In this election year, I want to be clear that I want a government that functions as a government. Not like a business. Not like a household. These are three very distinct and different things. Conflating them is purposefully misleading. Not to mention absolutely wrong. Let's push back. #NZPOL

Hope everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is enjoying summer amongst the heatwaves, fires and smoke but sharing a reminder that the seasons do not coincide across the globe. Check out @melissatraveler.bsky.social's excellent piece on this - www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Season’s mis-greetings: why timing matters in global academia

Stop using ‘summer’, ‘winter’ and the rest when inviting researchers to events — it’s a small step, but it’s necessary and inclusive.

nature.com

Permanently Disabled kids shouldn’t have to face a future living on a benefit that’s not enough to survive on, where bi-yearly they have to prove they still have an incurable condition. That’s not a future they deserve, it’s dehumanising, it’s depressing & it’s unacceptable. They have worth. #nzpol

#NZpol The RBNZ decided, when jobs were already fucked, unemployment simply "has to" go up or inflation won't come down. We had a main governing Party joining in with their coalition partner in sacking 1000's of workers. They plan MORE too. Connect. The. Fucking. Dots. Vote. This. Ideology. Out.

RNZ News Feeds@rnzrss.bsky.social · 2d ago

Unemployment expected to push up to near 11-year high, economists warn

And now, a little Vivaldi. Michel Tirabosco, a renowned pan flute player, collaborating with Raphaël Froissart. He is a professor at the Geneva Conservatory. Born with physical differences, he began playing the pan flute at 7 and has achieved international recognition for his skill. #streetmusic

There's a missing rung on the academic career ladder in Austria and Germany. Historically there wasn't a position like assistant professor or lecturer, so the jump from postdoc to professor was — and mostly still is — huge. Between 70% and 80% of academics in Austria don't have permanent jobs.

Academics in Germany and Austria are stuck in job limbo

Also: Montana's "right to try" law for experimental cures, UK science gets reshuffled, a university sues Anthropic over patents, and more from last week

reviewertoo.com

Interested in doing a postdoc in plankton ecology, on topics of community assembly, trait-based ecological resilience, stressor interactions, harmful algal blooms and others? Contact me to discuss developing a proposal for MSU's EEB Presidential Postdoc Fellowship (Nov 1 application deadline).

Lars Brudvig@lars-brudvig.bsky.social · 2d ago

Join us through the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in EEB! Conduct your own research, mentored by 2+ EEB faculty. $65k salary + research/moving $. All areas of EEB welcome. Apply by 11/1 I co-chair this search and am happy to field questions Spread the word! eeb.msu.edu/initiatives/...

I'm incredibly honored to be one of the inaugural winners of the Ctrl-Z award. The sequence of events preceding and following this retraction were harrowing (and are honestly still stressful), but I hope this will be an opportunity for more open dialogue about mistakes + self-retraction in science.

Retraction Watch@retractionwatch.com · yesterday

The Center for Scientific Integrity is proud to announce the inaugural winners of the 2026 Ctrl-Z Award. Named for the universal keyboard shortcut for “undo,” the Ctrl-Z Award this year honors @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social and @katelaskowski.bsky.social for choosing transparency over reputation.

Officially recruiting postdocs at GW. If you are interested in genetic novelty, structural variation, or evo genetics please get in touch! We have data sets on mulitple organisms with large population sizes (Drosophila, Megalonaias nervosa) and species in decline (fireflies, mussels, elephants).

Stanford University is searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the field of Climate Science 🌎 ✨ Broad search, department may be any within the Doerr School of Sustainability, including Oceans! 🌊 Apply by Nov. 1. Please share! facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...

Assistant Professor in Climate Science - Stanford University, California, United States

Stanford University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the field of Climate Science. The home department may be any of the seven departments in the Stanford Doerr School of...

facultypositions.stanford.edu

It's never occurred to me that the point of an allegory about cheaper goods being a worse long term investment was about poor people making bad choices. I recommend Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed for anyone confused about this or who hasn't had real, lived experience as someone with no good options.

A very good question to ask. I think we should start them young. Invest in them - including civic education. One thing I did was take my kid to a Green Party volunteer event! Fun times, and so eye-opening for the both of us.

Queen Olivia III@queenoliviaiii.com · 2d ago

Hey NZ parents, what can we do to get your young adult kids enrolled to vote? I know it's the responsibility of the young adults, but is there something we can do to help things along?

