Do you (or someone you know) want to join our team as a postdoc, to build vascularized endometriosis / endometrium models from patient cells? And use these to model physiology and drug efficacy? Special emphasis on vascular cells and characterizing them (background in cell biology required). email me griff@mit.edu with cv, motivations, and references. Photo by Lauren Pruett (paper in revision) of GFP endothelial cells forming microvessels around lesions in a microfluidic device.
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
RT von @KUPERWASSERLAB: Möchten Sie (oder jemand, den Sie kennen) unserem Team als Postdoc beitreten, um vaskularisierte Endometriose-/Endometriummodelle aus Patientenzellen zu erstellen? Und diese nutzen, um Physiologie und Arzneimittelwirksamkeit zu modellieren? Besonderer Schwerpunkt auf Gefäßzellen und deren Charakterisierung (Vorkenntnisse in Zellbiologie erforderlich). Schicken Sie mir eine E-Mail an griff@mit.edu mit Lebenslauf, Motivation und Referenzen. Foto von Lauren Pruett (Artikel in Überarbeitung) von GFP-Endothelzellen, die Mikrogefäße um Läsionen in einem Mikrofluidikgerät bilden.
Universities are meant to model openness and critical thinking. Yet many academics remain silent about injustice within their own institutions. This new article from ecrLife examines two entrenched mechanisms that may be helping sustain that culture.
https://ecrlife.org/structural-pressures-that-silence-academics/
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
RT von @KUPERWASSERLAB: Universitäten sollen Offenheit und kritisches Denken vorleben. Dennoch schweigen viele Wissenschaftler über die Ungerechtigkeit innerhalb ihrer eigenen Institutionen. Dieser neue Artikel von ecrLife untersucht zwei fest verankerte Mechanismen, die möglicherweise zur Aufrechterhaltung dieser Kultur beitragen.
https://ecrlife.org/structural-pressions-that-silence-academics/
As a former academic, it is physically painful to watch the "Gold Standard" of scientific publishing turn into a rubber-stamp factory for narrative-driven garbage. A recent paper published by Springer Nature on CO2 "toxicity" is the perfect case study in why institutional science is losing all credibility.
The paper claims that rising atmospheric CO2 is on the verge of poisoning human blood and causing a "toxic threat" within decades. It sounds scary... until you apply five minutes of basic biological and historical literacy.
1. The Evolutionary Reality Check
Mammals evolved roughly 225 million years ago. During that era, atmospheric CO2 wasn't just "high"—it was astronomical, estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 ppm. That is nearly 10X higher than current levels. If the human (mammalian) blood-gas exchange system were as fragile as these authors claim, our entire lineage would have been extinguished in the Triassic. We are the descendants of organisms that thrived in high CO2.
2. The Military "Living Laboratory"
We don't have to guess how humans react to high CO2. The U.S. Navy and NASA have decades of data. Submariners routinely live and work in environments with CO2 levels maintained between 2,000 and 5,000 ppm for months at a time. If the "science" in this paper were remotely accurate, every nuclear sub crew in history would have been neurologically incapacitated. They aren't. They perform highly complex technical tasks at CO2 levels the authors of this paper would find "apocalyptic."
3. The Peer Review Scandal
How does a paper that ignores the fossil record and existing physiological data get past the "gatekeepers"?
When "Science" ignores the laws of biology and decades of human data to push a scary headline, it is no longer science... it is ideology. This is why the public is tuning out. When you trade your intellectual honesty for a "fashionable" conclusion, you don't just lose the argument; you lose the trust of the people.
The "reproducibility crisis" was just the beginning; we are now facing a full-blown crisis of basic competence. When prestigious publishers like Springer Nature swap rigorous physiological data for "fashionable" alarmism, they aren't just publishing bad papers... they are actively dismantling the public's trust in the scientific method itself.
Academia is burning its own house down, and until there is a reckoning with this institutional rot, nobody should blame the public for looking elsewhere for the truth.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11869-026-01918-5
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
RT von @KUPERWASSERLAB: Als ehemaliger Akademiker ist es körperlich schmerzhaft mitanzusehen, wie sich der „Goldstandard“ des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens in eine Stempelfabrik für narrativen Müll verwandelt. Ein kürzlich von Springer Nature veröffentlichter Artikel über die „Toxizität“ von CO2 ist die perfekte Fallstudie dafür, warum die institutionelle Wissenschaft jegliche Glaubwürdigkeit verliert.
