Dr. Catherine Scott
@cataranea.bsky.social
No-longer-a-professional arachnologist/behavioural ecologist/natural historian; current research-admin type & luddite. I also knit, sew, & have strong opinions. Pronouns: she or they
This is one of my recent favorites, a Crescent-eyed Spider in this genus, Selenops. The family is called ‘Flatties,’ and you can see why, they are extremely flat spiders. Their flat shape lets them squeeze under bark or hide perfectly against a wall. #Arachtober #spider #macro #macrophotography
For #Arachtober, those interested in spider identification should check out the Spider Genitals project on iNaturalist. It's a really great source of close up imagery of palpi and epigyna for reference when you are doing ID's. Often has habitus images too! www.inaturalist.ca/observations...
inaturalist.ca
I've worked on dozens of interpretive media projects over the last 15 years, and I've learned a few things along the way. If you have a site that would benefit from interpretive signage, why not join me for a free webinar on October 13th to learn about best practices? 3common.com/event/6ab591...
This is one of those things I'm going to keep reposting until you're sick of it. It's not just because I want to make sure everyone sees it. I want everyone to see it multiple times. I want it in your long-term memories so that it's something you use and share and don't forget when you scroll away
Robin Hayward 🌳 🏳️⚧️@canopyrobin.com · 3w agoWe're publishing new guidance to support trans people who do fieldwork (any work outside the office)! Now we need your help to get them seen so please share! inclusivefieldwork.leeds.ac.uk/trans/
Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.
This is an excellent resource for anyone who supervises trans+ folks doing fieldwork but, also, many of these recommendations are applicable well beyond fieldwork, for anyone leading, supervising, mentoring, employing, or otherwise collaborating with trans+ colleagues I highly recommend it:
Robin Hayward 🌳 🏳️⚧️@canopyrobin.com · 3w agoWe're publishing new guidance to support trans people who do fieldwork (any work outside the office)! Now we need your help to get them seen so please share! inclusivefieldwork.leeds.ac.uk/trans/
I just honestly can't get over that Save Women Sports, an anti-trans group could only find five trans athletes competing K through 12. Five. The NCAA president testified a year and a half ago or so that there were less than 10 college level trans athletes. What the fuck are we doing, people
Oh and "there's good AI" they shout, assuming we never considered that, but also with their clear goal of using AI in a deflated sense (that only helps companies)... Yes, there's good computational models. So what? bsky.app/profile/oliv...
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · last yr.I split AI into 3 non-mutually exclusive types (see Table 1 above): displacement (harmful), enhancement (beneficial), and/or replacement (neutral) of human cognitive labour. More later possibly, but see Tables 2 to 4 (attached or here: arxiv.org/pdf/2507.19960) for the worked through examples. 2/n
Lovely day picking blueberries on the East Coast Trail. Diego was a very enthusiastic participant but did little to improve efficiency.
Three final things: Carney isn’t returning to a hardball strategy from 2018. He’s returning to the Trudeau strategy that Carney rejected in 2025 in favour of appeasement and the pursuit of a negotiated comprehensive trade and security agreement. From Sept 2025.
Carney government quietly dropped more U.S. counter-tariffs than advertised | CBC News
The federal government has quietly removed more counter-tariffs on American goods than initially advertised, according to an order-in-council published online.
cbc.ca
It took Mark Carney almost two years and billions of dollars in concessions to recognize what was *immediately* obvious in Nov 2024: that Trump won’t keep his word. Going forward, Carney needs to explain this profound miscalculation, and if his strategy has changed to reflect reality.
“The issues [we face] now are similar to issues that other scientific and creative professions are facing, and indicate issues that all of humanity might face: how to make sure that, as AI changes the way work is done, we do not lose sight of what that work was meant to achieve in the first place.”
Terence Tao@teorth.bsky.social · last mo.A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
OpenAI set $22M on fire just to steal $1M from a human who did the actual work, and that’s the business plan our economy is betting everything on? Lol.
