Derek Lowe

North Carolina mail voters: you should check whether your mail ballot was accepted. If it was rejected for technical reasons, there's still time to fix it and have your vote count. Check here: northcarolina.ballottrax.net/voter/

Just 8% of Germans think Trump has changed the US for the better. Only 1 in 10 say the US and German govts still "share the same fundamental values," although 1 in 3 said most Americans and Germans do. More than half said a US vacation was "unimaginable" now www.spiegel.de/ausland/us-m...

When thou countest the number of sp3 carbons in the ring, thou shalt count to 6! Directly to 6! Thou shalt not stop at 3, nor unholy 4. Though mayest rush to 5, but only if thou shalt proceed to 6. Thou shalt not advance to 7. And 8 is right out! Stupid medium ring.

+100 on this and kudos to @shanpalus.bsky.social for saying so. "Elizabeth Holmes is a fraudster. It’s astonishing what Nathan Fielder’s movie makes of her." slate.com/culture/2026...

Your monthly reminder that if you're using ChatGPT to do your science, you're failing your colleagues, community, and all of us. Here, ChatGPT makes up data and presents it as the real thing — then apologizes when confronted.

Whenever Real Clear Science links to a post of mine, I can tell from the comments that show up.

So in a huge surprise to absolutely no one, it turns out that NIH director Jay Bhattacharya's new journal based on the premise of letting his friends and only his friends publish essentially whatever they want is full of crackpot nonsense from retired cranks.

A good thread!

There are many horrifying aspects about Ramaswamy’s disgusting ad targeting Amy Acton. One of them is that we are about to find out how many people approve of this behavior when they vote for him.

Not happy to see some of these donors to Ramaswamy’s campaign.

It's been truly depressing to watch the gutting of SciAm--and of course, terrible to watch so many great journalists (and friends) lose their jobs amid the meltdown.

If we were to speculate, we might guess Bhattacharya, who participated in Ron DeSantis’ campaign kickoff event, is a political operative who can read polls, is looking at the midterms, and is trying to figure out his exit strategy before he’s got to decide whether to comply with a House subpoena.

Of the very many acts of violence perpetrated by Jay Bhattacharya—and I do think violence is the right word—the shutting down of so many critical clinical trials was one of the worst

It's Philip K. Dick's world; we just have the misfortune to live in it.

The RFK Jr-funded Danes who wanted to fly in to Guinea-Bissau to withhold the hep B vaccine birth dose from newborns have (finally!) thrown in the towel They are, of course, framing it as a great loss to science & arguing how unethical it is NOT to do the trial 🤯 It’s good the trial was stopped

“But allies of Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH, fear he could be on the chopping block after his clash with WH Budget Director Russell Vought in the Oval Office last month over political control of the NIH's multibillion-dollar grant process.” but that would be government censorship?!

When was the last time a Republican president made a campaign stop in Mississippi, of all places, two weeks before Election Day? My guess is “never”, since the state used to be unassailably D, then flipped to unassailably R.

Looking forward to celebrating the @nytimes.com science desk relaunch on Tuesday, live at @amnh.org. Details here: www.nytco.com/press/scienc...

In any other admin, this would probably be the most outrageous official statement ever made by a sitting FCC director: Strongly implying that the government forbids broadcast networks from reporting on the president's falling poll numbers. (Sorry to paste from twitter but that's where he posts.)

The director of FEMA is not allowed to do this legally. The director of OMB is not allowed to do this legally. The President of the United States is not allowed to do this legally. They're a gang of criminals, and should suffer the consequences.

You Can See Everything "treats [Holmes'] misstatements as more debatable than they were...There are facts here, and they’re being brushed aside" www.statnews.com/2026/10/20/e...

BREAKING: Police in Guinea-Bissau say they raided the offices of Bandim, the Danish research project, and seized hepatitis B vaccines at the center of global controversy www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

It’s going to be a long two weeks.

$40Bn is an enormous valuation for drug company with no clinical stage assets #biotech www.statnews.com/2026/10/19/c...

Higher ed leaders wouldn’t understand solidarity if it grew arms and slapped them across the face. Congratulations on selling out to the Trump administration, UNC! www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/u...

Do I know any clinical pharmacologists on here? Would you be willing to speak with a high school student? if so, please DM me or email me at chemjobber -at- gmail dot com🧪#chemsky Please RT

WSJ doesn't credit @marisakabas.bsky.social who discovered "Tommy" was a paid shill, and misspelled Abdul El-Sayed's name. Paper of record, my ass.

RFK Jr’s CDC funded Hep B vaccine experimentation in Guinea Bissau is an arm of his anti-vax crusade. His unethical “research” is coming to a university near you, if we don’t stop this study PERMANENTLY, and remove him from power. STOP THE STUDY HERE: www.standupforscience.net/petition-to-...

Hey #NMRChat! You’ll want to see this 60 Minutes segment on the impact of the current helium situation on science, industry, and national security. BONUS: Part was filmed in my lab at UChicago! They interviewed Biomolecular NMR’s Joe Sachleben in my photogenic chem NMR lab. #helium #realtimechem

Turns out that we have good ol’ elemental sulfur sitting around in our cells - and apparently no one realized it:

True! But he’s not getting any of that from me. This is the most pissed-off vote I have ever cast in my life.

Stand with Zelensky and against Putin. Stand with Pope Leo XIV and against ICE. Stand with No Kings and against Meta. Stand with the people and against the oligarchs. Stand with liberal democracy and against Trump.

Together with other scientists I’m suing the 🇺🇸 US National Institutes of Health for violating our 1st Amendment rights & censoring our health science. I’m ready to shine a light on the darkest days. Buckle up, read on. This gets pretty wild… THREAD

Dahlia harvest! Some of it, anyway.

Im deeply confused. They claim discovery of crystal structures but dont actually make crystals or show they exist? Like...wtf? You dont have a crystal if you dont have a crystal. We predict shit all day everyday, but I dont claim it is real and publish in Science without way more evidence.

What’s this “on hold” bullshit? Impeach and convict and remove him from office. This is clearly illegal. Perhaps we will have to wait until January, but we shouldn’t need to.

These kinds of "stack-ranking" (forced-distribution) performance reviews were implemented at Microsoft many years ago to disastrous consequences. There was a huge loss in valuable, talented personnel, a dramatic drop in morale, and the company got rid of it in 2013.

Measles is absolutely tearing through unvaccinated communities. There were more new cases of measles in the US in the past seven days (330) than we had in ALL of 2024 (285). A total 4,410 cases this year, which everyone agrees is an undercount. www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/us-m...

A legendary fiasco!

He’s right! Jarrell’s essays and reviews can be like this too, and the only real defect can be that the fireworks sometimes might be going off too close together.

Can the LLM-based AI agents that are supposed to be able to help with scientific research distinguish real work from pseudoscience, from fraud, or from long-discredited retracted starting papers? Take a guess.

Good kicker today from @dereklowe.bsky.social: "The tide of slop is rising, and our mechanical friends will unthinkingly pump it up even higher unless we get control of things."

To this day, the @standupforscience.net work I'm most proud of is fighting this study. Please help us stick a fork in it by signing our petition to Congress: www.standupforscience.net/petition-to-...

2027 ACS President-elect Official mugshot H/t @chemscrapes.bsky.social and @dereklowe.bsky.social

Our correspondent @mwakley.bsky.social has spent the past week interviewing experts for the full story on this year's #ChemNobel - including Scott Denmark and Dan Singleton, plus Didier Astruc who wrote THAT article for Le Monde in 2001 when Kagan missed out! www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...