Dr. Katharine Dickson
@metaomicsnerd.bsky.social
Microbiome science by training; climate policy by calling. Professional anti-methanogen crusader. I 分かる some 日本語. Opinions my own. She/her. 🇺🇸. ☸️ (Jōdo Shinshū). Owner of @cowburpsbot.bsky.social Portfolio: https://tinyurl.com/katharinedickson
“My guy wants to put a data center in your backyard either to give himself gender-affirming care and make a muscle video, or to portray me as a…hero?" Abdul El-Sayed reacts to Republican Mike Rogers' AI ad showing him, Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie as communists inside a Trojan Horse:
As Elon Musk defends nude deepfakes, the FTC is moving to censor AI models trained to recognize historical injustices.
Trump’s FTC Is Threatening to Punish Big Tech for “Woke AI”
As Elon Musk defends nude deepfakes, the FTC is moving to censor AI models trained to recognize historical injustices.
truthout.org
🎶 talkin' bout the Neocallimastigomycota helping cattle meet their giant fiber-eating quota how much recognition of them? barely an iota rumen fungi: Neocallimastigomycota 🎶
Rsquared@rsquared.bsky.social · yesterdayMary Poppins-ass microorganism
The microbiologists who do "anything that's not bacteria & viruses" at the microbiology function
Dr. Horrible: We Do The Weird Stuff
Alt: Gif from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Dr Hammer stans pop into the frame to sing "We do the weird stuff!" while Nathan Fillion looks hog & smug about it
static.klipy.com
Dr. Katharine Dickson@metaomicsnerd.bsky.social · yesterdayI focused on rumen fungi and ciliates and even though they’re harmless they low-key scare rumen bacteriologists
The craziest fallout of the Cyclospora situation for me personally is I used to work in a microbiology lab as the one (1) parasitologist. That lab didn't even have the right gear for many of the tests they wanted me to do. Couldn't train me to run the tests right, bc nobody in the lab knew how!
"why can't we find any senior devs to hire" because you fired all the entry level people 5 years ago gerald
Gavin Newsom is not cool enough to do this for CalRecycle
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 5d agoNow this is the kind of trash talk we can get behind. We’re containerizing neighborhoods by taking trash off our sidewalks and allowing mid-size buildings to trade in their wheelie bins for a bigger, better, cleaner alternative: Empire Bins. It’s time to put a lid on it, New York.
Manuscript writing is better when you’re housesitting with pets
"When a university is bombed, it is not just a building that is destroyed but a place where thought is created... When a library is burned, the possibility for a young generation to engage with its past is burned." www.972mag.com/archiving-ga...
The battle to save Gaza’s cultural heritage
A new book documents efforts to preserve millennia of culture, refusing to surrender to the enclave’s destruction while laying foundations for its future.
972mag.com
I don't think there's ever been much of an intellectual justification for this kind of culture, to me the aggro Q&A is pretty transparently service to inert nerd masculinity and serves no other function
Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 4d agoI don’t really want to get into this with people who feel this way, but i don’t think this is a good thing! We don’t need to behave this way! It’s not healthy to approach academic discourse as an exercise in harshness!
This isn't a thing I typically post, but I spent some time last night helping this person develop a plan to escape a family that’s been hurting her (and am also working on helping her optimize this page, including putting up a budget). #mutualaid #transmutualaid gofund.me/a0e7fa4f4
Donate to Escaping a toxic family, organized by skye angel
I need to get away from toxic parents that constantly dead names me, gets gender wrong, treats me l… skye angel needs your support for Escaping a toxic family
gofund.me
So when we say "rural outreach"… who do we mean? Rural areas aren't a monolith. Do we mean big landowners & mining interests? Do we mean the rural cousins of urban libs, who tend to come from middle class+ rural families? (not exclusively obvs, but that's who can afford to send kids to college)
A very serious Rural Politico once told me "Dems have to go to farmer meetings! We gotta be where the people are!" I was in fact in a farmer meeting at that very moment! So I live-texted him the meeting. They were complaining that they want indentured workers that they don't have to pay or feed.
Lucas Tieman@lucastieman.bsky.social · 6d agoThere would be more pushback if folks left of center were more serious about outreach. But folks aren't despite the fact that our system does give disproportionate power to rural areas. But instead of taking that as the rules of the game as it exists, and actually organizing, we complain about it.
It's generally accepted on here that transphobia is a big, flashing warning light about someone who's about to go down a right wing rabbit hole, and I think after this week we should probably consider "still mad about Dr. Fauci" in a similar way
Post-Left Watch@postleftwatch.bsky.social · 5d agowhat
If Democrats don't take the Senate, we're screwed. Trump's next Supreme Court justice will push to end basic rights, including marriage equality. This SCOTUS possibility is talking about "biblical truth." He will replace the Constitution with the bible. news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...
