Lisa M.P. Munoz
@lisampmunoz.bsky.social
Science communicator: Passionate about science, family, endless forms most beautiful...and Swiss chocolate. Author of WOMEN IN SCIENCE NOW (https://amazon.com/Women-Science-Now-Strategies-Achieving/dp/0231206143) via @columbiaup.bsky.social
How dystopian can things get, while many of us still do not experience a day-to-day dystopia?!? Books, words, stories are humanity's lifeline and legacy. AI cannot be that.
Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele@drdragases.bsky.social · last wk.No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.
From the abstract: “promoting a woman to Associate Professor increases female faculty by 1.5 members after 15 years, leads to six additional female PhD graduates over the following decade, and raises the number who subsequently remain in academia and reach tenured positions”
Physgal ⚛️@physgal.bsky.social · last wk.Fascinating paper on the progression of women in academia. 👩🏻🔬 ⚛️ 🧪 #AcademicSky docs.iza.org/dp18477.pdf?... Here's an excerpt from the conclusion:
Rocks are like time capsules. They reveal ancient life and climates. They’ll help us fight climate change. They record the birth, life, and death of continents. They give us a framework for understanding lithosphere-biosphere dynamics at a global-scale. They’re ace, frankly [2/2]
I learned a lovely thing yesterday: a group of brittle stars (either fossilised or dancing very slowly in a Devon rockpool) is called …a galaxy:
It’s impressive that autonomous AI agents is only the second most unreal idea in this sentence, behind the magic “press to get data” button. Just a huge devaluing of the process of data collection. Science is not just interpretation of data! There’s a reason many scientists want their own lab.
David Burbach 🇺🇸@dburbach.bsky.social · 2w agoNew WH science policy. This snippet is typical of nearly all its examples applied materials science, computing, and biochemistry. An AI with a cool idea about Mars or quarks can't just imagine a probe or accelerator into being www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
This is a *fantastic* video that explains exactly WTF is going on with Taylor Farms and how tracing works TLDR: - they are responsible - the false positive was only on one of several samples - it’s difficult to test parasites - there may still be other sources - Taylor Farms is being shady AF
One of the hardest parts of writing books is the long publication timeline. It means I sometimes appear to get scooped. Like this NYT piece on a wonderful microbiome research team, who I've been talking to for 4 yrs and are featured in my forthcoming book: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/m... #scicomm
Our Bacteria Are Talking. We’ve Just Begun to Understand What They’re Saying.
nytimes.com
Mari-nerd friends can we blow up BlueSky with stars and anemones and other gorgeous explosions, of any taxonomy? Go 💥 💥 💥
Dr. Brooke Weigel@brookeweigel.bsky.social · last mo.Super beautiful Hopkins rose nudibranch, tidepooling this morning at Asilomar! 🌊
What is it with people in the last year or so increasingly using cell phones for calls, music, or viewing something audibly but without headphones? On trails, at the mall, walking through the neighborhood... #RandomMusing
Spotted at the @cornelluniversity.bsky.social Store this morning! Exciting to still see it available in bookstores and on campuses! #WomeninScience #scicomm #authors #Cornellian @columbiaup.bsky.social
I finally figured out why AI causes such a visceral reaction in thinking humans: I am writing my book chapter on PLAY, and AI is the opposite of play. We play for the joy of the process, not for the outcome. Yes it is nice to win, to have the art/ poem, but the point of life is to play.
#Science 🧪 Who knew it could solve real-life problems?!? 😏 ... so sad to see so many digs their heads in the sand
Buttons (Ashley) 🏴☠️#OFMDForLife🏴☠️ 🏳️🌈🤡@sevensugars.bsky.social · 2mo agoSince I did do my PhD in cyanobacteria growth and treatment optimization modeling AND work in the water treatment industry, I’m gonna share my theory as to what’s happening here and how to fix it. People are focusing on the painted bottom of the pool increasing residual heat, and while that 1/19
They exacerbate the Matilda Effect...because that's what it's modeled on. Ugh! #WomeninScience
Mel Andrews@bayesianboy.bsky.social · 2mo agoWhen utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.