In dem Papier wird behauptet, dass der Anstieg des atmosphärischen CO2 kurz davor stehe, das menschliche Blut zu vergiften und innerhalb von Jahrzehnten eine „toxische Bedrohung“ auszulösen. Es klingt beängstigend ... bis Sie fünf Minuten grundlegende biologische und historische Kenntnisse anwenden.
1. Der evolutionäre Realitätscheck
Säugetiere haben sich vor etwa 225 Millionen Jahren entwickelt. Zu dieser Zeit war der atmosphärische CO2-Gehalt nicht nur „hoch“, er war astronomisch und wurde auf 2.000 bis 4.000 ppm geschätzt. Das ist fast zehnmal höher als das aktuelle Niveau. Wenn das menschliche (Säugetier-)Blut-Gas-Austauschsystem so fragil wäre, wie diese Autoren behaupten, wäre unsere gesamte Abstammungslinie in der Trias ausgelöscht worden. Wir sind die Nachkommen von Organismen, die bei hohem CO2-Gehalt gediehen.
2. Das militärische „Lebende Labor“
Wir müssen nicht raten, wie Menschen auf hohe CO2-Emissionen reagieren. Die US-Marine und die NASA verfügen über jahrzehntelange Daten. U-Bootfahrer leben und arbeiten routinemäßig über Monate hinweg in Umgebungen mit CO2-Werten zwischen 2.000 und 5.000 ppm. Wenn die „Wissenschaft“ in diesem Artikel auch nur annähernd zutreffend wäre, wäre jede Atom-U-Boot-Besatzung in der Geschichte neurologisch außer Gefecht gesetzt worden. Das sind sie nicht. Sie führen hochkomplexe technische Aufgaben bei CO2-Werten aus, die die Autoren dieses Artikels als „apokalyptisch“ empfinden würden.
3. Der Peer-Review-Skandal
Wie kommt eine Arbeit, die den Fossilienbestand und vorhandene physiologische Daten ignoriert, an den „Torwächtern“ vorbei?
Wenn „Wissenschaft“ die Gesetze der Biologie und jahrzehntelange menschliche Daten ignoriert, um eine gruselige Schlagzeile zu machen, ist sie keine Wissenschaft mehr, sondern Ideologie. Aus diesem Grund schaltet die Öffentlichkeit ab. Wenn Sie Ihre intellektuelle Ehrlichkeit gegen eine „modische“ Schlussfolgerung eintauschen, verlieren Sie nicht nur das Argument; Sie verlieren das Vertrauen der Menschen.
Die „Reproduzierbarkeitskrise“ war erst der Anfang; Wir stehen jetzt vor einer ausgewachsenen Krise der Grundkompetenz. Wenn renommierte Verlage wie Springer Nature strenge physiologische Daten gegen „modischen“ Alarmismus eintauschen, veröffentlichen sie nicht nur schlechte Artikel, sondern zerstören aktiv das Vertrauen der Öffentlichkeit in die wissenschaftliche Methode selbst.
Die Wissenschaft brennt ihr eigenes Haus nieder, und bis es eine Abrechnung mit dieser institutionellen Fäulnis gibt, sollte niemand der Öffentlichkeit die Schuld geben, dass sie woanders nach der Wahrheit sucht.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11869-026-01918-5
Despite the low lifetime risk of gynecologic cancers (1–3%), a U.S. woman’s lifetime risk of hysterectomy is approximately 45%.
Hysterectomy is the second most common surgery in women, behind C-sections; around 700,000 are performed each year in the U.S.
Only 10% of hysterectomies are done to treat cancer. The other 90% are performed for fibroids, heavy bleeding, endometriosis, pelvic pain and other non-cancerous conditions. Many doctors claim hysterectomies prevent cancer, but 98% of women are not at risk of developing the cancer this surgery is meant to address!
Risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death in women, increases by 3-7x when a woman has a hysterectomy, especially before menopause. Dementia, Alzheimer’s, fibromyalgia, osteoporosis, diabetes, COPD, lung cancer, kidney disease and substance abuse are among the countless other chronic conditions whose risk significantly increases following a hysterectomy—especially when ovaries are removed.
