Top all-time · #9146
Rachel Thomas
Personal blog · rachel.fast.ai/postsaisciencehealth
Rachel Thomas's personal blog at rachel.fast.ai covers ai, science and health. Since 2024, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 12 times, most often “Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-19, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Rachel Thomas's posts on the immune system and microbes, such as "Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle" and the crowds-vs-friends article, to explain the hygiene hypothesis and commensal and parasitic microbes.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
AI, science, education, & ethics
Most-linked posts?
- Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-08-25
- "AI will cure cancer" misunderstands both AI and medicine2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-02-20
What Hacker News says?
This is a common misunderstanding of the poorly-named “hygiene hypothesis”. For a fuller explanation of how immunologists think about this today, see this article: https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/ In short - viruses can actually harm your immune system and lead to long term problems. OTOH, we co-evolved with certain parasites that can help us. Airborne pathogens are not likely to be the hel…
Comment linking /posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/
on “Study: Air purifier use at daycare centres cut kids' sick days by a third (2023)”Submitted Deep learning gets the glory, deep fact checking gets ignored as a story · 609 points
HN discussionI don't disagree with that. However the original article talks about 'peaceful' commensals and links to this post ( https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-04-25-microbiome-1/ ), with the example that "friendly" microbes may not trigger your immune system if they leak into your bloodstream because they 'look similar' to your pancreatic cells. While critical during the development of the immune system, this idea that there…
Comment linking /posts/2024-04-25-microbiome-1/
on “Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle”Submitted Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle as a story · 287 points
HN discussionMaybe fewer consequences than you'd think... https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/ "Your Immune System is Not a Muscle" > Four main categories of pathogens that humans deal with are viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. The evidence for pathogens that may be beneficial to the immune system is almost entirely for parasitic worms and friendly (commensal) bacteria. In contrast, many viruses can…
Comment linking /posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/
on “The death rays that guard life”Submitted "AI will cure cancer" misunderstands both AI and medicine as a story · 149 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI and Immunology as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Scientists Just Connected the Dots Between Viruses and Everything as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted "AI will cure cancer" misunderstands both AI and medicine as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Devious Tricks Pathogens Use Against Us (2024) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted In Defense of Screen Time as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Five devious tricks pathogens use against us as a story · 1 points
HN discussion