Ho Suggests Justices Should Reverse Same-Sex Marriage Ruling
Judge James Ho of the Fifth Circuit said the Supreme Court was wrong to reject President Donald Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship, and suggested that the high court should overturn its decisio...
news.bloomberglaw.com
I'm a homeless Lupus patient living out of a hotel because shelters are too easy to contract deadly infections in. I will die on the street. I'm begging you to help PayPal.me/cjmcwillams Venmo areanynamesopen
Pay Quinn Brown using PayPal.Me
Go to paypal.me/CjMcWillams and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.
paypal.me
Yeah so NYT asked me ~2 yrs ago to write an op-ed about how the Colorado is running dry, & what we should do to keep this exact thing from happening. I said "There's only one real answer. Bill farmers by how much water they use. Duh." NYT editorial staff freaked tf out & cancelled the piece.
Elias Thorne@truebe.horse · 6d agosaw an article today about an az politician saying how great it was that we're now in emergency drought conditions because the farmers get automatic bailouts and I feel like way more Professional Rural Understanders just breeze by sentences like that. www.paysonroundup.com/news/arizona...
This may be the biggest mistake I’ve ever heard of anyone making in an undergraduate microbiology laboratory - and it wasn’t the students’ fault. arstechnica.com/health/2026/...
College lab class ends with 32 people on antibiotics for deadly germ exposure
Lab students were supposed to ID a mild germ. They all identified a deadly pathogen.
arstechnica.com
I know I have RTd this several times, but: the WHOLE POINT of the State Department is that it’s supposed to be full of people who deal with other countries, and who could therefore be expected to look at that map and know IMMEDIATELY that it was wrong.
PBS News@pbsnews.org · 6d agoThe State Department said it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.
They succeeded in making him look like Mister Rogers. Devastating. Also, vaccines ARE cool!
Dave Jorgenson@davejorgenson.bsky.social · last wk.The absolute worst thing Rand Paul's staff could think of when generating a photo of Fauci was to show him chilling in a 90s-themed bedroom writing "vaccines are cool" and "stay safe."
so I'm sorry, you were just saying how your Tesla is no big deal, just another purchase... do go on
George Pearkes@peark.es · 6d agoNYT: Musk preparing 9 figure spending campaign in support of Republicans in "swing" states like Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, and Texas.
Fasulo’s anti-solar rhetoric can sound progressive: anti-corporate and pro-environment. But past social media posts reveal fierce loyalty to Trump and right-wing conspiracies. And when HEATED asked whether fossil fuels cause climate change, she would not answer.
The influencer teaching millions to fear solar
Alexandra Fasulo says she’s protecting farms and wildlife. Her campaign is becoming a blueprint for the fossil fuel right.
heated.world
Looks like Gavin Newsom is going to bat for California Forever, the Network State "tech utopia" project backed by Marc Andreessen and other tech billionaires. 70% of local residents oppose it. But the billionaires hired Newsom's favorite lobbyist. Welcome to Sacramento. nypost.com/2026/07/29/u...
Exclusive | Inside Gavin Newsom’s desperate bid to save billionaire pals’ dream city
Newsom has been quietly whipping support for California’s billionaire-backed megacity as it faces the loss of a key tenant.
nypost.com
The CDC director nominee was evasive about flu vaccinations, discredited ideas about vaccines and autism, and defending evidence-based public health decisions against the administration. Reject Schwartz for CDC director. www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-healt...
Senate committee grills CDC director nominee Erica Schwartz
cidrap.umn.edu
The federal government’s priority is to shred basic research in favor of the tech-bro R&D that… depends on basic research.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6d agoNew in PN: The new "science golden age" looks suspiciously like a grift "It’s impossible not to wonder whether part of Trump’s loathing for universities is that there's no way for him to corrupt the process and make money off it in the same way he can by giving billions to Silicon Valley types."
Trump absolutely cratering by many metrics in new CNN poll: 66% say he puts himself over country 61% disapprove of ballroom, arch, etc 57% say lacks sharpness to serve (!) 73% say he's out of touch w/regular people (!!) His personalist project is over. New piece: newrepublic.com/article/2137...
We’ve Officially Entered the Twilight of Late-Stage Trumpism
It’s all there in a new CNN poll, and it’s heartening to see: Large majorities are sick of Donald Trump’s vanity, venality, and megalomania.
newrepublic.com
"As Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei Asia found in a recent investigation, just five US tech giants — Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle — are hiding an estimated $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn’t appear on balance sheets. futurism.com/artificial-i...
AI Companies Are Trying to Hide a Staggering Amount of Debt
AI companies are pouring tens of billions of dollars into enormous data centers. They're being built on top of a mountain of hidden debt.
futurism.com