Leonardo Ziccardi’s excellent functional trait dissertation chapter out and highlighted in Funtional Ecology and MSU Ecology, Evolution and Behavior News! eeb.msu.edu/news/study-r...

Nobel committee has thrown its hat in the ring to destabilize South America and legitimize Trumps attacks 😡 www.democracynow.org/2025/10/10/n...

2025 Nobel Peace Prize for Anti-Maduro Leader María Corina Machado “Opposite of Peace”: Greg Grandin

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, a leading Venezuelan opposition figure. Machado was set to run for president last year, but she was disqua...

democracynow.org

Highlighting my student Leonardo Ziccardi’s excellent new paper and the cool collaborations that made this in canopy leaf level quantum yield research in the Amazon possible!

Jan IngenHousz Institute@openjii.bsky.social · last yr.

Jan IngenHousz Institute collaborators map photosynthesis deep – and high – in the Amazon! New paper on some spectacular research by @leoziccardi.bsky.social @starkfloresta.bsky.social , JII's scientific director Dave Kramer and others. Photos show Leonardo Ziccardi with the MultiSpeQ device.

And a commentary piece on Leo’s new Amazon forest in-canopy fluorescence paper! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

SIF research in the tropics: the overlooked vertical dimension and its implications for interpretation and upscaling of photosynthesis

Click on the article title to read more.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

First big paper from my lab to share on Bluesky :) “Seasonal and intracanopy shifts in the fates of absorbed photons in central Amazonian forests: implications for leaf fluorescence and photosynthesis” - Ziccardi - New Phytologist - Wiley Online Library nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Seasonal and intracanopy shifts in the fates of absorbed photons in central Amazonian forests: implications for leaf fluorescence and photosynthesis

Recent studies have shown a linear relationship between solar-induced Chl fluorescence (SIF) and gross primary productivity (GPP) at large scales. However, this relationship diverges at finer leaf s...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Not a single time in this article glorifying the need for sprawl to address the US's affordable housing crisis is there a mention of the vast transportation costs of sprawling living patterns. Nor is there mention of the fact that sprawl is directly linked to disinvestment in urban cores.

America Needs More Sprawl to Fix Its Housing Crisis

The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.

nytimes.com

How surprising is it that so many US institutions are seemingly open to an openly fascist authoritarian coup d'etat when the US has literally the highest incarceration rate on the planet? Land of the free, right.

Big ups to the Columbia trustees and administrators who convinced these absolute cretins they had the recipe to destroy American higher education.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · last yr.

Breaking News: The Trump administration intends to block $510 million in federal contracts and grants for Brown University.

This is, in large part, pandemic revenge. As far as these oligarchs are concerned, all science does is tell them stuff they cannot do. They can't keep spewing carbon. They can't keep businesses open as usual when millions are dying. They have concluded that research is the enemy of profit.

Sam Stein@samsteindc.bsky.social · last yr.

Absolute BLOODBATH at HHS/NIH/CDC this morning. Generation of scientists, health care officials being wiped out t.co/LeABrGqDei

NEW: @motherjones.com reports that one of the men renditioned to El Salvador is Neri Alvarado, who was working in Dallas as a baker. An ICE agent told him they were questioning all men with tattoos. Neri has an AUTISM AWARENESS TATTOO in honor of his 15-year-old brother with autism.

In the face of mostly deafening silence about political abductions happening on campuses, the fervor of opposition in Congress to the Signal leak is pretty rich. Having thought police disappearing people reported by collaborators is as bad a political situation as there is. We need to fight that.

That there’s a new quadrant of the ‘you’re fucked’ plane on the Trump event horizon is no comfort. However, that it’s as simple as a drunk guy who reads large text history books about Hitler’s greatest battles (allegedly) randomly texting people attack plans is a little relieving. I get that.

