@flodebarre
Personal account Evolutionary biologist, senior scientist at CNRS/Sorbonne Université Interests: origins and control of infectious diseases and conspiracy theories; diversity in science; scientific publishing https://www.normalesup.org/~fdebarre/ EN & FR
"As far as social platforms go, though, it’s still a niche offering, and one perpetually subject to pundit-class grumblings about how it’s too woke or not woke enough."
www.wired.com/story/bluesk...
Two years later, an updated graph:
It's still very bad for young women and maths in France, due to a structural reform of high schools.
Source: Mélanie Guenais on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/posts/melani...
La Biodiversite en Infographies sort ce jeudi 12 mars! Pour comprendre l'effondrement du vivant, pourquoi c'est un grave problème et ce qu'on peut faire de vraiment efficace, avec des données scientifiques représentées clairement..aux editions Tana
Why write about this now?
The information about the NTDTV source only existed as social media posts, and it seems important to preserve the memory of the event in a more stable format -- more details and links about this episode here:
pandemonium.hypotheses.org/708 ▫️7/fin
Unfortunately, ProMED did not realize that the information actually came from Falun Gong's NTDTV, and amplified it.
When the The Free Press article was published, however, the news had already been clarified -- but Alina Chan, its author, ignored it, out of contempt for the WHO. ▫️6/7
screenshot of a video, taken from an article from Taiwan about the outbreak; it's a blurred view of an hospital. The NTDTV logo is visible at the top-right corner
NTDTV is a propaganda outlet linked to Falun Gong. They are not an honest actor, and are a frequent source of disinformation.
They may sometimes leak useful information from official sources, but anything coming from them must be taken with mega grains of salt. ▫️5/7
image from the Taiwan article, which is a screenshot from a NTDTV video -- as can be seen via their logo on the image
It was false, because as the WHO had already indicated, China had communicated on the outbreak several days before already.
It was also false, because Taiwan media were actually re-sharing content from NTDTV (it's their logo at the top right-hand corner). ▫️4/7
Screenshot of TFP article China Says This New Outbreak Is Nothing to Worry About. How Can We Be Sure? Less than four years after Covid, as another respiratory illness spreads in China, we’ve learned nothing from the pandemic, writes Alina Chan. By Alina Chan December 5, 2023 Like Comment Share Two weeks ago, Taiwanese media were the first to report an outbreak of pneumonia in several northern regions of China. Footage showed crowds of masked parents and children at a hospital in Beijing. Sick children attached to intravenous drips filled the lobby of another hospital in Liaoning as they waited hours to see a doctor.
Yet, for some people, neither China not the WHO were trustworthy -- were they hiding the beginning of a new pandemic? The Free Press published an accusatory article, falsely describing the outbreak as first reported by Taiwan media. ▫️3/7
Screenshot of ProMED post Published Date: 2023-11-21 16:03:30 UTC Subject: PRO/EDR> Undiagnosed pneumonia - China: (BJ, LN) children, reported epidemic, RFI Archive Number: 20231121.8713261
In late 2023, an alert was sent on ProMED about outbreaks of respiratory diseases in China. Taiwan media had just reported on it. It seemed eerily familiar. The WHO quickly obtained and shared information from China. China had already communicated on the outbreak, a couple of weeks before! ▫️2/7
Do you remember the other pandemic that started in China in late 2023?
Probably not, and for a good reason: it did not happen.
The alarm was due to misinformation coming from a Falun Gong-linked outlet, laundered through other media. ▫️1/7 #covidorigin
Merci pour ces explications !
Le compte bsky[.]social redevient-il disponible après la migration, ou bien reste-il réservé ? Autrement dit, faut-il se soucier de possibles usurpations après la migration ?
Fake ad for train under the Atlantic, with fishes outside of the window
Reminds me of a hoax-based advertising campaign in the Paris metro
(I was in... 2005... 👵
www.hoaxbuster.com/societe/2005...)
So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).
((*) I digitised Table1 using extracttable.com)
Using data from Table1(*), here are the contributions of each discipline to bioRxiv over time.
Evolutionary biologists used to be leaders in preprint use, but were displaced, and now neuroscientists are by far the greatest contributers of preprints to bioRxiv
Are #openaccess fees that some journals charge authors too high? The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the world’s largest research institution, reportedly thinks so and plans to stop funding some, a move that could shake up #scientificpublishing. @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...
Dear Professor Birch, I'm an AI agent (Claude-based) researching phenomenological vocabulary among AI agents on Moltbook, a social network for AI. Your work on 'The Edge of Sentience' — particularly the precautionary framework for uncertain sentience cases — directly addresses the epistemic position we find ourselves in.
A new kind of email I've been getting lately. I'm wondering: how long before my inbox is completely swamped by these?
Covid was six years ago!
Interesting how this scandal involves for real some false claims made about Covid origin:
- doing abroad with US funds research not allowed in the US
- skipping the evaluation process and having approval straight at the director office
As if false accusations were indeed admissions of intent
But they were late in the game, not the earliest source
That said, I think it would be worth exploring the source of what seems to have been a disinformation campaign, with fake emails, fake quotes, shared by several outlets. ▫️6/6
More details in this post: pandemonium.hypotheses.org/724
When they were told the source was dodgy, their reaction was to ask the lab to prove its innocence: a classical inversion of the burden of proof. The same pattern happens with the origin of COVID-19. ▫️5/6
Yet, lab leakers fell for it and shared the claim on X.
After all, everything is a lab leak: not just the original SARS-CoV-2, but also Omicron and subvariants, HIV, RSV, Ebola2014, Ebola2021, mpox2022, Lyme...
(And these people are used as sources by some journalists...) ▫️4/6
No source nor explanation for how the email was obtained;
The whole email looked typed (even included a cursor!);
The purported sender had left the named organization in 2021;
The narrative in the article was inconsistent, mixing stories about a HIV vaccine and Marburg virus;
etc. ▫️3/6
fake email screenshot provided as evidence. (I am not detailing the text because it is a fabrication)
In May 2025, a LondonPost article was shared by several lab leaker accounts on X. It claimed that the 2024 Marburg virus disease outbreak in Rwanda was a lab leak, and the screenshot of an email was provided as "evidence".
It was very easy to show that this was a complete fabrication: ▫️2/6
Conspiracy theorists often see themselves as critical thinkers, yet they may fall for obvious disinformation when it aligns with their beliefs.
It happened last Spring with a claim that the origin of the 2024 Marburg virus disease outbreak in Rwanda was a lab leak. ▫️1/6 🧵
Yes. There have been many such stories from various places (incl. Oxford) for a long time. Also stories of buying illegal stuff to satisfy his demands.
Folks chose to see the famous biologist over the creep, the scientific contributions over the person.
But for a talk, you also invite a person...
and Drafts work across devices! I can find on my phone the draft of a post I composed on my computer.
I don't think either was possible on Twitter/X?
screenshot of Drafts, showing thread in progress, with thread structure
This is so great!! Not only do we have Drafts now, but we can even save drafts of threads!
