Improving Fertility Forecasts: New Research Highlights the Importance of Birth Order Dynamics Demographic projections are central to understanding how populations evolve and to planning for the future. Governments, international organisations, and researchers rely on forecasts of fertility, mo...

New research from new LCDS member Jakub Bijak (among others) shows that better fertility forecasts depend on looking beyond total birth rates 👶📊

By accounting for birth order dynamics, predictions become more accurate and informative for policy & planning.

🔗 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/improvi...

Opinion | Does the Trump Administration Really Want More Teen Pregnancies?

Creating a moral panic over low birth rates is how we get here: attacks on contraceptive methods and on public funding of family planning. 1/

A world in animated motion 💜I'm glad the upcoming Olden Age HoMM game is going back to this perspective and having a larger view of the world.

Heroes of Might & Magic III: Horn of the Abyss

👩‍🔬🤵‍♀️👩‍⚖️ For International Women’s Day @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social will host @melindacmills.bsky.social for a talk entitled "How to Be Brilliant Without Being Behaved".

More details:
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/melinda...

#IWD2026 #WomenInScience #Demography

Yesterday @melindacmills.bsky.social delivered the Richard Doll Seminar🎓🎤 about the "Our Future Health" data.

She outlined the exciting prospects of large-scale health data and her analysis of representativeness of the biobank population to a packed room, full of interested questions.

ahhh lol

Disappeared bodies, mass burials and ‘30,000 dead’: what is the truth of Iran’s death toll? Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Where is the Cam? I can't see it?

Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez assured US of cooperation before Maduro’s capture Exclusive: sources say powerful figures in the regime secretly pledged US and Qatari officials they would welcome Maduro’s departure Before the US military snatched Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, Delcy Rodríguez and her powerful brother pledged to cooperate with the Trump administration once the strongman was gone, four sources involved at high levels with the discussions told the Guardian. Rodríguez, who was sworn in on 5 January as acting president to replace Maduro, and her brother Jorge, the head of the national assembly, secretly assured US and Qatari officials through intermediaries ahead of time that they would welcome Maduro’s departure, according to the sources. Continue reading...

Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez assured US of cooperation before Maduro’s capture

Climate action or delay: the dynamics of competing narratives in the UK political sphere and the influence of climate protest

#5: Climate action or delay: the dynamics of competing narratives in the UK political sphere and the influence of climate protest. Nicole Nisbett, @viktoriaspaiser.bsky.social, @estrangeirada.bsky.social & @dvaldenegro.bsky.social

‘It’s frightening’: How far right is infiltrating everyday culture Extremist messaging now woven into music and YouTube videos, with one expert saying: ‘You can be radicalised sitting on your couch’

‘It’s frightening’: How far right is infiltrating everyday culture

UK commentator detained by ICE after Israel criticism to be released, family says Sami Hamdi’s visa was revoked in what appeared to be retaliation for criticism of Israel while touring the US The family of British political commentator Sami Hamdi, who was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in late October while on a speaking tour in the US, say he is set to be released and will be able to “return home soon”. “The government has agreed to release Sami,” the family said in a statement on Monday. “He will be able to return home soon insha’Allah.” Continue reading...

UK commentator detained by ICE after Israel criticism to be released, family says

Pleased to have hosted our workshop “Python Essentials with Git for Data Analysis” at the Weston Library in Oxford — a superb venue for two great days of learning.

A huge thank you to our organisers, instructors, and helpers for making this workshop possible!

#Oxford #Reproducibility #Carpentries

🚨It's that exciting time of year!🚨

Our team has got TWO open DPhil (PhD) positions in #datascience + #health here at @oxforddemsci.bsky.social for 2026🎉! See for details:

1️⃣ 👉 crahal.com/HDS_2026.html
2️⃣ 👉 crahal.com/pophealth_2026.html

Please share and help us to find our future teammates ❤️!

🥳 Thrilled to bits about this! The first project is with the forever brilliant @melindacmills.bsky.social, and the second with the dream team of @sanderwagner.bsky.social & @dvaldenegro.bsky.social!

