Thinking AI: How Artificial Intelligence Emulates Human Understanding by John MacCormick

In Thinking AI, John MacCormick reveals a new landscape of emergent intelligence—a world in which computer programs can emulate many or all aspects of human thinking but humanity retains its meaning and purpose.

Out now (16 June UK pub).

Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

#AI

This Modern British Studies conference looks fantastic:

Local authority dashboard Explore data for your local authority and neighbourhood

Our local authority dashboard brings together data and insights on the state of health and health inequalities across all local authorities in England.

Explore the latest update of topics, including:
• healthy life expectancy
• employment
• monthly pay and rent
• loneliness and belonging data.

Disease of poverty and squalor returns to UK
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

The trials that quietly changed our lives Testing claims matters more than ever in an age of misinformation, overconfident assertions and unsubstantiated opinions

Lovely piece from @helenpearson.bsky.social on how evidence (especially but not only RCTs) have improved so many areas of life including policing, tackling poverty, and medicine
www.ft.com/content/9b8e...

📣 We’ve just launched 3 webpages showcasing the impact of our projects, funded by @healthfoundation.bsky.social:

· CDOH
· infants, children & young people
· healthy places

Thank you to all who helped shape this work & to THF for supporting our ambition!

👀Read more ➡️ bit.ly/4et3eZI

The Strait of Hormuz blockade is causing a slow-moving food crisis A crisis in the making.

Around a quarter of US farmers did not lock in fertilizer prices last fall, and many are now scrambling to cover costs stemming from a war they didn’t anticipate.

Retirement could be the most social time of your life New research challenges the narrative that ageing societies should be thought of in terms of decline

‘This study belongs to a larger shift in urban research. For decades, quantitative analysis has focused on the physical city: buildings, streets and infrastructure. Today the lens is widening to include the interactions that give those spaces meaning.’
www.ft.com/content/fb21...

Life course epidemiology and public health Life course epidemiology aims to study the effect of exposures on health outcomes across the life course from a social, behavioural, and biological perspective. In this Review, we describe how life co...

New paper on contribution of life course studies to public health
Life course epidemiology and public health - The Lancet Public Health www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Important context on new US fertility numbers… from demographers, not podcast bros :)
#demography

Cover of The Lancet's April 11, 2026 issue. Quote on cover reads: "Health cannot—and should not—be overlooked in the economies of war."

"Every 1% increase in military spending drives a 0·62% reduction in public health spending."

On the cover, a new letter examines the relationship between military spending and public health expenditure during conflicts.

Find out more in our latest issue: spkl.io/63325ANG6W

The Assembly review – TV has rarely seen anything like this delightful gem A group of neurodivergent and disabled young adults ask Stephen Fry the tough questions most others don’t dare to – and it makes for a truly liberating experience

The Assembly review – TV has rarely seen anything like this delightful gem

Traveling Without Sight: How Blind and Visually Impaired Explorers Navigate the World A writer joined a 10-day journey through northern India — on a tour designed for the visually impaired. Here’s what he learned.

So much of the language we use around travel — sightseeing and must-see lists — assumes that the world is best, or only, understood through the eyes. But what does it mean to travel somewhere new and not be able to see it? Here's what a writer discovered as he served as a sighted guide in India.

From MAHA to haha The Make America Healthy Again movement faces setbacks as key health positions remain vacant and Republicans grow wary of vaccine scepticism's political risks.

From MAHA to haha www.economist.com/united-state...

"Republicans now worry that they are on the wrong side of a wedge issue"

...and the wrong side of science, common sense, and morality.

Yep, MAHA’s influence dwindling. Feels more and more like a punchline than a serious movement. Phew.

Data visualisation using R, for researchers who don’t use R by Emily Nordmann, Phil McAleer, Wilhelmiina Toivo, Helena Paterson and Lisa DeBruine
#RStats
bigbookofr.com/chapters/data%20visualiz...

ICYMI this is a great read for the bank holiday weekend

"Not the AI we were promised"
Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize Lecture 2025 winner Prof Michael Wooldridge.

Earth and Moon from DSCOVR NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured this unique view of the Moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth last month. This view shows the fully illuminated “dark side” of the moon that is never visible from Earth. Ian Regan processed this version of the image to account for the Moon's motion. NASA / NOAA / Ian Regan

I hadn't seen this before. This is pretty remarkable.

Earth and Moon in one NASA photo.

ht @astrokatie.com

The miracle Marxist state? How Kerala cut poverty and defied the odds As India’s southern state goes to the polls, can the ruling communists stay in power? And are they really the country’s first party to eradicate extreme poverty?

Great piece on Kerala - India’s miracle state
www.thetimes.com/article/ce95...

How to be a science sleuth:
Research integrity experts share their tips for spotting and reporting fraudulent papers
Rupali Dabas writes @chemistryworld.com
Featuring @smutclyde.bsky.social , @deevybee.bsky.social, Nick Wise, Jack Wilkinson, Anna Pendlebury, and me.

Let's take better care of our amazing, beautiful, big blue marble.

Artemis II sent a pic of the beautiful garden planet we are too greedy, lazy, short-sighted, and ungrateful not to destroy:

Guidelines for Reporting of Figures and Tables for Clinical Research in Urology - PubMed In an effort to improve the presentation of and information within tables and figures in clinical urology research, we propose a set of appropriate guidelines. We introduce six principles: (1) include graphs only if they improve the reader's ability to understand the study findings; (2) think throug …

Doing statistics well is hard. Avoiding egregious errors in analysis, reporting and interpretation isn't. Just read, understand and follow the guidelines. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32451178/ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37286459/ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40914655/ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30580902/

Good luck guys! #NASA #ArtemisII

FRANCESCO BILLARI | Global politics is at odds with demography Migration emerges as a demographic necessity, not a temporary challenge

This, from demographer Francesco Billari, is very good:

“The real choice for political leaders is not whether to accept demographic change. It is whether to continue to fight it symbolically or to start governing it strategically”

www.businessday.co.za/opinion/2026...

It’s really quite shocking Wellcome didn’t have internal policy/feedback systems that prevent burning considerable resources on pseudo-science…

Introducing ggauto: automating better charts – Nicola Rennie The ggauto package is an opinionated ggplot2 extension package that aims to help people make better charts by default. This blog post explains why it exists and how it works.

🎉 ggauto is now on CRAN 🎉

An #RStats package that selects better chart types, and provides more accessible styling for #ggplot2 plots 📊

Blog post explaining why I made it and how it works: nrennie.rbind.io/blog/introdu...

#DataViz

London has England’s highest levels of child poverty, data shows About 38% of children in London live in relative poverty, compared with 29% in England as a whole London has England’s highest levels of child poverty and most extreme concentrations of hardship, data has revealed. In two boroughs more than half of children live below the breadline. In Britain, child poverty rates flatlined in 2024-25 compared with the previous year. About 4 million youngsters (27%) live in households earning less than 60% of the national median income after housing costs are taken into account. Continue reading...

London has England’s highest levels of child poverty, data shows