Cells | Energy | Evolution | Photosynthesis | Science | Honorary Professor, UCL | also on @jfallen@mastodon.social
Brentwood and London, U.K.
Joined May 2013
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John F. Allen retweeted
I find it frustrating that AI people fundamentally don't understand how science works.
Science has never been roadblocked by computation.
Let me give you a concrete example. Nucleic acids (DNA, RNA) were first discovered by the Swiss physician-chemist Friedrich Miescher in 1869. He made an extract from white blood cell nuclei. The extraction technique was one that typically extracted proteins from a cell. But in this case, Miescher noticed that his extracts contained no sulfur. (Proteins contain sulfur.) Also, strangely, the extracts contained phosphorus (something NOT found in proteins). He called his extracts "nuclein" (to distinguish them from "protein").
Miescher measured the pH of his extracts. They were acidic. We now call the macromolecules his discovered "nucleic acids."
There is no way computation would have predicted Miescher's discovery of nucleic acids nor would it have helped Miescher in any way.
For many years (1869 to 1944), proteins were thought to be the genetic material. No one believed nucleic acids were complex enough to encode phenotypes. Work by Avery and his colleagues (in 1944) showed that DNA, not proteins, must in fact be the genetic material. The Avery discovery did not hinge on computation in any way.
In 1950, Austrian biochemist Erwin Chargaff discovered that the amount of guanine in DNA equals the amount of cytosine, and also adenine equals the amount of thymine. This discovery did not hinge on computation and would not have been made easier by AI.
People who think AI will "solve biology" do not understand how scientific discovery works.
Thank you for asking the original question.
John F. Allen retweeted
13 November 1994. In a national referendum voters in Sweden decided to join the European Union (EU). The voter turnout was 83:3%, and the result was 52:3% for and 46:8% against.
John F. Allen retweeted
There was a time in late 2023 when people insisted on this website that Israel would never, could never, bomb a hospital, and that it was an antisemitc blood libel to suggest otherwise.
Here we are, three years and dozens and dozens of hospital attacks later.
We are appalled and outraged by the Israeli airstrike on Nasser hospital in Gaza, Palestine, last night. We have already treated three people injured in the attack.
It is unconscionable that patients and medical staff are once again being killed and injured inside a hospital, a place where lives should be saved, not taken.
We urge world leaders to move beyond statements of condemnation and take concrete action to ensure the protection of patients, healthcare workers, and facilities in Gaza. The continued attacks on healthcare cannot be met with silence and impunity.
msf.org/gaza-msf-condemns-an…
John F. Allen retweeted
The Office for Students’ new free-speech complaints scheme gives academics a free-to-use route for challenging restrictions on lawful speech and #academicfreedom.
For the first time, eligible complainants can ask the regulator to determine whether a university has breached its statutory #freespeech duties. Where a complaint is justified or partly justified, the OfS can recommend meaningful redress, including restoration of an invitation to speak, reinstatement of a research programme, changes to university policies and financial payments to complainants.
CAF has created a new Casework Support page designed to help ensure that cases reaching the OfS are as clearly framed and carefully prepared as possible. It includes practical guidance on getting a complaint right, why identifying the relevant issues from the earliest internal university stage matters, and how CAF can help.
afcomm.org.uk/afcomm-org-uk-…
There’s also a quick interactive checker that takes you through no more than nine questions about your circumstances, explains why each matters, and gives an initial indication of whether the OfS scheme may apply and when it may be worth contacting CAF. For those who want to understand the law beneath the scheme, our legal guide explains the statutory duties underpinning it.
If you think your freedom of speech or academic freedom is being restricted, email CAF at [email protected]
And please do spread the word. There will be academics across the country who do not yet know that the landscape changed this week, including some at institutions where the new complaints scheme may not receive quite the prominence any of us would like.
John F. Allen retweeted
@plantjournal @WileyLifeSci submitted paper in July - no APC - revised version sent in October - now we must pay 3600+€ if accepted due to a change in their publication policy - what a waste of time as we cannot pay due to reasons beyond our control
John F. Allen retweeted
We are appalled and outraged by the Israeli airstrike on Nasser hospital in Gaza, Palestine, last night. We have already treated three people injured in the attack.
It is unconscionable that patients and medical staff are once again being killed and injured inside a hospital, a place where lives should be saved, not taken.
We urge world leaders to move beyond statements of condemnation and take concrete action to ensure the protection of patients, healthcare workers, and facilities in Gaza. The continued attacks on healthcare cannot be met with silence and impunity.
msf.org/gaza-msf-condemns-an…
John F. Allen retweeted
I don't defend science because scientists are always right.
I defend science because it gives us a way to discover when we're wrong.
That's a much stronger foundation than confidence, popularity or ideology.
John F. Allen retweeted
CAF has intervened on behalf of a former Cardiff University professor who was denied emeritus status after criticising senior management over a cost-saving institutional restructuring, and who is now seeking to prevent the University from using his published research in the next Research Excellence Framework, whose results help determine the allocation of billions of pounds in public research funding.
afcomm.org.uk/2026/10/29/car…
John F. Allen retweeted
"In an age of rampant managerialism, senior university administrators increasingly regard their decisions as beyond challenge from mere academics”
They think they have the divine right of kings & treat any challenge from academics as act of lèse-majesté
afcomm.org.uk/2026/10/29/car…
John F. Allen retweeted
The IDF only recently made it standard practice to use live fire against stone throwers. It’s already “upgraded” to shooting people who “intended to throw stones.” When we served, we were taught to establish “means, intent and capability” before opening fire.
