Does anyone work in museum interpretation? How's it been affected by social media and short-form content basically rewiring our brains? Are labels still in? Do we need to radically rethink things? I'm thinking of writing something.

How beautiful are these handmade creatures by kinetic artist and paper sculptor Lucy Jean Green! #beautifulbizarre #papersculpture #art

medicine.yale.edu/news-article...

THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE POWER ACCOMPLISHES! Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who wrote comments, contacted Congress, and yelled! This is OUR WIN! @standupforscience.net www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Senate finalizes funding patch that would block Trump’s grant overhaul

Language is included to delay the president’s move to put political appointees in charge of grant approval.

politico.com

THE parthenogenesis video that just got 1 million views on Instagram yesterday haha... imagine getting pregnant out of thin air after not seeing a man for 16 years

Around 1860, infant mortality in southern states of what is now Germany (German unification was in 1871) was 20-30%. 200-300 deaths for every 1000 infants born. At the same time in England, the rate was "only" 10-15%. There are a few reasons for this, but a fundamental one was SUGAR TITS. 😬

Ben Taylor@vox-dei.bsky.social · 4d ago

That's quite a drop, but why was the German rate so much worse than, say, England and Wales in the first place?

I'm going back to in-class exams this semester, which are harder to schedule, less intellectually rigorous, slower to grade, harder to secure, more prone to error, harder to provide disability acommodations for, and use up a lot more paper than online exams. AI makes everything worse.

"Do not let them make you believe that nothing can be done." AI is not inevitable. Datacenters do not have to be built. We do not have to tolerate this. But we do need to act and fight back. youtube.com/shorts/sbp2w...

Be ungovernable.

YouTube video by Monte Mader

youtube.com

There's a lot in this thread & its multiple & various reply/quote offshoots that i disagree with, & am exhausted by, but i want to focus on 1 that i keep trying to press on: Let's stipulate LLMs *Can* do grad- & even expert-level math & we should prep for a revolution in the field… So what then?…

Zach Weinersmith@zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 5d ago

There's lots of stuff LLMs can't do, but if you want to disbelieve all the recent math, you have to believe a bunch of Fields Medalists with long track records are just straightforwardly lying about the thing they care most about. Here's a recent blog by Gowers: gowers.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/a...

I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them

Jennifer Romig @jennifermromig.bsky.social · 4d ago

Notetaking in meetings is tiny case in point - used to be some predictable social assumptions who would do it; now anyone can offer to do ”notetaking” by turning on the AI listener. Further interesting scenario is human recollection / notes (taken by habit by a person) conflict with AI summary

Ever notice how men are much more likely to fall for it? My hypothesis is that women (due to experiences of being women) are more likely to see flattery as manipulation & condescension while men are more likely to assume it is truth.

If you have an academic in your life, please be gentle with them this weekend because they're probably freaking the fuck out.

Joseph M. Adelman@jmadelman.bsky.social · 6d ago

Because the 1st is a Saturday, “How is it August already?!” will be observed today, Friday, July 31, 2026. Please panic accordingly.

Do you know more about African Geography than the U.S. State Department? Take this quiz that teaches you as you go. www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/africa.html

Africa Map Quiz

Africa Map Exam for teachers (.pdf 644 K) Help your students learn the countries of Africa. 1. Have students study Africa on this web page. 2. Print the Africa Map exam for the classroom.

ilike2learn.com

Eric Geller@ericjgeller.com · 6d ago

"A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a global conference in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online."

🧵on the AAUP endorsement of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for U.S. Senate in the Michigan Democratic primary, the first-ever electoral endorsement in the organization's 110-year history. 1

It’s really starting to grind me down

University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire Biology is searching for a tenure track assistant professor in Aquatic Ecology to start August 2027! Application deadline September 28 2026. I am searching chair, please reach out with any questions!! wisconsin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UW_Comprehen...

If you post survey data, news articles, etc. without a link back to the source whenever possible, you are weakening the informational chain of custody and making it harder for other people to confirm that they're seeing accurate information. This holds even if you're mad at whatever it is.

Zach Weinersmith@zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

I don't want a "Smart Fridge" that orders milk for me. I want a fridge that lasts 25 years and doesn't have a privacy policy that allows it to share my late-night snacking habits with my health insurance provider.

I wrote and deleted several posts about the right-wing's anger towards Fauci and the continued rejection of collective action for the greater good, which seems to be the US government's MO right now.

The point isn't to produce essays, it's to teach students how to think for fuck's sake. The minute you automate that, it's over. You might as well close the course. Which they're also doing. This is an attack on learning, and everyone is just shrugging.

📢 JOB ALERT! 📢 I am recruiting a 30-month postdoc to work on modelling the vision of trilobites @hfspo.bsky.social ! If you like 3D data, fossils, and functional morphology, this is the one for you! 📆Deadline 27. Aug Pls contact me with any Qs and share widely! www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Upwards of 200,00 people may have lost their jobs today; or will in the upcoming days. There is a palpable sense of fear among the Haitian community right now. They need your support.

Heba Gowayed هبة جويد@hebagowayed.bsky.social · last wk.

My Haitian friend was just fired from his job. "They said I don't have a legal status now." This is likely happening to hundreds of thousands of people across this country today. Sick.

Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, CBS News, it’s more accurate to call these 20th century news than mainstream media. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are mainstream media.

The anti-data center movement is like "I don't want to pay more money for a thing that will not benefit me at all and will actively make my life measurably worse in a bunch of ways" and the pro-data center movement is like "We want it to be illegal for you to not like us."

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · last wk.

😬

Jimothy inspired me to take karate lessons in a suburban strip mall. Thank you, Jimothy.

It may be surprising to some that there are thousands of undescribed species just sitting in museums awaiting description. One of the main reasons this problem exists is that taxonomy is undervalued and underfunded, a trend that coincides with the devaluing of studies on natural history.

Very few people know things like this. When in doubt, share.

Avel Guénin--Carlut@fluffycyborgii.bsky.social · 2w ago

Would assume everyone knows it by now, but just in case "First the traitors, then the invaders" is an explicit reference to The Turner Diaries, where a white supremacist revolution overruns "The System" and kills all their enemy during the evocatively named "Day of the Rope".

Weird thing for an immigrant to say. Any post by Musk talking about “remigration” needs to be flooded with the response: you first.

Admirable clarity @science.org

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 2w ago

Whew, the editors of @science.org are getting real.