 30%, as well as counts of enrollees using services, which are higher than 1 million for several states including Texas, Florida, California, North Carolina, Georgia and others. The source for the estimates is Bronsard et al. JAMA Health Forum 2025; 6(4): e251559.

Across states, 20.5–38.5% of enrollees in private insurance use free preventive services jeopardized by Kennedy v Braidwood. Thirteen states have >1 million enrollees who use free services, including >3 million in Texas where the case originated.

ja.ma/3GcUZC6

Use of No-Cost Preventive Services Jeopardized by Kennedy v Braidwood This cross-sectional study analyzes the use of 10 no-cost preventive services by individuals with employer-sponsored health insurance, which may be threatened by the upcoming Kennedy v Braidwood Supre...

On Monday the Supreme Court hears a case that could strike down the ACA mandate that insurers cover preventive services at no cost to patients.

We found that ~40 million people with private insurance use these free services, including half of enrolled women.

JAMA Health Forum:
ja.ma/3GcUZC6

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Title IX Is Now A Weapon In The Trump Administration's Culture War | Defector The U.S. Department of Education announced on Friday that it will be creating what it called a “Title IX Special Investigations Team” that would be dedicated to swiftly resolving complaints about tran...

Wrote about the Trump administration's "Title IX Special Investigations Team" and what it really is about—turning Title IX into a weapon in their culture war.

Gift link!

defector.com/title-ix-is-...

For sure! I found having people on the sidewalks holding signs and participating in chants really amplified the whole thing!

In an emergency department waiting room with a family member. The waiting room tv has been playing a 30 minute add for Draft Kings. Seems bad?

Anyone at an AI company who stops to think for half a second should be able to recognize they have a vampiric relationship with the commons. While they rely on these repositories for their sustenance, their adversarial and disrespectful relationships with creators reduce the incentives for anyone to make their work publicly available going forward (freely licensed or otherwise). They drain resources from maintainers of those common repositories often without any compensation. They reduce the visibility of the original sources, leaving people unaware that they can or should contribute towards maintaining such valuable projects. AI companies should want a thriving open access ecosystem, ensuring that the models they trained on Wikipedia in 2020 can be continually expanded and updated. Even if AI companies don’t care about the benefit to the common good, it shouldn’t be hard for them to understand that by bleeding these projects dry, they are destroying their own food supply. And yet many AI companies seem to give very little thought to this, seemingly looking only at the months in front of them rather than operating on years-long timescales. (Though perhaps anyone who has observed AI companies’ activities more generally will be unsurprised to see that they do not act as though they believe their businesses will be sustainable on the order of years.)

Anyone at an AI company who stops to think for half a second should be able to recognize they have a vampiric relationship with the commons. By operating in this purely extractive way, they destroy the things that underpin their businesses.

In my 25 years since high school I’ve seen

1. HIV/AIDS go from death sentence to manageable with drugs

2. Cystic fibrosis go from pretty much an extended death sentence to manageable with drugs

3. Sickle cell go from a horrible disease to (almost maybe) cured by gene therapy

Simply incredible

to the public health workers who don't hear it enough: you are making a difference 💌

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance.

Democracy requires your courage.

So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let despair overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Margaret Sullivan on four things the press needs to do rn:
1) Be clear about what's happening.
2) Stand up for press rights.
3) Emphasize how the admin is hurting their local communities.
4) Compellingly tell stories of people trying to do what's right.
margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/four-essen...

It's that norovirus time of year. Here's why the virus is a tricky one, how to keep an infection at bay and where things are with vaccines. www.sciencenews.org/article/noro...

i think it is important to say that the open and explicit racism of the president and the vice president isn’t just uncouth or “controversial” but a direct attack on tens of millions of americans and a dereliction of their duty to represent the entire country

The best science books of 2024 These are Science News’ favorite books of 2024, with links to the book reviews featured in our magazine.

And here's @sciencenews.bsky.social list: www.sciencenews.org/article/best...

Sleepy Gus

Sleepy Gus. Almost 5 months old.

IAS-USA Recommendations: Antiretrovirals for Treatment and Prevention of HIV in Adults This Special Communication from the International Antiviral Society–USA provides updated 2024 recommendations for HIV treatment and clinical management and HIV prevention.

The new IAS-USA "Guidelines: "Antiretroviral Drugs for Treatment and Prevention of HIV in Adults: 2024 Recommendations of the International Antiviral Society–USA Panel" are now available at jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Happy Thanksgiving from Chicago

Jojo: the hero Chicago deserves. They are perfect, and nobody can change my mind on that.

U.S. okays organ transplants between people with HIV, expanding donor pool The landmark move is expected to shorten wait times for organs for all patients and reduce hurdles to life-saving care for those with HIV.

People with HIV will be able to receive kidney or liver transplants from donors who also have HIV, federal health officials announced Tuesday.

The landmark move, which takes effect Wednesday, is expected to shorten wait times for organs for all patients.

Photograph of children’s book cover “What do scientists do all day?”

tl,dr; it’s email

The birth of a star as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope

This takes about thirty seconds to fill out, and I did it on my phone.
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This Saber-Toothed Kitten Mummy Is So Stinking Cute That I'm Gonna Cry! | Defector The ice patches surrounding the Indigirka River and its tributaries in northeastern Russia serve as a graveyard for the Ice Age: mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, saiga, and bison that lived and died in th...

I wrote briefly about how the baby saber-toothed cat makes me feel (spoiler: 😭)
defector.com/this-saber-t...

Water Taxi in the Neighborhood, Chicago

This is accurate

I think he meant to suggest 69. Missed opportunity.

Pink accents in the sky and white caps on the lake. Wednesday's sunrise start in Chicago.

Incredible graphic - the myriad of ways that bacteria defend themselves against antibiotics.

14 resistance mechanisms, summarised by Idan Yelin & Roy Kishony in Cell

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...