Rebecca R Helm
@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social
Just a bunch of crabs in a trench coat, but also a professor of marine biology. My social media does not represent my employer. No AI. Do not train AI off my work. Please bring croissants 🥐 https://linktr.ee/rebeccarhelm
honestly, the fact that we have made it through the atomic age *without* another use of nuclear weapons since 1945 is a miracle we don't fully appreciate
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 19h agoToday is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:
We have them too! In Killarney Lake next to Mt Work, if you’re nearby, and Shawnigan Lake if you’re over the Malahat. I have added an article with the UBC researcher because it’s interesting and also the photo is exactly how I would expect a jellyfish researcher to celebrate catching their subject:
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 20h agoIt's that time of year! Freshwater jellyfish are beginning their annual blooms in the northern hemisphere! Look for these ghostly creatures in lakes and ponds from Spain to San Fransisco, Seattle to Singapore! 🪼 Craspedacusta sowerbii 📸 in ALT from @inaturalist.bsky.social
Today everyone — EVERYONE — should take a moment and read Ray Bradbury's four-page short story from 1950.
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 19h agoToday is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:
Today is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:
a wooly man without a face@jojororo.bsky.social · yesterdayIt's that time of year! Freshwater jellyfish are beginning their annual blooms in the northern hemisphere! Look for these ghostly creatures in lakes and ponds from Spain to San Fransisco, Seattle to Singapore! 🪼 Craspedacusta sowerbii 📸 in ALT from @inaturalist.bsky.social
I was a death row lawyer. Here’s why I now joke about capital punishment
I was a death row lawyer. Here’s why I now joke about capital punishment
In my standup, I’m not trivializing the death penalty. I’m getting people to stay engaged when the subject is uncomfortable
theguardian.com
It. WORKED!!! The calling and comments and yelling! It works. It's a temporary stall but it can be made permanent. www.scientificamerican.com/article/sena...
U.S. senators push against giving political appointees control over science funding
These proposed changes have seen significant bipartisan pushback and have been criticized by scientists across disciplines
scientificamerican.com
ICYMI, the longest-ever post on Southern Fried Science contains answers to 50 (ish) of the most commonly-asked questions about careers in marine biology, answered by me and a panel of experts. Please share! www.southernfriedscience.com/marine-biolo...
Marine Biology Career Advice
You asked us questions about marine biology careers, and our panel of experts answered them! In April, I solicited your questions about careers in marine biology, and we received nearly 100 questio…
southernfriedscience.com
· #AcademicSky · #EduSky · #SciSky · #AI · Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts
Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts
Research suggests that the combination of incentives to publish and the use of large language models will lead to more papers, but they will be less refined.
nature.com
Let's use imposter syndrome for something good for once: inoculating us against sycophants, yes-men, and feel-good AI telling us to feel confident and care-free about doing things now, fast, and easy.
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 3d agoLLMs and other chatbots are dangerously addictive in a novel way. Most people have no immunity to sycophantic "let-me-do-that" behavior. This is why celebrities/Royals/the wealthy so often grow out of touch with reality. And now it's happening to the average person on an industrial scale. Scary.
LLMs and other chatbots are dangerously addictive in a novel way. Most people have no immunity to sycophantic "let-me-do-that" behavior. This is why celebrities/Royals/the wealthy so often grow out of touch with reality. And now it's happening to the average person on an industrial scale. Scary.
Bruno Dias@brunodias.dev · 5d agoThe problem with using an LLM for some narrow use case where you think it’s actually appropriate is that you’re using it in the context of a UX system designed to make you expand your usage and change your views of what is “appropriate”
Please use this link twitch.uservoice.com/forums/92338... and tell twitch how fucking insane this is. Comment and let twitch know that this is horrible. Thank you
twitch.uservoice.com
Zach Bussey 🍁@zachbussey.tos.gg · 5d agoTwitch and Amazon are apparently planning to use streams to train Generative AI. Multiple sources tell me it will be announced in the coming months, despite some internal friction against it. Creators may be able to opt out of some training data.
