Reporter for Nature, mostly covering biology and medicine.
hledford.01 (Signal) and heidiledford (@proton.me)
Heidi Ledford
Ouch.
“Despite the incredible wealth of interesting content at conferences, it can be hard to stay engaged. And by engaged, I mean awake."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Characteristicaly good piece by @lizziegibney.bsky.social about how seriously (or not) to take AI doomsayers. The point is made here that AI researchers are not necessarily the best people to ask about social implications of the technology. To which I'd add that...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
CRISPR–Cas9 might offer a way to make safer, more effective cancer-fighting immune cells engineered inside the human body
go.nature.com/4lE2kv2
My story on the NSB terminations:
Heidi Ledford
Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.
The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇
"The results... do not mean that 6-8 hours is the optimum amount of sleep for every person, nor do they prove that achieving that ‘Goldilocks’ range of sleep each day directly improves health or slows ageing."
@heidiledford.bsky.social on sleep study & impt caveats
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Philip Ball
Thanks @scifri.bsky.social for having me on to talk about federal research budgets. TLDL: Congress voted to reject the president's big science cuts, but the White House is slow to release those approved funds. 🧪
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
NASA has just shared the first high-resolution images of the Earth taken by the Artemis II crew, meanwhile, massive budget cuts are once again proposed for US science, including for NASA
🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
This is important!
A locally tailored, big-push intervention to educate unmarried adolescent girls in 18 communities in northern Nigeria reduced rates of marriage from 86% to just 21%
🧪 #policy #education
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.
Not just an issue for AI:
"Scientists and engineers who build powerful AI systems often understand the tools’ capabilities in extraordinary detail. What they resist — and sometimes cannot see — is that their technical choices are also political choices."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Nature
Dan Garisto
Helen Pearson
The papal letter goes beyond a religious document and diagnoses a failure in AI governance that the scientific community should heed.
A locally tailored, big-push intervention to educate unmarried adolescent girls in 18 communities in northern Nigeria reduced rates of marriage from 86% to just 21%. Interventions that address complex...
