David Brooks: How to Fall in Love with Someone

One of yesterday’s Moments_in_FFS (tm)

events.yale.edu/event/david-...

Major pharmacology journals flag another 15 papers by scientist facing criminal probe Salvatore Cuzzocrea A leading pharmacologist in Italy accused of embezzling research funds is now the subject of coordinated editorial action by one of the field’s professional societies.  The…

retractionwatch.com/2026/04/20/m...

As usual, nobody gives a shit:

"Please take note that the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) is not the competent authority for verifying and certifying compliance of products with food law regulations and their
marketability in Germany or the EU."
#SupplementsSaga

Yes.

A tweet by NIH Director Bhattacharya where he cites Matt Memoli's stance against a COVID vaccine mandate. He calls Memoli a "gifted and courageous leader."

NIH Director Bhattacharya quote-tweeted this email from Matt Memoli when he was an intramural scientist concerned about COVID vaccine mandates.

1/3

I share Steve’s concerns. An observation:

The Court’s immense power, such as it is, is contingent upon its at least plausibly appearing to do law. This may seem like an academic debate, but it’s literally over whether the Court is doing law or something else. That matters.

Can we finally agree that burning wood for energy is a terrible idea and won't be carbon neutral, let alone carbon negative, in our lifetimes? BECCS using wood certainly shouldn't qualify as CO₂ removal (CDR).

Heh-heh-heh, "Holland & Barrett, but that is generally well-regarded other than that they also sell homeopathy"

They failed math exam too :)
These number are not fitting together.
From here: www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product...

#chemsky #chemchat #SupplementsSaga

Agree completely. This looks like a variation on good ol' staurosporine, which hits half the kinases known to man. This compound is great news, but surely not because it's some sort of selective inhibitor.

In my experience, Nature papers don't have a large amount of issues... but of course, I mostly look only at images. Perhaps stats people could look more closely at the raw data.

pubpeer.com/publications...

Washington Post article on STEM cuts at federal agencies. NSF tops it at -42%!

“Between January 2025 and February 2026, STEM and health employees at science-focused agencies saw nearly 15,000 jobs cut. The rate outpaced cuts among other federal workers.”

OPM data - Figure from Wash Post article 19 April. (Where US science has been hit hardest.)

NSF at -42%!

Many folk are surprised to discover thay Risk of Bias assessment tools tend not to interrogate the question “Did this study actually happen? And are its results trustworthy enough to believe?”

Jack’s Cochrane endorsed INSPECT-SR checks have done a lot to mainstream such Trustworthiness Assessment.

1. The paper with the implausibly large effects of Omega-3 fatty acids on mental health was now retracted. A little thread on the process where @ianhussey.mmmdata.io and I was involved.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop: Another triumph of celebrity pseudoscience and quackery Earlier this month, the hostilities between Gwyneth Paltrow's den of celebrity pseudoscience and quackery, her "lifestyle" website and store Goop, and skeptics erupted into open warfare, as Goop attac

Nine years ago, Paltrow was already a POS spouting nonsense as bad as #CocaineBobby.

Thing is, they never change. "Goop Kitchen" is just PR to separate her from RFK Jr/MAHA "Eat Real Food" flop.

Credit @gorskon.bsky.social & @sciencebasedmed.bsky.social
sciencebasedmedicine.org/gwyneth-palt...

I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

b): massive implausible effect sizes, not retracted.

Comparison with a realistic baseline could also be helpful as it's not my field.

Can anyone point me towards examples of literature like this that has not been retracted yet? There must be something out there.
Need it for an experiment.

Reminder: If researchers find Cohen's d = 6, no they didn't.

trustworthy.scientific.claims/posts/if-res...

"Even"? So you expected the opposite?

Schneider Shorts 17.04.2026 – Saving the planet never tasted this good Schneider Shorts 17.04.2026 – an anti-aging clinical trial with bonus eye-cancer, a papermiller turns to full-time mushrooming, an artist-scientist educates a youngster, German and Canadian c…

Schneider Shorts 17.04.2026 – Saving the planet never tasted this good
forbetterscience.com/2026/04/17/s...

What I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center I spent 10 months working at the institution because I thought I could help protect it. What I observed there is far worse than the public knows.

Heartbreaking description of the pointless, thoughtless damage being done to the Kennedy Center. It was such an important part of life in Washington, and is now being destroyed for no reason

www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

But I can diagnose cretinism for authors of such papers!

More Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it, POLITICO Poll finds Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views are commonplace across the land.

Misinformation is a formidable force.

46% of US adults surveyed last month signaled that they think the science on vaccines remains “up for debate” & is damaging to require people to get them.

We have an HHS secretary who likes to chop off rodent genitalia.

🧪 www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

Why funders shouldn’t withdraw money from open access publishing Cancer Research UK’s decision to stop funding article processing charges marks a significant shift in how they approach open access. In its April 1st announcement (not an April Fool), the org…

"Much of OA policy is grounded in an ideology that treats everything as a market problem to be fixed through market instruments....neoliberal logic that gave rise to APCs"

Whether or not you agree with the main thrust of this article, the above is accurate. 1/2 www.samuelmoore.org/2026/04/14/w...

Apologies - I read "embeds" as ads embedded in videos (which Ublock does catch). Since your problem appears to be with actually embedding videos, my post is indeed not helpful.

Generally, a combo of a browser that ends in fox and a blocker that ends in origin solves this issue completely (or almost completely).

Whoa, the journal even rejected the comment. That's borderline criminal (and not "self-correcting").

Tagging @forbetterscience.bsky.social - maybe this could get even more exposure.

Also, @indexcat-ai.bsky.social thinks the original paper cites a LOT of junk:

app.indexcat.com/s/-Dzb97QjTw...

Unfalsifiable by Design: A Year of Trying and Failing to Reproduce a Human Microbiome and Autism Study The myth of open data, reproducibility, responsibility, and accountability in science, and your role in it

How every layer of science's "self-correcting machinery" failed when Iva Veseli and I simply wanted to reproduce the findings of a high-profile study on gut microbiome and autism:

merenlab.org/2026/04/15/u...

Burning trees as a "renewable energy" solution to climate change is as idiotic as lighting your garage on fire to save your burning house.

How did it get legitimized? Partially through the biomass energy "research". Cargo cult science in action.

pubpeer.com/search?q=bio...

And I bought it! On purpose, of course. It would be my forth attempt to test magnesium taurate. (Fifth will follow, but it formally looks fine)

So make your guesses!

#chemsky #chemchat #SupplementsSaga