ITIF life sci guru, professional skeptic, biotech expert, policy wonk, beekeeper, lover of wilderness. will travel miles for dark night skies. opinions my own.
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Joined February 2013
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Make a sustainable choice: Buy GMO food sfchronicle.com/opinion/arti… via @sfchronicle
Val Giddings retweeted
After Rare USDA Correction, Corn Growers Question Crop Data Reliability dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag…
Val Giddings retweeted
These two mice are the exact same age, the human equivalent of 85.
The mouse on the right was given an antibody blocking a single inflammatory protein (IL-11) starting in late middle age.
Starting treatment at human-equivalent age 55:
- Extended median lifespan by 25% in both males and females
- Prevented grey hair, frailty, and muscle wasting
- Cut late-life cancer deaths in half
Three anti IL-11 antibodies (that might extend human lifespan) are already in human clinical trials right now.
Val Giddings retweeted
The Collapse of Every Other Human Species
Once, we shared our planet with other human species, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. Today, they’re gone, leaving behind fossils, ancient tools and traces of their DNA within our own. So how did Homo sapiens end up as the last humans standing?
For decades, we believed our ancestors survived because they were smarter, stronger or better adapted. But what if the real secret to our success was something far more unexpected? What if we survived because we were friendlier?
Some researchers believe our ability to cooperate, build relationships and form larger social networks may have given us a crucial evolutionary edge, an advantage of just 2 percent that, over thousands of years, could have changed the course of human history
Credit: Ella Al-Shamahi ― New Scientist
Val Giddings retweeted
Data from India is pretty clear: get phones out of schools. The findings show that restricting phone use can support learning, particularly among lower-performing students. Source: buff.ly/4iLcjSL
Val Giddings retweeted
Thread summarising what happened with avian influenza in the US. I had expected a full fledged attempt at stopping the spread in cattle. That did not happen. Same for mpox. That makes me conclude we are in for more and not fully prepared
There is something really concerning (and disappointing) going on in the US right now.
A dangerous and preventable situation.
Let me explain.
nextstrain.org/avian-flu/h5n…
1/
Val Giddings retweeted
Did you know that the first women to land on the Normandy beachhead in June 1944 were nurses of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service?
Their task was to establish a field hospital for 600 wounded soldiers.
They succeeded.
Please remember these heroines who saved lives:
Val Giddings retweeted
This is playing with fire.
Minks and ferrets have such humanlike lung cells that they’re the standard for testing human flu transmission. (Cows aren’t!)
An H5N1 epidemic raging in a mink farm is basically the plot for Dr. Evil tries to spark a pandemic. Luck isn’t a plan.
Here’s something you should know about minks:
They have lungs and airways remarkably similar on a cellular level to those of people.
They’ve spread flus and infected humans before with COVID-19.
Right now, bird flu is spreading on a Utah farm filled with thousands of them… 🧵
ALT A close-up view of a white mink with red eyes and a pink nose baring its teeth and hissing, emerging from under a dark enclosure.
Val Giddings retweeted
Wolves have made a spectacular comeback in Europe. But attacks on livestock and humans have caused a heated debate about the limits of coexistence.
Learn more: scim.ag/4oNnWa4
ALT Map of wolf populations in Europe, with 9 distinct populations color-coded and labeled: Scandinavian, Karelian, Baltic, Central European, Carpathian, Dinaric-Balkan, Italian Peninsula, Alpine, and Iberian.
Val Giddings retweeted
American sugar refineries used charcoal made from bison bones to remove color from sugar syrup.
After the great slaughter, there was another business waiting on the Plains. People gathered the skeletons, hauled them to railroad sidings and sold them by the ton. Factories farther east wanted the bones for fertilizer and animal charcoal.
That famous photograph of a mountain of bison skulls was taken at Michigan Carbon Works near Detroit in 1892. You’re looking at a factory’s supply of raw material.
The company had been founded in 1873 to turn bones into charcoal for sugar refining. Railroads made the trade practical: freight cars carrying goods west could return east loaded with bones.
Some homesteaders paid for provisions by gathering skeletons before they had a crop to sell. Native people and Métis families also entered the trade as the disappearance of the herds destroyed their livelihoods.
At Devils Lake in 1885, buyers weighed loaded wagons, sent them to unload beside the tracks, then weighed the empty wagons and paid the difference. Boxcars took the bones to Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis.
The business followed the expanding railroad into country where bones could still be found.
Eventually, dealers had a supply problem. They were running out of skeletons.
Val Giddings retweeted
The Complete History of Earth’s First Plants
The Earth we know today, covered in forests, jungles, and grasslands, was not always green. For billions of years, the continents were vast expanses of bare rock, sand, and dust. There were no trees, no roots, no leaves. Almost all life remained confined to the water. Until something tiny began to change everything.
Credit: PlanetGeo
Val Giddings retweeted
US: Bird flu at Rose Acre Farms near Germantown, Clinton County, Illinois, has hit 934,600 laying hens, and the birds are being culled.
it was detected on 19 October and is the largest active outbreak in the US. The farm is the country's second-largest egg producer.
Val Giddings retweeted
US: Bird flu has been spreading for around two months on a Utah mink farm holding thousands of animals. None have been culled, workers aren't being monitored, and the USDA says it doesn't regulate mink. So thousands of animals are exposed, workers could be at risk, and nobody seems to be taking responsibility.
theguardian.com/us-news/2026…
Val Giddings retweeted
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
xitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
Val Giddings retweeted
There is something really concerning (and disappointing) going on in the US right now.
A dangerous and preventable situation.
Let me explain.
nextstrain.org/avian-flu/h5n…
1/
Val Giddings retweeted
🚨 A LOOK AT FLOODING ACROSS THE FOUR CORNERS
These photos, captured by the Navajo Police Department yesterday, show some of the flooding that impacted Shiprock and surrounding areas.
Police officers, first responders, partner agencies and road crews have been working in tough conditions to help residents, protect animals and keep people safe.
A big thank-you to everyone who stepped up to help their communities during this flooding. 🙏
⚠️ Please continue to use caution around flooded roads. Never drive through floodwaters — conditions can be dangerous and change quickly.
Stay safe, Four Corners. ❤️
Val Giddings retweeted
„Sometimes the best science fiction begins with a budget problem.“
Awesome.
One of the most famous inventions in science fiction was created because a TV show couldn't afford to land its spaceship. 🖖
When Star Trek premiered in 1966, creator Gene Roddenberry faced a problem.
Every time Captain Kirk and his crew visited a new planet, the Enterprise would somehow have to land, and then take off again.
For a weekly television series with a limited budget, filming those sequences would have been expensive and time-consuming.
So the production came up with a much simpler solution.
Why land a spaceship when you can make the crew disappear from one place and reappear somewhere else?
The transporter was born.
With a glowing platform, some clever camera effects, and that unforgettable shimmering sound, the Enterprise crew could travel from ship to planet in seconds.
And just like that, a practical production shortcut became one of the most recognizable pieces of technology in television history.
The funny part? The transporter eventually inspired decades of conversations about whether human teleportation could ever be possible.
All because a television show needed a cheaper way to get its actors onto a planet.
Sometimes the best science fiction begins with a budget problem.
Val Giddings retweeted
Phillip Mullin has become the first child in Louisiana to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease ksla.com/2026/10/24/alexandr…
