STOP SCROLLING. As you no doubt know, this is Fiorello. If YOU SPECIFICALLY do not sign this letter in support of the Scientific American union in their fight against Springer Nature, I will have no choice but to never post Fiorello again, and also I will sell him to the zoo wgaea.st/sciam-letter

The future of science, and science journalism, is unionized ✊

Before I disappear again, here's some great work from folks in my group that I wanted to share, looking at authorship dynamics and power in the One Health / emerging infectious disease / conservation space. We still have a long way to go journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

A professor in Tufts University’s School of Engineering required one of his international graduate students to work an unpaid TA job this past spring semester. After she went to her union and blew the whistle, Tufts withdrew her from her program. A thread of rage. 1/

Corporate Memphis-Maxxing

Something interesting and messy is happening in Conservation Biology right now. Paper one says epistemological violence is being waged against conservation social scientists (conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....). Paper two says: nuh-uh (conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...)

hi how's it

While I'm posting global health politics, I'm finally reading a .... recent theory-heavy book with substantial reflections on global health colonialism through the lens of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemics .... and so far I don't like it, and am surprised other people like it as much as they do

This declaration is *not* everything we want or need. But in 2026, in this geopolitical environment, it includes some of the most progressive language out there—more so than what’s passed WHA and other settings in last few years. That is a small ray of hope in dark times.

Very sad to see the US aligning w only a handful of governments opposed because of references to sharing technology justly and “social issues” they disagree with the vast majority of the world on. That is indefensible.

At the UN member states adopt new high level political declaration on HIV. surprise: it passed with amendments that made it significantly stronger on access to medicines and human rights than original. big deal in a moment where multilateral cooperation is in short supply. Some thoughts…

We always come back to "is mass death good or bad" when litigating the far-left dumbass-posters on this topic, and I think we could say more about how their fundamental premise is flawed: USAID is not the CIA. The way we know this is that the far right captured the government and turned USAID off

Today is my last day at Scientific American, which has been sold to LabX media group. For three decades I've led the magazine's coverage of human origins, archaeology, paleontology, animal behavior, ecology, BIRDS. End of an era. Anyway this feels weird to say, but I'm now available for assignments!

as a newly-named Scientific American Young American Scientist (2026), I guess my thoughts are that (1) editorial layoffs are not good, and (2) the existing union-busting bullshit that these folks have been subjected to is also not good

Hard to say this in a way that is very clearly somber instead of gloating, but, I think in Europe we're about to see a pretty clear example of why the global Early Warning Systems for All strategy as the sole political push on adaptation is... a half-measure

I Lived It: someone turned our paper into an AI manga podcast

Endlessly women are subjected to this critique, when the real experts capable of objectivity on this issue (bisexual men) are silenced from speaking a simple truth: women are mostly pretty and normal, and men are mostly shit from an ass

These numbers are enormous, well beyond the scale of normal project grants or even major multi-center initiatives. Capital is raiding the NSF. This is not a serious policy proposal, they're just taking money from public-interest research and funneling it to wealthy friends and donors.

I've seen a few people in tech-ier spaces celebrating the X-Labs thing on LinkedIn, and I just want to be abundantly clear about something: it's been very obvious from the start that this is part of the malicious capture of NSF, and if you're still excited about it after this news, you can fuck off

Our lab website is updated with a new postdoc opening! This is a 2-year, in-person position looking at the relationships between climate change, pandemic risk, and policy choices over the 21st century. Please reach out (not on here)! www.carlsonlab.bio/join

Potential postdoc opportunity! We're looking for someone to do Good Work Fast at the interface between zoonotic disease ecology and global climate and land-use projections. Strong skills in statistics and geospatial modeling are the non-negotiable here. In-person in New Haven. More essential info 👉

Hey, I forgot to mention - for about a year, I've been mapping out a popular science book that I'm really excited about. If you're an editor and I can pick your brain, let me know 😎

The Battle over the Constitution Has Spread to American Science. I'm out in the @theatlantic.com today about the new OMB proposed rule. It's just the longtime agenda of the the Supreme Court. US science and cancer cures now all depend on us picking up a fight with the Roberts Court.

Meet our inaugural class of Young American Scientists: 28 researchers who are redefining the future of science. sciam.com/youngscientists

To be painfully sincere for just a moment: this is still so surreal, and means the world to me in a very hard year. Also, the whole team that put this issue together was really wonderful. ❤️ Most importantly, I got to hear the world's largest Van de Graaff generator play the Ghostbusters theme 🎸

UNBELIEVABLE day to be a Dear Evan Hansen hater

NEW: What's left from SCOTUS, and when to expect it. There are still 20 argued cases awaiting action, with 19 opinions expected. This evening, at Law Dork:

nodding thoughtfully

too hungry to bedrot too lazy to write

I barely understand immune systems, and it's my job... so how would you talk to an aspiring young scientist about them? Something we've had on the @viralemergence.org wish list from the start, now in Frontiers in Young Minds 🦇🧪 kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10....

Here's all I'll say: great day to be an RTD hater

one day you're going to see elon posting "we just cut 200 million dollars going to bull weevil outbreak prevention 😂😂" and then a couple months later the entire midwest will be decimated by the first mass bull weevil outbreak since 1884

I thought people were kidding, turns out Elon really did axe the screwworm containment program back in March 25. fucking imbecile www.agri-pulse.com/articles/226...

You're only a real New Yorker if you're from Connecticut

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ############# OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON UNTIMELY END OF AMTRAK NAP DUE TO SIR DUKE PLAYED ON NEARBY CELL PHONE "Uoug"

uhh extremely surreal to have left spent four hours in penn station today and only left a couple hours before this mass stabbing

What are your favorite papers about the present-day impacts of climate change on biodiversity or ecosystem function?

two of the most evil people to have ever lived

It's barely an open secret that I am constantly at odds with my own field, to my professional detriment. But some days, I log onto Al Gore's internet and world experts are saying shit like "Ebola is as transmissible as pandemic H1N1" and you gotta just wonder if everyone is an absolute dumbass

these are getting weird

The problem with spending a year defunded is now I feel like a hack

nyc area friends: anyone wanna see ragtime with me one last time

Repeat after me: I am not softer than Curtis Yarvin. I am not softer than Shinzo Abe. I am not softer than Little Alex Horne. I am not softer than Vladimir Putin. But if I stand back and watch and learn, I will be softer than I am.

“My Mayor is Muslim, my bagel is Jewish, my Christian’s Dior… Knicks in 4!!!”

Roche developed a PCR test for Ebola for rare Bundibugyo virus. That's fast. www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

The usual suspects are scrambling to talk about saving the rainforest while the director-general of Africa CDC is begging for even 1% of the funds that have been promised to the Ebola outbreak response to show up. Global health is disgusting, but the opportunism of conservationists is unparalleled.

"But in the case of novel pathogens such as Bundibugyo, which can elude standard diagnostic tests and vaccines, there’s no level of preparedness or responsiveness that can squash them before they start their exponential spread." Amazing, every word you just said is wrong dot jpeg. R&D + 7-1-7.

english isn't for cowards. if you're not saying 'torpify,' that's a skill issue. there's no Académie Française telling you what to do. if you try to type 'pallific' and freak out when you see a little red underline, maybe you're not ready to roll with the big dogs.

The largest scale ecological study on hantaviruses ever conducted. Huge congrats to this team, and so glad we get one more year to wrap up these threads for @viralemergence.org

Sign from the ICE Out of Connecticut action in downtown Hartford right now: “ICE TOOK 1100+ PPL FROM CT SINCE JAN 2025”