(tagging a few people who I saw mention Illumina 5-base chemistry recently - I'd appreciate a boost: @albertvilella.bsky.social @dddiaz.com @synthesisconduit.bsky.social)

The costs of the UK’s Global Talent Visa looks a trifle high in comparison to competitor countries - largely through the Immigration Health Surcharge (which critics say is a form of double taxation as they contribute to the NHS through normal tax on their earnings)

For others: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116304

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(25)01075-7

It would be nice to link to the original article, or at least provide the DOI. I see a mention of author names and journal in the text but that's not bet convenient for anyone trying to read the source material...

Congrats, very interesting work as always!

Interesting preprint, but - respectfully - I think several conclusions drawn from the data are exaggerated. E.g. this figure. The fit of this curve is terrible. A ⍴ of 0.023 isn't impressive. Not sure I'd agree this proves that DREAM levels predict lifespan across species.

The answer - as usual - is: it's complicated. We do accumulate more mutations as we age, but whether that's the reason for all the ailments we experience in older age is much less clear. Correlation is not necessarily proof of causation...

My point is: the public will bail out Thames Water, one way or another. But I'd rather it be by nationalising the company, partially defaulting the debt and then investing tax money, than by paying the finance leeches before anyone else...

One way or another the private equity backers will demand that their loans are paid back before anything is invested in infrastructure. It's a game of chicken, and I think the government blinked first

I read it as: we do not dare to re-nationalise water because it will add to the state deficit and we will have to raise taxes by X to pay for it, so instead let's allow private companies to charge 5X more in water bills, as long as we can say that we "didn't raise taxes".

Special thanks and congratulations go to Zohar Etzioni and Lin Chen from my group, and Jeanne Inchauspe, a shared student between Beth, Jim Hughes and myself.