Today I learned of Subsoccer and it is both preposterous and something I would in fact like to have. American spirit of invention chugs along even at 250.

Every dickover is infuriating, but the worst ones by far are on the websites I’m already paying to access. Go to hell, Gray Lady; what you’re selling doesn’t need an app.

Two middle-aged doctors, two grade schoolers, a teenager, an infant and a very loud cat: say hello to the Miljković family flying circus, coming to Denver this very evening.

• Tristan Manalac for Biospace: Amgen’s Tavneos troubles continue as NEJM retracts pivotal publication. First came FDA questions about data integrity. Now the academic authors are confirming the data tampering, though per the now retracted study they did “vouch for the completeness and accuracy of the data, the complete reporting of adverse events, and the adherence of the trial to the protocol. All the authors participated with the sponsor in the design of the trial, the analysis of the data, and the writing of the manuscript.” I wonder if people who sold this rotten pile of garbage to Amgen will offer a refund. So it goes…
• Carl Zimmer and Marco Hernandez for The NYT: This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And It’s Manmade. “Dr. Adamala named her creation SpudCell, after its potato-like appearance. Rather than patent it, she and Dr. Endy are organizing a community of scientists to focus on making SpudCells more fully alive and adapting them to new kinds of experiments.” Bravo! Maybe science isn’t a complete lost cause.
• M Auerbach, MY Lim, GM Rodgers, and T DeLoughery for Sensible Medicine: When Normal Isn’t Normal: Non-anemic Iron Deficiency. A very academic group of authors makes a very good case for treating low iron levels in the absence of overt anemia. This is in response to an earlier text which poo-pooed the practice as “overmedicalizing normality”. Adam Cifu from Sensible Medicine proposes randomized controlled trials, though if symptoms of low iron are as diverse as restless leg syndrome, “brain fog” and craving for ice it would be a challenging endpoint to establish. Boy, isn’t medicine hard.
• Titotal (pseud): The best cause will disappoint you: An intro to the optimisers curse. ⊕ [Note: ᔥAndrew Gelman ] Mathematical demonstration of why effective altruists are, at the end of the day, a bunch of bozos. And not just them: America is the land of hyperoptimizers and if Taleb’s Incerto wasn’t a convincing enough case for why that doesn’t end up well in the long run, well, here is a much shorter Substack post that shows one facet of the problem.
• Ed Conway: The Apple-Banana Paradox. On the incredible flattening of banana prices in the last 25 years, and the incoming threat of another fungal infection that could wipe out the current Cavendish banana monoculture. On the other, could this be an opening for a Honeycrisp of bananas? One can hope.

Stress-free moves don’t exist. But for less stress, get professional movers from a reputable company, if you can afford it. Yes, packing too. Especially packing.

Yes, we have started the move today, Day 1 of who knows how many.

• Max Kozlov for Nature: Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants. The plot to murder American science in the style of Rasputin (poisoned, shot, shot again) is well under way, and this is the slow-release poison. Choke off funding, dissuade people from thinking about federal funding, see the number of scientists drop for years to come.
• Vinay Prasad: Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Jose Baselga. To be clear, there are many things wrong with American science and Prasad in his review of the book How To Rule the World presents some good examples, but you don’t treat a serious diagnosis by killing the patient.
• Andrew Gelman: Bayesian Workflow exists as a physical book! An example of what’s right in science. I will be ordering a copy.
• Ann Lee for the Guardian: ‘David Bowie was a crazy workaholic’: Labyrinth at 40 – an oral history. ⊕ [Note: ᔥBill Harris ] An oral history done the right way, about a genius person in a genius movie.
• Catherine Ruth Pakaluk for The NYT: Life Is Better With Siblings. Sure is — just ask Jennifer Connelly from The Labyrinth! Joking aside, this is a serious case for large families and one with which I largely agree, though the double-digit census of children in some of the families mentioned gave me pause. [Note: The old George Carlin bit about idiots and maniacs applies. ] Regardless, for most people the right number is greater than two, and for almost everyone it is certainly greater than zero.

🍿 The Sheep Detectives (2026) was so-so as a murder mystery but absolutely delightful as a family movie that’s bursting with color and character.

1. I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords.
2. No service to the NIH/Medical Center metro station for two whole months? Yikes! Those poor summer school students.
3. Micro.blog’s AI description correctly read the idiograms — see ALT text.