Julia M. Wright
@juliamwright.bsky.social
FRSC Professor in Halifax🍁. Member of @dalfaculty.bsky.social . Locked out for 30 days in 2025. Views here mine only. Rebleats≠agreement. "it is not Air / That from a thousand Lungs reeks back to thine" (Armstrong 1744). Silence=Spread🦠 #COVIDisAirborne
ospe.on.ca/advocacy/a-m... This is how it’s done. Listening to, and being guided by, science.
A Major Win for Indoor Air Quality: Toronto's Board of Health Moves to Adopt Stronger Ventilation Standards
The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers celebrates a major win for indoor air quality with stronger ventilation standards in Toronto.
ospe.on.ca
Good article on That Study claiming to show the Thing that is designed to clear particles from the air does not work on magic particles that somehow defy physics, but actually showing that the Thing doesn't work well when turned off, turned on too low, poorly placed or (checks notes) urinated on.
Can air purifiers prevent flu and COVID-19 in nursing homes? Only if they’re used properly
cidrap.umn.edu
Always fun to read about how universities, like @dalhousie.bsky.social, are willing to spend millions to <checks notes> cut spending. (Of course the parasitic consultancy class always recommends cuts that end up breaking things so badly that management then hires more consultants to “fix” it, &c.)
The Breach@breachmedia.ca · 3w agoCanada’s universities are broke—and easy prey for consulting firms peddling austerity. @jameshasaface.bsky.social & Kyla Perry investigate the Nous Group, an Australian consulting firm that has earned a name for “restructuring” that cuts jobs, services, and faculties at Canadian schools.
Cherise Doyley was in her 12th hour of contractions at the hospital when a tablet was brought to her bedside. On the screen was a Zoom call with a judge and several lawyers and doctors. She was in court, a nurse told her. The reason? For failing to agree to a C-section. (Published March)
She Was in Labor at a Florida Hospital. Then She Was in Zoom Court for Refusing a C-Section.
A virtual court hearing from a pregnant mother’s hospital bed shows what forced medical treatment can look like.
propublica.org
You should be embarrassed for promoting such a laughably amateur and ignorant study. Here's what an actual expert has to say: bsky.app/profile/kpra...
Kimberly Prather PhD@kprather.bsky.social · last wk.They never measured the air. The filters were run at settings chosen for noise and comfort in communal rooms (low flow). They didn't even calculate room volumes — and no tracer, particle, or bioaerosol data confirms the intervention lowered airborne pathogen concentrations anywhere. 1/
Honourable mention at @bars.bsky.social for Colleen Taylor @bc-irish-studies.bsky.social and her Irish Materialisms in the first book prize contest #BARS2026 👏👏👏 - with shoutouts to Colleen’s mentors in BC, Notre Dame and @ucc.ie
Opinion: I Was Gonna Defend Christopher Nolan’s Impugned Honor, But Then I Made the Mental Effort of Trying to Imagine How He Must Be Reacting to Emily Wilson’s Review
Bugs Bunny Counting Money in Looney Tunes
Alt: Bugs Bunny counting large stacks of cash
static.klipy.com
So much this: "The absence of a keyword can point to the unspoken keystone of an entire field . . . what the data is tracking is not the 'decline of theory' but its normalization." Digital tools can calculate word-frequency--that doesn't make it meaningful. No paywall: archive.ph/6qf0b#select...
archive.ph
Gabriel Hankins@gabrielh.bsky.social · 3w agoMy response to Appiah's "field report" is up: please repost www.chronicle.com/article/kwam...
what if the lrb responded to the wilson essay crashing their site by committing to regularly publishing serious film criticism perhaps even occasionally from film scholars
No. Someone did a TINY trial on 47 overweight people, 26 of whom had restricted eating hours. They presented their non peer reviewed findings at a conference. Science journalists who should know better bigged up the press release. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
Restricted eating hours may reduce cognitive decline in older age, researchers find
Preliminary study shows older people who avoided food four hours before bed did better in problem solving tests
theguardian.com
Learning that Duck Duck Go let's you block specific sites from search results is a game changer for when you are looking for things and you don't want the first 10 results to be Amazon.