I honestly can’t wait to begin supervising these exciting projects together🙇🙇🙇

Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest Video from Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, puts fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used to reach the Trump administration’s ambitious enforcement targets

If this is what they're getting caught on camera doing--to teenage US citizens--just imagine what they're doing that we don't see.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Exclusive | RFK Jr. to Oust Advisory Panel on Cancer Screenings, HIV Prevention Drugs The task force determines which preventive services insurers must cover at no cost to patients.

New exclusive 🗞️

Health secretary RFK Jr. plans to oust the members of an advisory panel that recommends which cancer screenings, HIV drugs and other preventive services insurers must cover at no cost

www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Deradicalization of opinion among young people after the Chile uprising of 2019

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

New paper looking at health (mortality), education and earnings stagnation in the US through a cohort perspective. Somehow things really stop improving from the 1947 birth cohort onwards www.aeaweb.org/research/cha...

If you look too good in your profile picture I'll assume you are a bot and I'll block you. Sorry

The first #metrics-and-models talk was fantastic🤗!

Next: @ramina-sotoudeh.bsky.social on "Antenatal Selection: A novel approach for assessing the genetic and ecological drivers of who survives to birth".

Details: metrics-and-models.github.io
Sign up: metrics_and_models-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk

Two graphs from the paper. The left graph shows US net greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2022. The official EPA estimates decline fairly steadily from 6.6 gigatonnes per year in 2005 to 5.5 in 2022 (17% below 2005 levels), largely reflecting natural gas displacing coal for electricity generation. The adjusted estimates, which reflect independent measurements of methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure, end at 6.3 gigatonnes per year in 2022 (only 5% below 2005 levels). The right graph shows 2022 emissions increasing linearly with the assumed global warming potential of methane. Climate scientists are divided on whether to use the 100-year GWP, 20-year GWP, or something in between. With methane warming impacts assessed via the 20-year GWP, the central 2022 emissions estimate is 7.9 gigatonnes per year - 20% *above* the EPA's official 2005 estimate. Caption: Figure 1: Left: United States net greenhouse gas emissions over time. Right: Scaling of 2022 net emissions with methane’s GWP. After adjustment to reflect recent measurements of methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure, United States net emissions remain nearly as high as their 2005 level.

New paper. I wish this wasn't the case, but most progress on reducing US greenhouse gas emissions is likely spurious. Why? EPA underestimates methane emissions from oil and gas. Relevant today as Repubs vote to gut IRA's methane monitoring/mitigation program. 🧵

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lL4K_6se4...

What's a pick up line? why is it at a school? What's going on???

Loneliness impacting 1 in 6 people according to WHO report

Shereen Hussein explains #SocialConnection is vital to health & wellbeing with need for policies & interventions to tackle isolation & foster meaningful connections.

www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/n...

The best part of coauthoring is having someone to blame for your shared decisions

Hurrying to post about RobustiPy, i forgot this fun animation i made for teaching purposes (with @deevybee.bsky.social on the SABS R3 CDT) around when we started developing. Specification uncertainty is just _one_ type of uncertainty, though; our forthcoming work looks at the role of random numbers!

🎓🎓🎓Congratulations, Antonino Polizzi!🎉🎉🎉
In May, @polizzan.bsky.social successfully defended his doctoral thesis, "The Causes and the Consequences of Growing Life Expectancy Shortfalls" @ox.ac.uk. ‪
Read all: www.demogr.mpg.de/en/news_even...
@sociologyoxford.bsky.social @oxforddemsci.bsky.social

This looks like some good evidence-assessment stuff right here.

Such nice collaborations with @dvaldenegro.bsky.social, @jiani-y.bsky.social & @claireduiyidai.bsky.social .

Possible because of generous contributions from @oxforddemsci.bsky.social / @centreforcare.bsky.social / @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social. Thanks to all for giving comments on it over the years!

We also think it has some tight #dataviz, too! Here's the canonical `union.dta' dataset examined by other model uncertainty tools. See our paper and website for more examples of how to use the accessible Python app, released under an open source GNU GPL 3.0 license!