Science From the Fringe

In the fourteenth episode of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels and Simon Wain-Hobson discuss recently released Slack messages exchanged among four authors of The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 , the most highly cited paper on COVID-19 origins. The messages are the subject of Simon’s recent essay The Gang of Four’s Slack File . Like previously released messages, these exchanges reveal a strikin...

In the thirteenth episode of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels and Simon Wain-Hobson discuss whether AI is creating new biological threats or simply amplifying existing ones. The discussion centers on Anthropic’s September 10 threat assessment report , which describes five cases of scientists using Claude in ways Anthropic believes could support biological weapons development. The concern was...

On September 11, 2026, I hosted the inaugural event of The Purpose of Science Lecture Series at Rutgers University: Scientific Responsibility in Research on Dangerous Pathogens . The event featured Simon Wain-Hobson, Professor Emeritus at the Institut Pasteur; Richard H. Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University; and Neil L. Harrison, Professor o...

On September 11, 2026, I hosted the inaugural event of The Purpose of Science Lecture Series at Rutgers University: Scientific Responsibility in Research on Dangerous Pathogens . The event brought together Simon Wain-Hobson, Professor Emeritus at the Institut Pasteur; Richard H. Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University; and Neil L. Harrison, Pro...

In the twelfth episode of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels and Simon Wain-Hobson discuss the newly released U.S. Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research and what it means for the future of dangerous gain-of-function (dGOF) research. Simon gives the new policy high marks, highlighting its clear definition of dGOF and two provisions he did not expect: restrictions invol...

In the seventh episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels and climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. discuss Roger’s new Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard , a resource designed to make long-term trends in extreme weather accessible to scientists, journalists, policymakers, and the public. Roger explains how this project was motivated by the Trump administration’s removal o...

In this episode of Science From the Fringe , host Bryce Nickels speaks with Tim Hunt, CEO of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) , about cell and gene therapies and the difficult questions surrounding how they should be regulated by the FDA. The episode follows a March conversation with cardiologist Anish Koka about Vinay Prasad’s controversial tenure at the FDA . Together, the two episod...

In the sixth episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels and climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. discuss Roger’s recent essay examining the legacy of the influential 2004 Science paper introducing the concept of “stabilization wedges.” Roger’s essay was prompted by a recent ProPublica investigation revealing that this paper was heavily shaped by BP executives whose contributions we...

In the fifth episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels and climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. discuss Roger’s recent essay which presents a data-driven analysis estimating how many lives are lost because of Europe’s low air-conditioning adoption. His analysis suggests that if Europe had air-conditioning penetration comparable to the United States or Japan, tens of thousands of d...

In this episode of Science From the Fringe , host Bryce Nickels speaks with Anthony Bellotti, founder and president of the White Coat Waste Project , a government watchdog organization dedicated to exposing and ending taxpayer-funded animal experimentation. The episode examines the tension between mission-driven advocacy and institutional incrementalism, asking whether meaningful reform comes from...

In the eleventh episode of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels and Simon Wain-Hobson examine what Simon sees as a decades-long failure of the virology community to seriously confront the potential risks and societal consequences of its own research. As experiments became increasingly sophisticated and controversial, Simon argues that repeated opportunities for reflection, debate, and reform wer...

In the tenth episode of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels and Simon Wain-Hobson discuss Simon’s recent presentation to researchers and administrators at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on dangerous gain-of-function research, as well as a recent Cell paper on the origins of viral pandemics that Simon critiqued in his essay, “ Natural COVID crowd miss again .”...

In the fourth episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels and climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. discuss what Pielke describes as one of the most consequential developments in climate science in years: the retirement of the extreme climate scenario known as RCP 8.5. Bryce and Roger unpack how a small international committee helped shape the climate scenarios that informed scientif...

In the third episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels and climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. revisit the legacy of An Inconvenient Truth twenty years after its release. Building on Pielke’s recent essay , they examine how Al Gore framed climate change through a religious lens—apocalyptic warnings, moral imperatives, and a defined path to “salvation.” Pielke reflects on how read...

In this episode of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels speaks with virologist Simon Wain-Hobson about Simon’s essay, “ WHO Wordplay on COVID Origins ,” which critiques the WHO SAGO report and a related Nature commentary on what is known about the origins of COVID-19. The discussion begins with SAGO’s claim that most peer-reviewed evidence supports a natural origin, while acknowledging that key...

In the second episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels speaks with climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. about his recent review of Science Under Siege (SUS) , a book by Michael Mann and Peter Hotez arguing that an “anti-science movement” threatens society. Roger argues that SUS is less a serious analysis than a partisan manifesto—one that treats political disagreement, especially...

Climate change is one of the most politically charged issues in science, often framed as a choice between denial and apocalypse. In the first episode of In Defense of Climate Change , Bryce Nickels speaks with climate policy scholar Roger Pielke Jr. about why that framing distorts the realities of climate science. At the center of the conversation is the role of scenarios in climate research—what...

In the eighth episode of In Defense of Virology , distinguished virologist Simon Wain-Hobson joins host Bryce Nickels to discuss Simon’s recent essay, “ You Couldn’t Make Body Bags Fast Enough .” The essay examines a largely overlooked gain-of-function influenza experiment involving the avian virus H7N1 ( Sutton et al., Airborne transmission of highly pathogenic H7N1 influenza virus in ferrets , p...

In this episode of Science from the Fringe , host Bryce Nickels speaks with cardiologist and medical commentator Dr. Anish Koka about his recent article examining the forces that led to physician-scientist Vinay Prasad’s departure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They discuss how Prasad’s efforts to strengthen evidentiary standards for drug approvals quickly ran up against powerfu...

In the seventh episode of In Defense of Virology , distinguished virologist Simon Wain-Hobson discusses the science (or lack thereof) behind two of the most influential publications on the origin of SARS-CoV-2: “ The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 ” (“Proximal Origin,” published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020) and “ Statement in Support of the Scientists, Public Health Professionals, and Medi...

In the sixth episode of In Defense of Virology , Rutgers professor and Science From the Fringe host Bryce Nickels speaks with distinguished virologist Simon Wain-Hobson about a potentially catastrophic biosafety issue: the human H2N2 influenza virus is not classified as a federal select agent, yet live samples remain stored in laboratory freezers around the world. The discussion is prompted by Sim...

In Episode 5 of In Defense of Virology , Bryce Nickels and Simon Wain-Hobson have a sobering conversation about the emerging risks of applying artificial intelligence to virus design. The discussion centers on a recent Stanford preprint in which researchers trained AI models on bacteriophage genomes and used those models to generate entirely new viral sequences. From hundreds of AI-generated desig...

In this episode of Science From the Fringe , host Bryce Nickels speaks with Dana Parish—an award-winning songwriter, patient-rights advocate, advisory board member of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation , co-author of Chronic , and host of The Dana Parish Podcast —about her personal experience with Lyme disease, the broader scientific, medical, and political controversies surrounding tick-borne illness,...

In this episode of Science From the Fringe , host Bryce Nickels speaks with documentary filmmaker Jenner Furst, the Director of Thank You, Dr. Fauci , which examines the career and controversies surrounding Dr. Anthony Fauci. The conversation explores Jenner’s motivation for making the film, which began when independent financiers approached him to investigate Fauci’s record during the COVID-19 pa...

In the fourth episode of In Defense of Virology , Rutgers Professor and Science From the Fringe host Bryce Nickels and distinguished virologist Simon Wain-Hobson argue that labs should destroy frozen stocks of dangerous, nonessential pathogens produced through gain-of-function research or historical resurrection—simple to do, high-impact for reducing global risk. Simon highlights precedent—from po...