The link: henrich.fas.harvard.edu/site…

A review in @Nature in 1937 of Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande: "Everyone interested in the development of science and the ways in which other minds than our own attempt to explain natural processes should read it." Still spot on. nature.com/articles/140338a0 If you haven't read it, you should. It's a masterpiece.

Cool system to study the evolution of cooperation and division of labor. Marine bacteria cooperate to break down complex algal carbohydrates nature.com/articles/d41586-0…

In 1918, influenza killed between 17 and 100 million people, as much as 5 percent of the global population. During the 1918 pandemic, most scientists believed bacteria caused the disease. The influenza virus was not isolated until 1933! Around that same time, pathologists in Nashville devised a method to culture various viruses in fertilized chicken eggs. After sterilizing the egg shells with a germicide, they pricked each one with a needle and injected a drop of virus-laden liquid into the amniotic sac. The inoculated eggs were incubated, allowing the virus to multiply. Researchers then siphoned out this fluid, now teeming with virions, and purified it for further vaccine development. Around 1940-1941, Thomas Francis Jr., a physician at the University of Michigan, decided to make a vaccine using these egg-grown viruses. However, the U.S. Army initially feared that doing so would cause viruses to mutate and inadvertently repeat the 1918 pandemic. In response, Francis’ team, which included a young Jonas Salk, developed a method to inactivate viruses with formaldehyde, allowing them to be recognized by the immune system without causing disease and contagion. Most seasonal flu vaccines today are still made with a nearly identical method as those pioneered by Francis and Salk in 1941. Thanks to improved surveillance and forecasting, though, we can now create “trivalent” or “quadrivalent” vaccines by injecting multiple viral strains into eggs to confer broader immunity. The World Health Organization selects these strains months in advance based on global surveillance data. Over the last century, however, the WHO has consistently struggled to make highly effective influenza vaccines. Because viral strains keep shifting, vaccines have to be administered every year to be effective. And their efficacy varies greatly from one year to the next. The 2014-2015 seasonal vaccine, for instance, was only 19 percent effective due to a mismatch between the selected strain and the circulating one. Even in good years, such as 2010-2011, the vaccine tops out at about 60 percent efficacy. Fortunately, there are now hundreds of new influenza vaccines in clinical trials, many of which may offer much wider and more enduring protection. Read "The Quest for Universal Flu Vaccines": press.asimov.com/articles/fl…

New estimates of Australian Indigenous populations before colonial contact infer around 2 million deaths as a result colonization. I have no words for a tragedy of this scale. nature.com/articles/s41562-0…

Got to say, this post is spot on. The MM/DD/YYYY format is the worst of all possible combinations. There Is No Reason to Ever Choose the MM/DD/YYYY Date Format open.substack.com/pub/etienn…

Heck yes, this is the future of biology.

What you don't want your super powerful chatbot telling itself. From @OpenAI's recent blog on the notes models were making for themselves alignment.openai.com/misalig…

Human brain organoids record the passage of time over multiple years nature.com/articles/s41586-0… @Nature

10 pitch 14a trad line in the Wind River Range! Incredible.

"You must go at your life with a broadax". She's often mistakenly compared to Thoreau. Her subjects were good and evil, suffering and god, and how to make sense of human life. She did it better than nearly anyone else.

Lesson from Anthro 101: matrilocality and matrilineality do not create matriarchy. Fascinating post.

The real surprise would be if marriage didn't go back at least 50kya. Humans then were making art, building shelters, setting traps, having long distance trade, decorating themselves, wearing clothes, creating religions, and waging war just like humans today.

Imagine the Department of War tweeting "Utilitarians in shambles! Kantians on the run!" No philosophy has ever mattered enough to be attacked by the government. Until EA. Amazing success.

What kind of intelligence do slime molds have? Nice introduction to the topic theguardian.com/news/ng-inte…

This book is a beautiful introduction to the world of slime molds if you are interested in learning more about these creatures

Hard-core materialist version of me, circa 2022, would be very disappointed. unpublishablepapers.substack…

If Dario and Sam really wanted to slow down the pace of AI, they would move their research to a university.

Just came across this unusual tactic to combat the rise of jazz a hundred years ago. Henry Ford founded a music department which promoted traditional forms of dance and music. cup.org/4rhbmB6