So a national security breach about bombing Yemen—a bad action btw—has the Democratic establishment livid when the arbitrary detention and pending deportation of green card students expressly for political beliefs exercised through legal 1st amendment speech—not even done after 9/11—was a ‘meh’?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... MAGA's education policy ... MAIMS (Make America Ignorant Menial Serfs)?

US education department insiders warn student loan system at risk: ‘The gatekeepers are gone’

Mass firings spark concern as department employees say cuts set stage for widespread fraud and abuse

theguardian.com

Unique to America, our health care system is designed not to make people well, but to make CEOs & wealthy stockholders incredibly rich. The result: We have the highest infant mortality rate of any wealthy country on earth. How cruel, how immoral is that? We need Medicare for All.

This flew under the radar, but Trump revoked a minimum wage hike for companies that contract with the government. An estimated 390,000 workers will now see significant pay cuts. It's not surprising that Trump's populism is fake, but it's hardly ever been more clear.

Perhaps share this with any normie ICE loving relatives or acquaintances to help them understand the bipartisan born bedlam that is the US immigration system in 2025 …? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky

theguardian.com

I think we’re currently on track for the criminalization of climate science in the US, at least if this administration is not effectively opposed www.nature.com/articles/d41...

US pulls back from gold-standard scientific climate panel

Trump officials bar NASA climate scientist from international meeting, and the space agency shuts down a team supporting the next global climate assessment.

nature.com

Illegal and unconscionable. Places scholars working on critical research in perilous situations while disrupting the research and sends a strong message to international scholars that the US is no longer functioning and will no longer be a global leader. Self sabotaging lunacy in short

Alexander Chee@alexanderchee.bsky.social · last yr.

This is written as if maybe these Fulbright scholars aren’t actually stranded, but yes, they feel stranded because they are. woub.org/2025/03/07/f...

One of the examples of USAID funding cut’s costs with well known deadly consequences. Murder is at the top of my list of things that are bad. Elon Musk ordered this, which makes him what exactly?

HuffPost@huffpost.com · last yr.

An estimated 300,000 children globally are expected to lose access to a nutrient-dense peanut butter that’s specially formulated to treat severe acute malnutrition.

We are barreling toward a full blown constitutional crisis. Trump's announcement that he's ending thousands of aid contracts FUNDED BY CONGRESS is unconstitutional and illegal - and horrible for our security. 1/ A quick🧵on what's going on. apnews.com/article/trum...

Trump administration says it's cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts

The Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily blocked a judge’s order giving the Trump administration a midnight deadline to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid.

apnews.com

I miss DEI

"Undermining the NSF is not just a threat to universities and researchers — it is a threat to the well-being of every American." www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

The Rise (and Fall?) of the National Science Foundation

In the ’50s, America declared science an “endless frontier.” We may be reaching the end of it.

chronicle.com

I cannot express how frustrated and hurt I am by mentoring/training a lab member for five years, only to have them take an important job in government that was abruptly deleted a month after they took it.

This is what obeying in advance looks like. The NSF fires 10% of its total staff in a move that went beyond what was requested by the current regime. The NSF is the flagship of US basic research infrastructure. 🧪🔌💡☀️💨🔋 www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

‘Cowardliness at the top’: Science agency staff revolt over cuts

At an emotional meeting, foundation officials announced layoffs for about 10 percent of their workforce and warned of more firings to come.

politico.com

What is wrong with these people. This was such an obvious and easy anti-Trump home run that would have saved lives. Instead, it’s another big L.

NPR@npr.org · last yr.

Hochul is set to announce that she will not invoke her authority to force Adams out at this time, according to sources familiar with the governor’s decision. Instead, she'll unveil new bills that will increase oversight of the mayor’s office (via @gothamist.com).

From NSF EAR program director Raleigh Martin on LinkedIn #climatesky #greensky

Good article and a good example from my PhD mentors and others for getting in the public sphere locally about the economic and social impacts of gutting publicly funded research tucson.com/opinion/colu...

This is incredibly frustrating and sad.