A humble academic proposal: let's not have stars. Everyone hired as an academic at a university is there to teach younger generations, to make new knowledge, to have that knowledge critically evaluated by others, and to act on collective insights. We do not need to designate some people as stars.

NEW: Meta reviewed, approved, and ran more than 50 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads. They ran for nine months. Some were live this week. After WIRED asked about them, researchers found ~30 more

Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.

wired.com

I think we should all ask this more. Not just about AI, about a lot of things. What actually WOULD happen if we didn’t do that thing? 🤷‍♀️

Spencer Bagley@sbagley.bsky.social · 8h ago

I've been saying "what if we didn't" lately and I mean it

Our newest preprint - stay tuned for more from @alexandr.bsky.social!

Richard Sever@richardsever.bsky.social · yesterday

"Grokipedia...mentions genetics more frequently than Wikipedia and hallucinates or misrepresents human genetics research...it asserts that genes are causal factors underlying group-level measures such as...crime rates" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Multi-omic analysis of 1,154 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 showed widespread reactivation of chronic viruses from the Herpesviridae and Anelloviridae families. Evidence of reactivation could be linked to the later presence of LC #LongCovid www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Virus reactivation in acute and long COVID-19 - Nature

Chronic reactivation of distinct herpesviruses and anelloviruses occur during acute and long COVID-19, and track with disease severity, inflammation and outcomes, revealing immune signatures with prog...

nature.com

It is a GENIUS messaging strategy to link AI and data centers to dick swinging toxic masculinity and I want more of it.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9h ago

El-Sayed: "Mike Rogers is a guy who wants to put a data center in your backyard so he can make himself feel a little more manly by making an AI video ... he's a guy who went back to Florida so he could lick every single boot Donald Trump owns to bet for his endorsement."

Remember, kids, herpesviruses are for life, not just for when Nature papers make them fashionable.

Nature@nature.com · 8h ago

A severe bout of COVID-19 can wake up an army of dormant viruses hiding inside the body go.nature.com/4fDUY9w

Trump & Russ Vought proposed a rule to take every federal grant in America hostage. They don't care about making our tax dollars work better—they just want them to work for Trump. Well, Democrats BLOCKED their corrupt rule, and I'll be fighting to kill it permanently.

You won't find me in the wildness so much these days , though I've spent quite a bit of time in it, but when I do, i love to goth sunbathe (lying in the shade) and not wear deodorant lol

New essay on the forty-seventh chromosome, and the sixty-five years of argument over who gets to have found it. Link in bio. 🧬 #marthegautier #womeninhistory #womeninstem open.substack.com/pub/authenti...

Marthe Gautier: The Woman Who Made Forty-Seven Visible

How a French pediatrician built the laboratory, revealed the chromosomal cause of Down syndrome, and watched the credit gather around someone else.

open.substack.com

This isn't some sort of free choice. The media should reject that bullshit framing. New Zealanders forced to go without food and heat as government drives more and more into poverty. There. Fixed it for you. #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/weather...

Older Kiwis choosing between 'starving or heating' as price increases bite

An advocate for older people says recent cold temperatures combined with the cost of power and other goods have produced a crisis point, with many people forced to choose between food and heating.

rnz.co.nz

“A study of the Hansard supports Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s allegation that Speaker Gerry Brownlee gives New Zealand First’s Winston Peters a latitude he denies her, and other MPs who challenge Peters’ conduct.” #nzpol

The Speaker’s selective severity: Rules for Swarbrick, rank for Peters

A study of the Hansard supports Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s allegation that Speaker Gerry Brownlee gives New Zealand First’s Winston Peters a latitude he denies her, and other MPs who c…

sanjanah.wordpress.com

“A fundamental shift is needed in how we approach the development and deployment of AI agents,” argues Meredith Whittaker. “Basic lessons in privacy and digital security are being discarded,” she warns

AI agents are coming for your privacy, warns Meredith Whittaker

The Signal Foundation’s president worries they will also blunt competition and undermine cyber-security

econ.st

Even pre-AI slop I was not going to spend my time reading things shoved into my inbox by randos on the internet, but this takes the rudeness to another level. >>

Everyone says Trump killed the climate law. But nine in ten factories are still being built, courts keep blocking his attacks, and the corporate tax credits survived. Read more in today's Notes from the Electric Era newsletter. electricnotes.news/p/no-the-dem...

No, the Democrats' Big Climate Law is Not Dead.

