Nathan Cortez

Pump this into my veins.

Great piece by Adam Serwer. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

How Congress can restore the independence of US science Members must go beyond reinstating US government research spending and re-establish decentralized governance at the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed.

For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com
🧪

I played basketball with Boyz II Men. They didn’t like to pass to other people much, but apparently deemed me good enough.

Imaging a human saying to you, "i will only ever tell you what i think you want to hear, based on what i know about ppl like you, how you start our conversation, & what you say during it. Sometimes that will sound like truth, sometimes like errors or lies. Now: Let's talk about your medical history"

🆕 at @naturemedicine.bsky.social
How does ChatGPT Health do for appropriately triaging a person as to whether to go to the emergency room or stay home? www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Not very well. Under-triaged 52% of case vignettes that are considered gold-standard emergencies

Health Rounds: Moderna combo flu/COVID vaccine succeeds in mid-stage trial A two-in-one mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna that targets seasonal influenza and COVID-19 produced robust and durable immune responses without safety concerns in a small mid-stage trial, the company...

More good news on vaccines

A two-in-one mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna targets seasonal influenza & COVID-19. It produced robust and durable immune responses w/o safety concerns in a small mid-stage trial.

mRNA is the future. We can’t afford to lose it.

🧪 www.reuters.com/business/hea...

We should try electing some kind of deliberative body that makes decisions about levying taxes.

Repeat after me:
An executive order is not a royal edict; it is not law. It is a direction to the executive branch as to how to carry out the law.

Also:
Key parts of Trump's last EO on elections have been stopped by federal courts, ruling that the President has no role to play in federal elections

Photo shows a young girl with her cat

This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year.

She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again.

Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/

I’m not sure we’ve properly addressed how profoundly disturbing it is that America can largely shrug at the stashing of human beings in giant warehouses.

A pretty bold comment in Nature written by linguists, computer scientists and philosophers declaring that AGI has been achieved.

"By reasonable standards, including Turing’s own, we have artificial systems that are generally intelligent. The long-standing problem of creating AGI has been solved."

In 2009, Judge Pratt helped launch an annual Fourth of July naturalization ceremony coinciding with Iowa Cubs Baseball games. He administered an oath that was circulated among federal judges and commonly welcomed new citizens to the country with the following: You may hear voices in this land say that there is only one true American religion. Do not believe it. As an American you may freely and openly be a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Bhuddist, a Muslim, or you may adhere to any other religion, or you may be an agnostic or an atheist.You may hear voices in this land say that there is only one true American way to think and believe about political matters, economic matters, and social matters. Do not believe it. As an American you may freely and openly adhere to political, economic, and social views on the right, on the left, or anywhere in between. You may hear voices in this land say that there is only one true American set of values. Do not believe it. As an American you may openly hold beliefs and values greatly different from those of others – even if those of others are shared by many and yours are shared by few. Simply stated, there is no single American way to think or believe. Indeed, conformity of thought and belief would be contrary to the underlying principles of this great nation.

"In 2009, Judge Pratt helped launch an annual Fourth of July naturalization ceremony coinciding with Iowa Cubs Baseball games. He administered an oath that was circulated among federal judges and commonly welcomed new citizens to the country with the following:"

Proud this is an SMU Law alum.

The largest randomized trial of medical A.I.
—Over 100,000 women in Sweden
—radiologist + AI vs 2 radiologists, in follow-up
—AI added led to 29% more cancer detected, 44% reduced workload, and
—Less cancer dx in subsequent 2 years, and, when found, less aggressive
thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Lawmakers visit 5-year-old Minnesota boy, who appeared ‘depressed’ in detention center Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett demanded that preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos and his father be released.

The family detention center is holding about 1,100 people, Castro said, adding that he saw many other children under 5 in detention, including a 2-month-old baby.

www.startribune.com/lawmakers-vi...

I guess he just got lucky.

This is not materially different from Josef Mengele. The concept is to deliberately expose people to serious harm so you can gather more data on what you already know will hurt them. It's not some big coincidence the Nuremberg Code expressly prohibits everything resembling this kind of "science."

NEW: The House just passed the DHS funding bill. Seven Democrats voted yes:

Henry Cuellar of Texas
Jared Golden of Maine
Laura Gillen of New York
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State
Don Davis of North Carolina
Tom Souzzi of New York
Vincente Gonzalez of Texas

His name is Liam Ramos, and he is 5. He was abducted from Minneapolis and trafficked to a detention camp in Texas.

TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company's code was written by Al 29 Apr 2025 - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that 20% to 30% of code inside the company's repositories was "written by software" - meaning... Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com Microsoft admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken 1 day ago - Except it's not totally terrible. What makes it terrible is the privacy invasions and the consent issues Microsoft has with its users, along ...

started / going

It's so exhausting to to be constantly told by American leaders that the defining policy of the 80 odd years during which the US became the most wealthy and powerful country in the history of the world was a grossly unfair failure for them.

Since we’re giving away prizes, Birdman should give its Best Picture Oscar to Boyhood.

Using FDA Law to Threaten Medical Practice | NEJM Though recent subpoenas from the U.S. DOJ target providers of gender-affirming care, the legal arguments behind them could affect physicians prescribing off-label treatment for any reason.

Using FDA Law to Threaten Medical Practice | New England Journal of Medicine www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

The expert authors (Lewis Grossman, @nathancortez.bsky.social & @pzettler.bsky.social) explain why this is troubling and may have implications far beyond the treatment of gender-affirming care.

So nothing?

I have a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Law & the Biosciences titled "Chat MD" addressing whether existing legal and ethical frameworks (including scores of nonbinding guidelines released the past few years) are up to the task of mitigating the risks of health AI. 2/

OpenAI just announced Chat GPT Health (openai.com/index/introd...) right after FDA announced it was relaxing scrutiny of health AI (www.fda.gov/media/109618...). 1/

Distraught woman says ICE killed her wife in video after deadly Minneapolis shooting “They killed my wife,” the distraught woman says, adding, “They shot her in the head.”

NEWS: In a heartbreaking video, after ICE shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, a woman who was in the same SUV cries out: “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do."

“We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the distraught woman sobs.

www.advocate.com/news/minneso...

SEA

HAWKS

More than 2,900 attorneys quit the Justice Department or were fired during the first 10 months of this year -- about triple the number who depart in a typical year. personnel records obtained by Reuters show.