Trevor A. Branch@trevorabranch.bsky.social · last mo.Millennium math problem solved by OpenAI may have "regurgitated" competitors unpublished work... also they spent more than $22 million in computing power in one week to scoop them. techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/o...
there’s a lot more nuance to it but as a basic principle you could do a lot worse than unions good, billionaires bad happy Labor Day, everyone
Attention Philadelphia! We're hosting a rally to demand that Drexel University maintain The Academy of Natural Sciences Museum open to the public. Join us on Tuesday morning at 10am in front of the academy. Please spread the word, we need all hands on deck! RSVP here: luma.com/1qwnrqz2
Doesn't look very "inevitable" to me
Brian Merchant@bcmerchant.bsky.social · last mo.Across the US, workers are souring on AI. The tech industry has insisted that AI would make workers’ lives easier and more productive, that the more people understood and used AI, the more they would like it. Something closer to the opposite has happened.
The problem with being a good (I hope) reviewer who responds promptly to requests and provides on-time or not-ridiculously late reviews is that you just keep getting more and more requests. I wonder what proportion of active researchers are carrying the bulk of the reviewing burden?
Another hot of the presses bug for your enjoyment...this time a super fancy Golden Tortoise Beetle for the last day of #InverteFest Stats: Drawing time total 21hr 15 min #SciArt #BugSky #Insects #ArtSky #Illustration #Procreate
A wee purple damselfly to wrap up #InverteFest. They come in a range of beautiful colors and it always surprises me to see these jewel tones. Also, here’s a free art book filled with incredible invertebrates! #BugSky 🌿
franz@franzanth.bsky.social · 2mo agoWe present: The Art of #InverteFest - August 2026 Edition A digital art book showcasing the work of 100 artists, in celebration of overlooked invertebrate fauna. Thank you to the artists who contributed to our book! Download & submit to the next edition: invertefest.com/#artbook #Art #SciArt
The "Lake America" hissy fit "highlights the cost of Canada not having its own Google Maps equivalent or mapping APIs, Levy said, leaving a huge portion of online activity powered and collected by American companies." #datasovereignty #digitalsovereignty www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Lake America replaces Lake Ontario on multiple Canadian websites after Google Maps update | CBC News
Some Canadian websites, including for the federal government, displayed maps with Lake Ontario renamed as Lake America on Sunday, a day after Google Maps announced the change to align with an executiv...
cbc.ca
Yet more copytheft. Why would we tolerate an “industry” based on wholesale lawbreaking?
Ed Newton-Rex@ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 2mo agoHugging Face, which is being acquired by Nvidia for $13 billion, hosts and distributes large datasets of copyrighted books without permission. 🧵 1/3
Also: a lot of decisions have been made about AI in ed by people who had not tried LLMs, did not understand how they work, were not in the classroom, did not really understand how students were likely to use them, and were driven by FOMO rather than by data/knowlege/understanding/learning.
Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 2mo agoI think what I find really depressing about AI in higher education is how so many people didn't even wait for the evidence/research before we decided on telling students "how to use AI responsibly" which often includes things like checking grammar, and obviously, we shouldn't have been
"we should rename Mar-a-Lago something funny, make Google display that" My brother in Christ, the Ontario legislature can declare Google's workers in Ontario to be unionized and assign their collective labour rights to whichever union will be most militant, think bigger
“What are you hoping to achieve with tools sold as “AI” that cannot be done with traditional [methods] that already exist? Is that outcome so valuable that it outweighs the ethical problems of using these tools?” There is no ethical use of “ai”
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2mo agoNew on the MAIHT3k newsletter -- how to move away from the untenable, uncomfortable middle ground and towards firm "AI" resistance. buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... w/ @deccamuldowney.bsky.social
And sure, any individual query and/or brag about an individual query is just a small part of that. But why contribute at all? And more to the point, why say so and then scold everyone else for pointing out how shameful it is? >>
helping the tech barons further centralize wealth and power, benefitting from the atrociously exploitative labor practices that "cleaned up" system output, etc. >>
Just to name a few, every time you use (let along brag about using) a synthetic media extruding machine, you are helping to build the case for the next hyperscale data center, helping to normalize the data collection (theft & surveillance) they are built on, >>