On forced labour in the US prison system: “UNICOR’s largest ‘customer’ is the Department of Defense, with over 50% of its sales going to that agency, and other customers include the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Postal Service.” www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/modern-...
Modern Day Slavery in the United States: Exploring Forced Labor for Prison Inmates
Author: Kaitlyn Andres, MPH & MSJune 2, 2026The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States (U.S.) Constitution was passed in 1865 as a means to codify President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamat...
humanrightsresearch.org
I hand out respirator/breatheteq masks to my patients to help them reduce their risk of getting COVID and Long COVID. Here's the letter I've put together about this for parents about children masking. @longcovidresource.bsky.social @longcovidadvoc.com @longcovidkids.bsky.social #longcovid
Sharing the trail with some young ones during an after-work walk.
This is kind of an incredible website: Why your stuff stopped lasting, who profited, and what's still built right.
Worse on Purpose
The brands you trusted quietly gutted quality to protect margins. Investigative essays on corporate enshittification. Free newsletter.
worseonpurpose.com
My brilliant colleague Iván Chaar López 's tenure denial is not only a threat to UT faculty, but to all scholars who research topics considered "controversial." His case is a model for how to deny tenure with zero justifications to him or his colleagues. www.statesman.com/news/educati...
UT border surveillance scholar was a shoo-in for tenure. UT denied him.
American Studies scholar Iván Chaar López fears UT’s unexplained tenure denial violated his academic freedom amid scrutiny of controversial fields.
statesman.com
It seems that the top three “most annoying ads” on CBC/GEM are all Trivago—which seems to cater to a niche group of travelers who go to sunny locations to hang out with other dudes from the same small demographic just to see who got the best price on something and mock the loser.
Spongebob Says 'Boring!'
Alt: Spongebob Says 'Boring!'
static.klipy.com
Psst… find well-priced 3M Auras at our charity store: a box of 50 3M Aura 1870+ respirators for $24.99 or a case of 440 for $99.88! 😷 At these prices, you can afford to protect yourself and your community. 💙 buymask.ca/products/3m-aura-particulate-respirator-1870-n95 #StillMasking #Masks4All
Halifax has seven universities and the two largest announced the sudden end to their provosts' terms *this week*. Quite apart from the relative merits of those decisions, it speaks to the chaos in #nspse under the current #nsgov.
Community Chaos
Alt: The famous scene from Community where someone returns with pizza to find chaos in the apartment, with two people helping someone on the floor and another trying to put out flames that cover 3-4 square meters of the same floor.
static.klipy.com
I am, once again, asking @hfxgov.bsky.social to stop driving full size trucks on multiuse paths. Apparently, graffiti removal at rush hour is critically important. Fella wouldn’t move his truck but folded in his mirror so I could literally scrape by 🫠
Back when students submitted essays on paper, I would warn them not to leave printing to the last minute because printers KNOW. One day a student told me that he hadn’t believed me but then left printing to the last minute, leading to a long series of various printer mishaps. “Now, I believe.”
✨hauntedtoasters✨@hauntedtoasters.bsky.social · 4w agoI am tech support to the bone and do not like to mystify computer stuff but I genuinely believe in my heart of hearts that printers have demons in them. There is literally no other explanation.
The Major Oak has stood at the heart of Sherwood Forest for over a thousand years. This spring, it failed to come into leaf and experts now believe it has died. But its story isn’t over. Its ancient trunk & branches will continue to support life for years to come: www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen...
Yes. Journals also need to stop getting tangled up in university bureaucracy. If a paper fails to meet standards, retract it. You don't need to wait for the author or their employer to agree! Journals should be quick and nimble in correcting the scientific record.
There's too much of this. Another big publisher has been dithering about a clear factual error in a published paper for nearly a year. These corporations make huge profits--they need to invest more of their revenues in getting these problems addressed in a timely and rigorous manner. #accountability
Sophie E. Hill@sophieehill.bsky.social · last mo.Researchers at two Russell Group universities published scientific research funded by an "anonymous donation". But the money really came from an industry group with a clear conflict of interest 🥸 After 10 months of "investigation", Wiley has done... nothing. No retraction, no EOC, no correction.