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
RT von @KUPERWASSERLAB: Trotz des geringen Lebenszeitrisikos für gynäkologische Krebserkrankungen (1–3 %), liegt das Lebenszeitrisiko einer US-amerikanischen Frau für eine Hysterektomie bei etwa 45 %.
Die Hysterektomie ist nach dem Kaiserschnitt die zweithäufigste Operation bei Frauen. In den USA werden jedes Jahr etwa 700.000 durchgeführt.
Nur 10 % der Hysterektomien werden zur Behandlung von Krebs durchgeführt. Die anderen 90 % werden bei Myomen, starken Blutungen, Endometriose, Unterleibsschmerzen und anderen nicht krebsartigen Erkrankungen durchgeführt. Viele Ärzte behaupten, dass eine Hysterektomie Krebs vorbeugt, aber 98 % der Frauen haben kein Risiko, an dem Krebs zu erkranken, den diese Operation behandeln soll!
Das Risiko einer Herzerkrankung, der häufigsten Todesursache bei Frauen, steigt um das Drei- bis Siebenfache, wenn eine Frau eine Hysterektomie durchführt, insbesondere vor der Menopause. Demenz, Alzheimer, Fibromyalgie, Osteoporose, Diabetes, COPD, Lungenkrebs, Nierenerkrankungen und Drogenmissbrauch gehören zu den unzähligen anderen chronischen Erkrankungen, deren Risiko nach einer Hysterektomie deutlich steigt – insbesondere wenn Eierstöcke entfernt werden.
Before spike. Before the vaccine.
Cancer risk was already rising, quietly, steadily, over decades.
The real story may not be a single cause, but the accumulation of exposures over a lifetime.
A different way to think about risk
@weldeiry @MaryBowdenMD @CDCgov @NIHDirector_Jay @RobertKennedyJr @hubermanlab @calleymeans
https://charlottekupewasserphd.substack.com/p/before-the-spike-and-the-vaccine
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
Vor der Spitze. Vor der Impfung.
Das Krebsrisiko stieg bereits über Jahrzehnte hinweg still und stetig an.
Die wahre Geschichte ist möglicherweise nicht eine einzelne Ursache, sondern die Anhäufung von Belastungen im Laufe eines Lebens.
Eine andere Art, über Risiken nachzudenken
@weldeiry @MaryBowdenMD @CDCgov @NIHDirector_Jay @RobertKennedyJr @hubermanlab @calleymeans
https://charlottekupewasserphd.substack.com/p/before-the-spike-and-the-vaccine
“It also increased the chance of offspring developing kidney disease, obesity or experiencing complications when giving birth….”
Epigenetic environmental exposures is what we should be studying and regulating.
@NIHDirector_Jay @NCICancerCtrl @AmericanCancer @CDCgov @DrMakaryFDA
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
„Es erhöht auch die Chance von Nachkommen, Nierenerkrankungen, Fettleibigkeit oder Komplikationen zu entwickeln, wenn sie Geburt....“
Epigenetische Umweltbelastungen sind das, was wir studieren und regulieren sollten.
@NIHDirector Jay @NCICancerCtrl @AmericanCancer @CDCgov @DrMakaryFDA
A plea to the @US_FDA (again since the prior one seemed to be suppressed) http://substacktools.com/sharex/IyKfheT1
@RobertKennedyJr @DrMakaryFDA @VPrasadMDMPH @DrJBhattacharya @NIHDirector_Jay @RetsefL @MartinKulldorff @TracyBethHoeg
Personalized mRNA Vaccines for Breast Cancer : Promise Meets Reality
https://open.substack.com/pub/charlottekupewasserphd/p/personalized-mrna-for-breast-cancer?r=1p4b1i&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
This @Nature paper is being used to illustrate the promise of mRNA vaccines in breast cancer. But if one wants to be honest about the results (and yes it is a small study)....
(1) the choice of predominantly T1–T2 N0 cohort, where recurrence rates are already low, limits the ability to detect meaningful clinical benefit and may overstate the promise of the approach.
(2) The poor outcomes observed in node-positive patients, raise the possibility that vaccine-induced immunity may be insufficient to control more advanced or heterogeneous disease.
(3) The data are consistent with immune selection pressures that favor outgrowth of antigen-negative or poorly immunogenic clones. This underscores the challenge of mRNA vaccines targeting a moving genomic landscape in cancers like TNBC.