Plus, new research shows that its clean energy manufacturing boom benefitted Democrats in the 2024 election.

electricnotes.news

The conventional wisdom is the Democrats' big climate law failed to deliver votes and then died. That's wrong. My new study finds its factories moved 2.5 million votes—more than Trump's margin. And the law's still alive. My latest in @theatlantic.com. Gift link! www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Bidenomics Was More Successful Than People Think

Conventional wisdom holds that Joe Biden’s bet on climate investment was a bust. The data suggest otherwise.

theatlantic.com

Had a really lovely conversation with homeowner whose wall we're putting the lightning bug mural on next month. She was telling me how her son went to a lightning bug festival last month and hasn't stopped talking about lightning bugs ever since & is absolutely psyched we picked their house 🥹

Oh, now we know where it got funnelled to

The Speaker’s selective severity: Rules for Swarbrick, rank for Peters

A study of the Hansard supports Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s allegation that Speaker Gerry Brownlee gives New Zealand First’s Winston Peters a latitude he denies her, and other MPs who c…

sanjanah.wordpress.com

Hayley@writagal.bsky.social · 14h ago

Sometimes I wonder about the impact of politicians and media treating Ardern with such misogynistic contempt for years on end and it’s pretty frightening to consider that all that energy didn’t die when Ardern left, and is now funneled into policy, and misogyny/ racism is normalised (and rewarded).

Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All. Michigan... We won. I am so proud to be your Democratic nominee for US Senate. Let's win in November.

This is 💯 not true. It is never a choice between ‘taking big tech’s money and doing nothing’. A stronger moral imperative is NOT to take the money and the strings attached to it - particularly if you do not and cannot yet understand the implications

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 12h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

Pubic Service Announcement The Vagina Museum is trans inclusive. Always has been, always will be. Today the new EHRC Code of Practice comes into effect. Let us be clear, the guidance changes nothing about how we operate.

Really happy with my new Tangata Tiriti hoodie, merch from the candidate from Māngere, Michel Mulipola, the Bloody Samoan. 💚 Get your own at https://bloodysamoan.ezymerch.co.nz/ Proceeds go to the South Auckland Greens campaign. #NZPol #voteGreen

Hey, the COVID is increasing. Please PLEASE wear a mask to protect all the children. This virus causes brain harm! At least put masks on when flying on a germ tube, you don’t want to inhale everybody’s exhaust. It’s not all just from faces ya know. Icky.

Denis - The COVID Info Guy@thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social · 2d ago

US Weekly COVID update: Aug 3, 2026 🔸1 in 209 Actively Infectious 🔸234,000 Daily Infections 🔸1,570,000 Infections In The Past Week 🔸90,000,000 Infections in 2026 🔸79,000 to 310,000 Weekly Long COVID Cases 🔸400 to 700 Weekly Excess Deaths Source: pmc19.com

1/ Henrietta Lacks (née Loretta Pleasant; August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951) was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. #WomanToday

Idk, but as a witch personally I don’t recommend making the moon mad, just saying

Between high-quality masks and the @cleanairkits.bsky.social purifiers in my home and office (and the portable ones!) I haven't gotten what used to be my annual (at best) miserable cold in years (and only, to my knowledge, gotten COVID once, thanks to this and vaccines).

Shepherd@neolithicsheep.bsky.social · 20h ago

In 1986, contracting HIV meant you were going to die, usually slowly, painfully, and alone. Now it's a chronic illness like hypertension. In 1986, gay and lesbian couples couldn't have their relationships legally recognized and had to adopt elaborate legal workarounds.

If you're there already, you've already consumed the frame. The point is that they want to remove trans people from public life, and sports has become a major terrain of contention. The point is that they are doing eugenics. They want to kill little trans girls.

New article from our group! Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Beyond Pathogens: Mobile Genetic Elements We argue for the need to include MGEs in our AMR surveillance programs, and provide lots of information on tools and databases available to support that

Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Beyond Pathogens: Mobile Genetic Elements - Current Epidemiology Reports

Purpose of Review Antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) are often transmitted among microbes via mobile genetic elements (MGEs), but few antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance programs incorporat...

link.springer.com

I hear cats like to be read to 😌 About cats 😌 This adorable bookmark is ready for a new home @ rainbowofcrazy.myshopify.com/products/rag... #BSNM #artshop #supportartists

Teaching doctors about smoking is a moral imperative. And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking the tobacco industry's money or doing nothing!

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 12h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”