Don't let the Ai discourse discourage you aspiring writers out there. Art is valued by its rarity, and the rarest thing in the world is the talent of a single individual. What can be mass produced for cheap has little value. You are an original. A one of a kind. A bespoke wonder. Never forget that.
can confirm with everything I'm seeing. the quality of science started tanking with the rise of for-profit journals, and now it's hitting gutter-level numbers in the most depressing way.
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 5d agoNature did a short piece on our preprint about how LLMs will affect the practice of science; my more detailed thread is below.
If this is what happens to a scientific field as a whole when LLMs dominate the workflows of researchers, I can only imagine that the outlook is even worse for any individual researcher who is soldiering on without using them. 😞
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago13. Hence our dismal conclusion: rather than finding that LLMs free us to do a better job of what we were doing before they came along, they shift scientific incentives (and the playing field of academic competition) in ways that compel us to do more and more, faster and faster, less and less well.
A company offering printed books to AI companies to train on because they’re free of AI slop has stopped after our reporting. Thanks to 404 Media subscribers, we’re able to continue reporting stories that bring real life impact. Read now: www.404media.co/ai-company-t...
♡♡♡♡ I love nature
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 6d agoNot only is this jellyfish holding onto a kelp like a little spider, it has bright green headlights. These lights are formed by biofluorescent proteins, which absorb light (probably UV) & shine it out as a continuous bright green. 🪼 Vallentinia adherens 📸 in ALT text, @inaturalist.bsky.social
Not only is this jellyfish holding onto a kelp like a little spider, it has bright green headlights. These lights are formed by biofluorescent proteins, which absorb light (probably UV) & shine it out as a continuous bright green. 🪼 Vallentinia adherens 📸 in ALT text, @inaturalist.bsky.social
\ 杏仁豆腐の上のあの赤い実!?/ 🆕クコノミクラゲ 📍皇室ご一家の生物学ご研究 沖縄県で見られるエボシクラゲ科の一種🪼 鮮やかな赤色の生殖巣が、 クコの実に似ていることから その名が付きました！ 本種は、2025年に当館で 世界初展示をおこなっています www.enosui.com/animalsentry...
Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.
#OKEANOS AT BOTTOM 3700 m! B2 SEAMOUNT! mysterious tracks across the Manganese bottom #ichnos #lebensuburren
Stalked jellyfish are a super rare group of jellies that don't float, but instead anchor themselves to the seafloor using a special 'foot.' To move, they do cartwheels, holding onto the seafloor using sticky pads between their pompom tentacles. 🧪🌿🌊
Me reading Fahrenheit 451 in high school: “I think this is a good story but I don’t quite match Bradbury’s cynicism. New media may be vapid and corporate but I don’t think it will destroy culture.” Me now: “WAIT FUCK I TAKE IT BACK I TAKE IT BA–“
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · last wk.“Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.”
“Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.”
Social Media Lab@socialmedialab.ca · last wk.This aught to be illegal ... "AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books" www.news.com.au/technology/o...
Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS
In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...
pnas.org
The handoff isn’t just mechanical either. Oral arms can have pretty dense cnidocyte (stinging cell) coverage, so it’s more like a second capture surface than just a conveyor. #marinelife
Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · last wk.The long frilly ribbons at the center of jellyfish are actually massive stretched out lips, called 'oral arms' which act as a landing-zone for tentacles. Tentacle: sting prey, contract to oral arm, deposit prey onto frilly lips Oral arm: wrap prey in kiss of death, suck it up to mouth to be digested
The long frilly ribbons at the center of jellyfish are actually massive stretched out lips, called 'oral arms' which act as a landing-zone for tentacles. Tentacle: sting prey, contract to oral arm, deposit prey onto frilly lips Oral arm: wrap prey in kiss of death, suck it up to mouth to be digested