I'd go as far as saying these findings suggest that tumor-specific mRNA vaccines alone may be insufficient in heterogeneous cancers like TNBC, and that effective immunotherapy strategies may require a combination approach that also enhances broader T and NK cell activation and overcomes immune suppression.
@EricTopol @weldeiry @HHSGov
The math on this project should mass-humble every AI lab on the planet.
1 cubic millimeter. One-millionth of a human brain. Harvard and Google spent 10 years mapping it. The imaging alone took 326 days. They sliced the tissue into 5,000 wafers each 30 nanometers thick, ran them through a $6 million electron microscope, then needed Google’s ML models to stitch the 3D reconstruction because no human team could process the output.
The result: 57,000 cells, 150 million synapses, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, compressed into 1.4 petabytes of raw data. For context, 1.4 petabytes is roughly 1.4 million gigabytes. From a speck smaller than a grain of rice.
Now scale that. The full human brain is one million times larger. Mapping the whole thing at this resolution would produce approximately 1.4 zettabytes of data. That’s roughly equal to all the data generated on Earth in a single year. The storage alone would cost an estimated $50 billion and require a 140-acre data center, which would make it the largest on the planet.
And they found things textbooks don’t contain. One neuron had over 5,000 connection points. Some axons had coiled themselves into tight whorls for completely unknown reasons. Pairs of cell clusters grew in mirror images of each other. Jeff Lichtman, the Harvard lead, said there’s “a chasm between what we already know and what we need to know.”
This is why the next step isn’t a human brain. It’s a mouse hippocampus, 10 cubic millimeters, over the next five years. Because even a mouse brain is 1,000x larger than what they just mapped, and the full mouse connectome is the proof of concept before anyone attempts the human one.
We’re building AI systems that loosely mimic neural networks while still unable to fully read the wiring diagram of a single cubic millimeter of the thing we’re trying to imitate. The original is 1.4 petabytes per millionth of its volume. Every AI model on Earth fits in a fraction of that.
The brain runs on 20 watts and fits in your skull. The data center required to merely describe one-millionth of it would span 140 acres.
Farmed salmon tested as the most contaminated protein in America
- PCB levels 16x higher than wild salmon
- Artificially dyed pink with a synthetic petroleum-derived pigment
- 2.6x fattier than wild, loaded with inflammatory omega-6s
- Feed may contain ethoxyquin a pesticide banned by the EU
- Mice fed farmed salmon gained 2x the body weight of controls eating the same calories
- The FDA hasn't updated its safety standard for commercial fish since 1984
Look for wild-caught from Alaska or the Pacific
This is disturbing. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/promoting-the-national-defense-by-ensuring-an-adequate-supply-of-elemental-phosphorus-and-glyphosate-based-herbicides/
NIH Director @DrJBhattacharya will also serve as acting @CDCgov Director — a rare consolidation of U.S. public health leadership that could reshape coordination, transparency, and longstanding concerns about institutional gatekeeping and censorship.
@RWMaloneMD @RetsefL @weldeiry @MaryBowdenMD @MaryanneDemasi @jeffreytucker @Kevin_McKernan
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/18/nih-jay-bhattacharya-cdc-director
Researchers have uncovered the molecular trigger for a rare but potentially deadly clotting disorder that some people experienced after receiving some COVID-19 vaccines
https://go.nature.com/4bS6m07
Another reminder of how publication practices and scientific gatekeeping shape what is, and isn’t, discussed.
@CDCgov , @DrJBhattacharya , @RobertKennedyJr @DrMakaryFDA @NIH
https://www.oncotarget.com/article/28829/text/
🔥🔥Yet another case report describing acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL)/lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL) in a young, previously healthy 38-year-old woman following a second mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose.
This paper also reviews other reported haematopoietic malignancies with discussion of possible pathogenic mechanisms.
@US_FDA @CDCgov @DrMakaryFDA @NCICancerCtrl @VPrasadMDMPH @TracyBethHoeg @RobertKennedyJr @DrJBhattacharya
https://www.oncotarget.com/article/28827/text/
Our paper has been published! Thank you to all the co-authors and especially lead author Dr. Panagis Polykretis and to Oncotarget who finally allowed for this work to be published after 2 years of getting the run around! https://www.oncotarget.com/article/28827/text/
🚨The @CDCgov is STILL distributing outdated COVID vaccine info sheets, ignoring its own ACIP votes for better informed consent.
