Isabel
@isabelott.bsky.social
Evolutionary & population biology of vector-borne viral disease systems. 🦟 genetics PhD candidate in NC. Arbovirologist, orthobunyavirus wonk, feral reference librarian, & public health advocate. 80s mosquito. Coaster-sized earrings. (she/her) 🏳️🌈
As @katemanne.bsky.social notes, it's reinforcing male entitlement to female deference. If men wallow in AI porn and bots saying "yes, sir," all day, they may react poorly when real women say no. It could lead to violence. katemanne.substack.com/p/a-culture-...
A Culture Hooked on Generative AI is a Culture that Misses Female Sycophants
And we have missed a central reason why AI is a feminist issue
katemanne.substack.com
Yes and also: some people are terrible at their jobs and they can become even worse by using AI
Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · yesterday"History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts" I remain astounded by how loud and wrong people are about what history actually is.
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 · 7h 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.”
Brown University has a widget that tracks the cost of the Iran war to American consumers (as contrasted to whatever the Pentagon is spending). Per-household cost now exceeds $600. iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu
While this is a HUGE WIN, there's more work to do. It's time to DOUBLE DOWN in pressuring Congress. They need to revoke the OMB Proposal. Members of Congress who fail to stop the Proposal will be out of a job January 3rd, 2027, we will make sure of it. 🧵
Congratulations to everyone who worked their asses off for something that any semi-decent and ultimately self-interested government should have done in penance www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/b...
Education Dept. to Wipe Out Student Loans of 170,000 More Defrauded Borrowers (Gift Article)
The sprawling case, centered on students defrauded by for-profit schools, has now become the largest class-action settlement in American history.
nytimes.com
on Sophie Cunningham and a trans controversy that doesn't involve any actual trans people: defector.com/the-right-ha...
I’ve been screening our documentary with organizing communities in the South. So far, the organizers mention data centers first at every single event. From racial justice orgs to old school activists who don’t usually think about tech policy. This has legs.
Facing logging threats and stalled government action, 41 villages in Papua New Guinea signed a legally binding conservation deed. The community-led pact bans logging, mining, and hunting across the Torricelli Mountains, securing protection for threatened species. @john-cannon.bsky.social reports.
New ‘conservation deed’ aims to protect tree kangaroos, forests, people in Papua New Guinea
It happened with a few strokes of a pen on a hilltop in northwestern Papua New Guinea on June 30: The leaders of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA) finalized an agreement to protect the densely…
mongabay.cc
Electability is just another version of playing to the Baileys: constraining real choices to please imaginary people who don't support your stated goals
Deva Woodly@devawo.bsky.social · 9h agoI’m telling you this as a political scientist. The person who is electable is the one who is elected. This can and does change over time. Any and all speculation about “electability” is either puffery or anxiety and is often both.
*2026 El Niño Ahead by a Mile* It’s remarkable for us scientists to witness El Niño’s evolution. If you had asked us if something like this was possible a year ago, it would have been a definitive no. But here we are… already more than 1C (& 3 months) ahead of the next strongest episode in 1997… 1/
Universities “are increasingly acting like other employers, finding “complicated and sometimes pretextual reasons” to fire employees, even those with tenure. “What we’re seeing at the New School is emblematic of the rising pressures on higher education as a labor market and as an industry”
He Had Tenure. The New School Laid Him Off Anyway.
The professor, a longtime critic of the university, was among 19 educators who lost their positions as the institution navigated financial woes.
nytimes.com
Chuck Edwards Ends Campaign After Harassment Allegations Pressure had been building among Republicans to force him out after a House Ethics report cited alleged inappropriate behavior.
Chuck Edwards Ends Campaign After Harassment Allegations
Pressure had been building among Republicans to force him out after a House Ethics report cited alleged inappropriate behavior.
theassemblync.com
SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab. There is no evidence pointing to laboratory origins. There’s been a massive disinformation campaign to convince the public otherwise. It’s scary how effective that campaign has been.
also creating potential financial incentives for individual study doctors to maybe alter data seems pretty dangerous!
Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 15h agoThese betting markets sites are so socially corrosive. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Exclusive: Sen. Rand Paul published Anthony Fauci's diary entries without redacting the names or medical details of over 20 people, including people with cancer, Ebola or HIV. www.notus.org/health-scien...
Rand Paul’s Fauci Diary Dump Exposed Peoples’ Medical Histories
The Republican senator’s office published over 20 individuals’ health information without redaction.
notus.org
Genuine answer: 1️⃣ the published, peer-reviewed research evidence points to a zoonotic origin (as with previous viral epidemics & pandemics) 2️⃣ there are ongoing harms from promoting the lab leak hypothesis given the lack of peer-reviewed research to support it (see journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...)
Matthijs Hollanders@matthollanders.bsky.social · 18h agoGenuine question, what's so crazy about lab leak?
While never "big", he was CEO of 3 sizeable companies before he ran them all into the ground. Achieve (née OncoGenex, née Sonus) Adhera (née Marina, née MDRNA, née Nastech) Atossa (current)
One of the clearest descriptions of climate dynamics for laypeople that you’ll ever hear: “It will inevitably get worse. It will get worse and worse and worse.”
This isn't the new normal. It's just the beginning
This summer’s disasters appear to have boosted climate multilateralism, at least within Europe, and underscored the need to tackle fossil fuels. But we may not be waiting long for the scientists' “wor...
nationalobserver.com
">900 people in Washtenaw County, MI, have been sickened with cyclosporiasis since mid-June. Linda Kim, a public health nurse, has called >100 of them. Almost everyone has said the same thing: It’s excruciating, and one of the worst illnesses they’ve experienced." kffhealthnews.org/public-healt...
Nurses Chase Cyclospora, Aided by Interviews, Fast-Food Receipts — And the Messy Details - KFF Health News
Yes, they’ve heard all the poop jokes. Public health staffers are painstakingly tracing the sources of this massive outbreak, combing through fast-food orders and lettuce purchases as they listen to p...
kffhealthnews.org
This is another way we live in rape culture; we live in a culture where we have to hear about monstrosity all the time. Sometimes I look at those top stories lists and wonder if I'm the only one who notices that two or three or four of the ten are about violence against women.
"You can’t pay for anything by card anymore. That stopped being a thing in the 2030s. The Data Lord doesn’t take AmEx. It’s half a pint now, or a full pint every two months, and you’re on a monthly plan. Hold your arm out, and I’ll get the tourniquet." buff.ly/mI21wrK
It’s Cute How Grandma Doesn’t Even Know How to Blood Tithe to the Data Lord
“You can’t pay for anything by card anymore. That stopped being a thing in the 2030s. The Data Lord doesn’t take AmEx. It’s half a pint now, or a full pint e...
mcsweeneys.net
Except for religious studies, the graduates of these "loan ineligible" majors are disproportionately women. Fans of this policy have probably never considered that social worker, cosmetician, teachers aide, etc might be low-paying jobs *because* women do them. newrepublic.com/post/213446/...
Anywho, I've yet to find a job that makes me healthier. It's more like "this job affords me access to health-enabling resources to offset the health-harming effects of the work I do." The nature of work under capitalism means that someone else always benefits from my work more than I do.
i'm starting to think people might be sick of democrats who view voters' will as a kind of cute larp unrelated to whatever they, the real protagonists of reality, do in the district
For the past five months the only refugees the USA has accepted are white South Africans fleeing equality & safety meanwhile they are disappearing or strapping ankle monitors on any Haitian they can get ahold of. It needs to be understood how thoroughly connected these two things are.
an occupational hazard of being fabulous and having a darling little white cat: lipstick staining the baby’s noggin!! (she grew SO much between these two pics, omg. the second was a few weeks ago)