John F. Allen retweeted
"Thames Water creditors prepare ‘final’ offer as Burnham faces nationalisation decision."
It really is time someone put this company out of its misery.
ft.com/content/5b382a54-67c9…
John F. Allen retweeted
A message to all sane Republicans:
He pardoned 1,600 violent criminals.
You said nothing.
He bulldozed the East Wing.
You said nothing.
He interfered with the release of the Epstein files. You said nothing.
He took over the Kennedy Center and renamed it after himself. You said nothing.
He accepted a $400 million airplane as a personal gift. You said nothing.
He threatened Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Greenland, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. You said nothing.
He tariffed just about everyone but Russia, causing inflation and instability worldwide. You said nothing.
He attacked a nation during mediated negotiations. You said nothing.
His ill-conceived war killed 175 children on day one. You said nothing.
He alienated and insulted our allies. You said nothing.
His ICE Army terrorized and murdered U.S. citizens. You said nothing.
He committed murder on the high seas. You said nothing.
He co-opted the Justice Department and directed it to prosecute his political enemies. You said nothing.
It’s time to start talking.
John F. Allen retweeted
Z okazji Narodowego Święta Niepodległości składamy najserdeczniejsze życzenia Polsce, Prezydentowi Karolowi Nawrockiemu @NawrockiKn, Premierowi Donaldowi Tuskowi @donaldtusk oraz wszystkim Polkom i Polakom!
Dzisiejszy dzień przypomina, że los zawsze prowadzi ku sprawiedliwości, gdy Naród pozostaje wierny sobie, swoim zasadom oraz zachowuje godność narodową. Cieszymy się, że Polska jest europejska, silna i wolna.
My w Ukrainie jesteśmy wdzięczni Polsce za wsparcie i pomoc – dla ukraińskiej niepodległości, naszego państwa, naszej obrony, naszych obywateli i naszych dążeń do tego, by również być krajem europejskim, silnym i wolnym. Dziękujemy!
Życzymy Polsce sukcesów w realizacji jej aspiracji! Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji Święta Niepodległości! Niech żyje Polska!
John F. Allen retweeted
We need a groundswell of popular support for renationalisation without any compensation, for the effective theft of £billions of pounds of taxpayer money.
Starting with the water companies.
And maybe prosecute the directors.
John F. Allen retweeted
Typical autocratic mentality. Big bosses to decide the fate of the small as they wish. No patience for democracy & compromise, just give us one person to pressure and bribe! It’s one reason Trump hates Ukraine, Europe, and Canada—they speak of national interests and negotiation.
John F. Allen retweeted
David Cameron should keep quiet. He led us into this fucking mess all to sort out an internal party issue and it bit him and us in the arse.
***EXCLUSIVE by @MishalHusain***
David Cameron says Britain should NOT rejoin the EU
The former prime minister warns Andy Burnham that starting a conversation about rejoining would be “very long and painful”
Speaking in a Bloomberg interview, Cameron urges Burnham not to trigger another “decade-long debate about whether should be in or out.” He also says the UK should not enter a customs union with the EU
As the PM who led the Remain campaign in 2016, Cameron’s intervention will be seen as significant. He says Britain’s economic problems aren’t due to Brexit
“Today, instead of launching an argument about rejoining, which I think would be a very long and painful argument, and who knows where it would end up, instead of that, focus on how do we be the best friend, best neighbour, best partner,” Cameron says
The former PM also warns Burnham that talking about Britain rejoining could hamper future negotiations
“If you start endlessly producing this idea that we’re actually on a path to rejoining, I think you’re in danger of getting a less good partnership deal because of course the EU countries will just think: well, these guys are gonna rejoin anyway, so what’s the point in giving them a good partnership deal… If you’re not going to, you know, commit to trying to make the partnership stronger because you’re flirting with rejoining, I think there’s some dangers there,” Cameron says
“I don’t think actually necessarily joining a customs union is the right answer. If you look at the economic problems we have today, I don’t really think they’ve got anything to do with Brexit at all. I mean, our economic problems are we are overspending, over-borrowing, over-taxing, over-regulated, and far too much being spent on working age welfare. Those are a set of problems that have nothing to do with Brexit. We need a government that actually gets spending under control, gets taxes down, helps entrepreneurs, deals with our borrowing problem, reforms the welfare, and massively deregulates so we can build houses, build infrastructure. None of those have got anything to do with Europe. So that’s sort of, in a way, that’s my point. Do we really want to go into another decade-long debate about whether we should be in or out, when actually we should deal with our own problems while making the partnership model work?”
“I fought the campaign to stay in on an amended basis, and I obviously wanted to win that campaign. I was desperately disappointed that we lost that campaign. But I’m a democrat, a believer in democracy. We voted to leave, and I think the right thing now is to try and become, you know, not just neighbors, partners, and friends of the EU, but the best friends, the best neighbors, the best partners. And I think we can make that work”
Story by @ChaplainChloe: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