Patients are being misled on risks like cardiac harms & low-quality evidence. LINK 👇👇
@HHS_Jim @SecKennedy
@newstart_2024
A zero-cost intervention!!
Morning vs afternoon immunotherapy cut the risk of cancer progression and death by ~60% in lung cancer.
If this were a new drug, it would be practice-changing. Let's hope this is not ignored because it’s free.
@NCICancerCtrl @ASCO @AmericanCancer
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-04181-w
When a Case Report Needs an Apology: What This Addendum Reveals About Scientific Censorship
@weldeiry, @DrJBhattacharya , @NIH
https://charlottekupewasserphd.substack.com/p/when-a-case-report-needs-an-apology?r=1p4b1i
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2023.1267904/full
🇩🇪 Übersetzung
RT von @KUPERWASSERLAB: Wenn ein Fallbericht eine Entschuldigung braucht: Was dieser Nachtrag über wissenschaftliche Zensur verrät
@weldeiry, @DrJBhattacharya, @NIH
https://charlottekupewasserphd.substack.com/p/when-a-case-report-needs-an-apology?r=1p4b1i
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2023.1267904/full
BREASTMILK
She thought she was studying milk.
What she uncovered was a conversation.
In 2008, evolutionary anthropologist Katie Hinde was working in a primate research lab in California, analyzing breast milk from rhesus macaque mothers. She had hundreds of samples and thousands of data points. Everything looked ordinary—until one pattern refused to go away.
Mothers raising sons produced milk richer in fat and protein.
Mothers raising daughters produced a larger volume with different nutrient balances.
It was consistent. Repeatable. And deeply uncomfortable for the scientific consensus.
Colleagues suggested error. Noise. Statistical coincidence.
But Katie trusted the data.
And the data pointed to a radical idea.
Milk is not just nutrition.
It is information.
For decades, biology treated breast milk as simple fuel. Calories in. Growth out. But if milk were only calories, why would it change depending on the sex of the baby?
Katie kept digging.
Across more than 250 mothers and over 700 sampling events, the story grew more complex. Younger, first-time mothers produced milk with fewer calories but significantly higher levels of cortisol—the stress hormone.
The babies who drank it grew faster.
They were also more alert, more cautious, more anxious.
Milk wasn’t just building bodies.
It was shaping behavior.
Then came the discovery that changed everything.
When a baby nurses, microscopic amounts of saliva flow back into the breast. That saliva carries biological signals about the infant’s immune system. If the baby is getting sick, the mother’s body detects it.
Within hours, the milk changes.
White blood cells surge.
Macrophages multiply.
Targeted antibodies appear.
When the baby recovers, the milk returns to baseline.
This was not coincidence.
It was call and response.
A biological dialogue refined over millions of years. Invisible—until someone thought to listen.
As Katie reviewed existing research, she noticed something unsettling. There were twice as many scientific studies on erectile dysfunction as on breast milk composition.
The first food every human consumes.
The substance that shaped our species.
Largely ignored.
So she did something bold.
She launched a blog with a deliberately provocative name: Mammals Suck Milk.
It exploded. Over a million readers in its first year. Parents. Doctors. Scientists. People asking questions research had skipped.
The discoveries kept coming.
Milk changes by time of day.
Foremilk differs from hindmilk.
Human milk contains over 200 oligosaccharides babies can’t digest—because they exist to feed beneficial gut bacteria.
Every mother’s milk is biologically unique.
In 2017, Katie brought this work to a TED stage. In 2020, it reached a global audience through Netflix’s Babies. Today, at Arizona State University’s Comparative Lactation Lab, she continues reshaping how medicine understands infant development, neonatal care, formula design, and public health.
The implications are staggering.
Milk has been evolving for more than 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs walked the Earth. What we once dismissed as simple nourishment is one of the most sophisticated communication systems biology has ever produced.
Katie Hinde didn’t just study milk.
She revealed that nourishment is intelligence.
A living, responsive system shaping who we become before we ever speak.
All because one scientist refused to accept that half the story was “measurement error.”
Sometimes the biggest revolutions begin by listening to what everyone else ignores.