James Randi RIP, the Great Randi.

My quick James Randi story. I only met him once, and he told me this tale, which you could stop at almost any point and it would still be an amazing story. He said… 1/n James Randi
‘When I was on Happy Days, the Fonz and I were going to have lunch with Richie Cunningham…’

I mean, it’s a good opener.
We went to a Mexican restaurant, that was set back from the street by a long dark corridor, the only light for which came from the street door. As we were in this tunnel, suddenly, the light is blocked and we are in pitch black. 3/n
We go back to the door to see what has happened, and find that it is blocked by a large man who has become physically stuck in the thin doorway. It was Orson Welles. In a cape. 4/n
So me and the Fonz are physically pushing Orson Welles out of this doorway. Richie had already gone into the restaurant.

That’s the story. RIP the Great Randi. 5/5

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More from @AdamRutherford

21 Oct
I wonder where they stand on social constructionism. In fact, I demand to know this governments views on meta-ethical relativism. I DEMAND IT.
In fact, I think the Government should take a stand on all manner of academic disputes and topics. Group selection? WHO IS THE MINISTER FOR ANTS.
Abiogenesis: WILL THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER CLARIFY IF SHE SUPPORTS THE RNA WORLD HYPOTHESIS DESPITE THE FACT THAT THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM VIA PROTON GRADIENTS IS A BETTER EXPLANATION FOR THE TRANSITION FROM GEOCHEMISTRY TO BIOCHEMISTRY IN THE HADEAN?
Read 5 tweets
20 Oct
Ok, a quick thread on white supremacy symbols - I spend a lot of time on white supremacy forums online, and they have dozens of really idiotic numerical codes, most of which are substitution ciphers that a 7 year old would come up with.
Darren appears to have these two on his face
88 = HH = Heil Hitler
23/16 = WP = White Supremacy

There's also:
18 = AH = Adolf Hitler
1488: a reference to the so-called 14 words, coined by white supremacist terrorist David Lane
There's also:
1/11 = AK = Aryan Knights
3/11 = 3 K = KKK
109 = the claim that Jews have been expelled from 109 nations throughout history, sometimes coupled with
110 = in the hope that the US will be the next one
Read 8 tweets
29 Sep
#LongCovid: a thread. Back in March, I was on @BBCr4today talking to @Marthakearney about getting Covid19. I was pretty upbeat, and predicted I would be better in a few days. This alas is not what happened. I wasn’t hospitalised but, like 100s of 1000s, was seriously ill 1/n
@BBCr4today @Marthakearney Six months on, #LongCovid is beginning to be recognised. I have very mild but not inconsequential symptoms: the most common being shortness of breath and fatigue 2/n
But many others have much more serious after-effects of the initial infection. Fatigue isn’t just tiredness, but includes anxiety, PTSD and depression. We made a programme about this, on @BBCRadio4 at 11am today.
bbc.in/2S5Tdq7
Read 9 tweets
25 Sep
We know pretty much exactly when and how lactase persistence evolved in Europe and in other pastoralist societies.

I wrote a whole chapter on this in A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.
They were of course able to *drink* milk, just unable to digest milk in adulthood before the evolution of lactase persistence. Before that, they were eating soft cheeses and yoghurts, in which the sugar lactose is already broken down.
The mutation itself is not in the gene LCT itself, but around 13,000 base pairs upstream in a control region; this C>T change accounts for the majority of lactase persistence.
Read 6 tweets
15 Sep
Involuntary sterilisation is a key part of eugenics, and has occurred in the US in the last decade. This new policy is also eugenics.

theguardian.com/us-news/2020/s…
The USA was always one of the most enthusiastic adopters of eugenics in the 20th Century. 31 states had official policies and somewhere between 60 and 80,000 people were sterilised, California being the most enthusiastic.
It seems the most incongruous policy in light of America's constitutional commitment to Life and Liberty, and the popular anti-abortion stance that so many conservatives hold.
Read 8 tweets
12 Aug
Here is an academic (preprint) paper describing the methods in the DNA sequencing tech for one of the two companies that the Gov have procured to test for COVID-19. 1/x
The other company, DNA Nudge has no such equivalent. Instead it has a shiny shop in Covent Garden, and a product that tests the boundaries of where direct-to-consumer genetics meet snake oil
And a bit more:
Read 15 tweets

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