Back in the day, when we built stuff, RBNZ gave Govt special accounts so Govt could spend millions building houses etc without selling bonds to investors. RBNZ basically just gave Govt an overdraft. The ghouls hate this shit - where's the rent in RBNZ financing state houses for public use? [Ends]

Now it's using the cash pile to buy foreign currency assets - mostly foreign govt bonds. IE Our Govt is using tens of billions in spare cash to help the US, UK, Japan, Australia etc pay for their infrastructure and wars, rather than building houses and hospitals here. 2/2

Sooo... you know how Luxon said young people should get off the couch and get a job, and business people in Rotorua clapped? Below is a graph of the Rotorua labour market. This is NOT a get-off-the-couch problem. Thanks to @musicalchairs.bsky.social for doing this. #nzpol

Musical Chairs@musicalchairs.bsky.social · 10mo ago

voila

In our case, the irony is we arrived in NZ as immigrants in the '60s, to escape the grinding poverty of post-war Scotland. Two of our kids live in Oz, and the other 2 have shifted to... Scotland. Where they at least have prospects of a future. In NZ, they could barely stop from going backwards.

MSc and PhD students are the workforce in the engine room of our public research system. They are very, very cheap labor by policy design. This talk about a 'cost blowout' is utter rubbish. We frown on company owners that charge people to get a job. We should be doing the same here. #NZPOL

Cost blowout puts fees for foreign PhD students under review

A blow-out in the cost of treating foreign PhD students like locals has prompted a rethink of the long-standing policy and a cap on spending next year.

rnz.co.nz

Funneling overseas PhDs to Australian universities instead. My eldest did her (funded) PhD and two years' post-doc there and by then had made her life in Straya and her subsequent career. Funding PhDs is an investment, not charity.

RNZ News Feeds@rnzrss.bsky.social · 2d ago

Cost blowout puts fees for foreign PhD students under review

NPR: How long will the Grateful Dead's songs survive? www.npr.org/2026/08/03/n... Internet Archive: For generations to come. ➡️ archive.org/details/Grat... 🌹💀

How long will the Grateful Dead's songs survive?

The Grateful Dead endured an original run of 30 years, but its appeal has survived just as long in a world where the band no longer exists. The question now is not whether the music will continue, but...

npr.org

Penultimate featured woman in science: Mary Anning! With her beloved dog and an ammonite fossil 🧪 🧶 #WomenInSTEM

Misty Bentz@astronomisty.bsky.social · 3w ago

Up next: Tu Youyou! With a plant, test tube, and books 🧪 🧶 #WomenInSTEM

The beginnings of a campaign to right this are well underway. IMHO, it is here - the treatment of MSc and PhD scholars - where the problems with our public research system converge. No matter the area of research. So it is here we can focus efforts to unify rather than divide and make things better.

the way i'm nodding along like yes, yes

this is going to turn me into the joker

Far from a blowout – costs of $55m in 2019 and $69m in 2025 is not even an increase in real terms. Disappointed to see UNZ's Neil Quigley's take being "the sector could probably cope with a cut to its income from foreign PhD students". Really coming out fighting there.

Te Ara Paerangi Com - Research Advocacy Capability@te-ara-paerangi.community · 2d ago

MSc and PhD students are the workforce in the engine room of our public research system. They are very, very cheap labor by policy design. This talk about a 'cost blowout' is utter rubbish. We frown on company owners that charge people to get a job. We should be doing the same here. #NZPOL

It should be upsetting

You can feel as if you know all the beats and the headlines but there are still so many little gaps and spaces and logical holes. Feels like a v unfashionable thing to say in this day and AI-age but there is really nothing like doing the work

The thing about writing up a year-long research project is that the act of writing - of making sense of something on the page so that someone else can pick it up and use it - is completely transformational for both your own understanding of it and the quality of analysis.

Rachel Coldicutt@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 6d ago

At the stage of writing up where night and day don't matter anymore and I may have just eaten some jam off my nightie.

PhD students are smarter and more knowledgeable in their field than any MP - so dismissing them as "learners" is patronising bullshit That we train overseas student *strengthens* our science system creating a network of knowledge and skills Just another way this stupid govt is damaging science

Demanding to examine a child's genitals for them to play sports is fucking insane

Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 2d ago

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play