I should have anticipated that field-based researchers who have the time to peer review my new book on scientific fieldwork would be hard to come by during spring/summer field season...sigh! Just putting this out in the universe to get some good vibes to help move the manuscript along...😎 #scicomm
A global thank-you to all the scientists who talked to me, on the record and off, for this. I hope I accurately conveyed how they're feeling about...all of the everything.
Seth Fletcher@sethfletcher.bsky.social · 2mo ago"What’s going on is nothing short of a generational change in how the U.S. organizes its scientific enterprise." In the new issue, @jetjocko.bsky.social shows how it came to this. www.scientificamerican.com/article/amer...
At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/
In a field near Wicken, Cambridgeshire larkspur is grown for London florists along with cornflowers & Nigella. It’s quite a sight just now-some floral dopamine for you 🌿:
You can: 1) Contact your senators and reps, especially in coastal states. 2) Urge scientific societies and advocacy groups to speak out and mobilize their members. 3) Write op eds, posts, threads, etc. explaining what the OOI actually does and why it matters. 4) Share articles like this:
Trump Administration to Remove Hundreds of Deep-Ocean Observation Instruments, Dismantling $368 Million Program - Eos
The Trump administration’s National Science Foundation (NSF) has begun dismantling the infrastructure of a $368 million deep-ocean observing program critical to monitoring marine ecosystems, global cu...
eos.org
Lovely time of year for fieldwork in Switzerland. 🧪🇨🇭
“Academic science is not only about productivity, it is also about deep understanding, exploring creative solutions and training critical thinkers to be the next generation of researchers.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The uncritical adoption of AI in science is alarming — we urgently need guard rails
Artificial intelligence is rapidly accelerating scientific output, but risks narrowing inquiry, weakening judgement and undermining how scientists are trained.
nature.com
"Our species’ ability to come up with unexpected and original ideas is something to protect and nurture. That’s especially true for today’s adolescents." Yes, with every fiber of my being! #AI #scicomm
Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 2mo agoAn analysis of 370,000 college student essays found that human-written essays contain 8X more novel ideas than those generated by A.I! Though AI works often contain more flowery language, story lines are more homogeneous and lack distinctive ideas. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/o...
An analysis of 370,000 college student essays found that human-written essays contain 8X more novel ideas than those generated by A.I! Though AI works often contain more flowery language, story lines are more homogeneous and lack distinctive ideas. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/o...
Never knew I wanted to understand how erasers work until I read this piece. Science never ceases to impress with its seemingly simple wonders! 🧪 #scicomm
Harriet Weber@harri.bsky.social · 3mo agoLong before humans smacked “delete” to obliterate typos, before AI "wrote" for us, we fixed mistakes the old-fashioned way: by rubbing errors clean off the page. 🧪 But how do erasers erase? Here's my piece on their chemistry and evolution, for @popsci.com: www.popsci.com/science/how-...
Today we celebrate Mary Anning's birthday (21 May 1799) — pioneering fossil collector, palaeontologist, and one of the most influential figures in the history of Earth science. To mark her birthday and her discoveries, check out Moon's phylogenetic study of ichthyosaurs: buff.ly/ovaAjuM #PaleoSky
Younger daughter & I found these fossilised crinoid rock stars (segments of the ‘stem’ of Jurassic feather stars/sea lilies, related to starfish & sea urchins) in the gravel on the edge of a lake nr Peterborough UK. She used them to make an ammonite:
If you feel sluggish and unproductive, just remember that hot spring archaea need decades to make a single copy of themselves. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, and mother-figures in our lives. We stand on the shoulders of formidable women, without whom, none of our collective achievements and discoveries would be possible.
