⏰ Time is running out to apply for this year’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program! Undergraduate students are invited to join us at NITMB for a summer full of hands-on mathematical biology research Apply by Monday, January 26th - www.nitmb.org/surp

You can check Aurorasaurus to see if folks near you are reporting aurora.

My book gets released four months from today. The world is very hard for a lot of people and I very modestly hope the book might help a very tiny bit. Depending on your shopping preferences, you might want two other preorder links that are in the comments. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Two new chapters from my free online book in human genetics out this weekend! These complete Part 3 of the book, on human population structure and history: 3.3: Human prehistory [separate thread] 3.4: Ancient DNA: a genetic time capsule [this thread] web.stanford.edu/group/pritch...

Sandhill Cranes typically fly with their long legs trailing behind them. On very cold mornings, like this morning when it was in the single digits, they will tuck their legs in while in flight.

Executive briefing study: When FDR abruptly died Truman needed to be briefed on massive secret Manhattan Project. Fascinating to explore its size, style, & content Memorandum for the Secretary of War from General L. R. Groves, “Atomic Fission Bombs,” April 23, 1945 nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/defaul...

When DHS shot Miramar Martinez in Chicago last October, they also claimed she tried to ram agents with her car. Because she survived, they even charged her criminally. They lied. She had done no such thing, and the goon who shot her bragged about it in texts. They dropped the charges against her.

Are you an undergraduate student curious about the intersection of mathematics and biology? Receive mentorship from faculty experts and engage in innovative multidisciplinary research at NITMB’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program! Applications are due Monday, January 26th - www.nitmb.org/surp

Marge Piercy, On New Year's Day (via languagehat.com/on-new-years...)

Physicist Leo Szilard, in a short science fiction story from 1948, describing how to retard science by making the funding application longer and harder than the proposed research - now called the ‘Szilard point’

It's heartening (and too rare) to see a university leader who will stand up for democracy and academic freedom when there is real risk involved.

Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department. One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone. When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?

We’re recruiting PhD students at @uvadatascience.bsky.social, and I’m looking for students to join our group (Y Lab) next year! My group works at the intersection of network science, machine learning, and interpretable AI. yyahn.com/ylab/ Apply here! datascience.virginia.edu/degrees/phd

WATERGATE: 2512 VIRGINIA AVE NW, WASHINGTON DC 20037-9997

This is concerning. NIH is changing their policy so that staff have to prepare justification for every application that is funded BUT NO DOCUMENTATION FOR APPLICATIONS THAT ARE SKIPPED (BASED ON PERCENTILES). 1/2

So, if an institute or center decided not to fund any grant from University X or on Topic Y, then there would be no documentation in the official grant files about these applications. 2/2

Before I even knew about Wigner, I was struck by the eeriness of the fact that mathematics, which feels like a game we invented, can be used as a language to reason about the physical world. The fact that it is not as (unreasonably) effective in biology is an itch that I can't stop scratching

type for books used to be set using little metal letters built into words in racks and then inked and pressed on to paper. If you had stock phrases you wanted to reuse a lot you could make a cast of them called a ‘stereotype’. The sound of them *clicking* into place, in French, is ‘cliché’

Morning Snowfall Isleworth: acrylic on linen

Bonus panel here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/stats-3 #smbc

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

Nature suggests you use their "Manuscript Adviser" bot to get advice before submitting I uploaded the classic Watson & Crick paper about DNA structure, and the Adviser had this to say about one of the greatest paper endings of the century:

Physicist Laura Bassi was born 314 years ago today. Her thesis defense in 1732 was a major social event which led to her getting hired by the University of Bologna as a paid lecturer. Here is her story! tinyurl.com/4jyxuttr #WomenInSTEM #Physics 🧪

The illusion of illusions One of the oldest myths in human history is that the Parthenon was cleverly built with curves so that it looks straight, to correct some visual illusions In this paper I demonstrate that there are NO optical corrections in the Parthenon arxiv.org/abs/2510.16831. [1/n]

Dear all, A scientist from UNC Chapel Hill, Paul Maddox, is running for congress in NC for a seat currently held by a republican. If you care about science (and democracy) please consider donating to his campaign #Standupforscience secure.actblue.com/donate/paul-...

1) AWS outage takes down Canvas. 2) Hungry for news, I put "canvas" into the bsky search to see if anyone's talking about it. 3) I get no news about Canvas[TM], but instead discover a bunch of artists. Truly the best of all possible outcomes!

Absolutely stellar essay on the current debate over Assembly Theory: what it achieves, where it falls short, and what remains to be done

Had never read Jane Goodall's original 1963 article in Nat Geo on the wild chimpanzees in Tanzania until now. It's a wonderful blend of science and journalism, and well worth your time. www.nationalgeographic.com/pdf/jane-goo...

A simple way to help reduce obesity and stroke? Stop the shifts in our clocks twice a year www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Newport Jazz Festival, 1958 www.rirocks.net/Band%20Artic...

New: Judge Burroughs rules on the Harvard grant terminations and underlying agency guidance. Takeaways: -Big win for Harvard—$2 billion in grants will be reinstated. -There is a (careful) path for district courts to rule on grant terminations storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

This is a HUGE win for American higher education! #DefendHigherEd www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...

Gift link.

Defendants, their agents are permanently enjoined from implementing, instituting, maintaining, or giving any force to Freeze Orders orTermination Letters, or refusing to grant or to continue federal funding undertaken pursuant to the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters

The Court vacates and sets aside the Termination Letters as violative of Title VI. All terminations of funding to Harvard made pursuant to the Termination Letters are vacated and set aside.

The Court vacates and sets aside the Freeze Orders as arbitrary and capricious All freezes and terminations of funding to Harvard made pursuant to the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters on or after April 14, 2025 are vacated and set aside.

Partial summary judgement victory for Harvard: The Court GRANTS Harvard's motion for summary judgment as to Counts 1, 3, and 4 and Defendants' cross motion for summary judgment as to Counts 2 and 6. As to Count 5, the Court GRANTS IN PART Harvard's motion with respect to the Freeze Orders

NEW: The bipartisan Senate Appropriations Committee has rejected Trump’s proposed $18 billion, 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health budget and endorsed a $400 million increase. DO NOT GIVE UP! Our advocacy is working. Keep speaking up and calling your elected officials.

Current* conditions near Sturgeon Bay, WI:

When UC Berkeley caved in to McCarthyism, it lost its entire theoretical physics department, including future Nobelists. Let this be a lesson to #Columbia and other universities that are now pursuing a policy of #appeasement. Great article on p. 18 of the latest @aip.bsky.social’s history newsletter

Applications are open for SFI's 2026 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships If you’ve recently earned a Ph.D. in any scientific field and want to pursue independent, transdisciplinary research, consider applying. Deadline: October 1, 2025 Apply here: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

Columbia University’s agreement with the Trump administration is a disaster for academic freedom, freedom of speech, & the independence of American higher education. Never in the history of our nation has an educational institution so thoroughly bent to the will of an autocrat. 1/

I've been anxious to talk about this because it feels so selfish, but time to move past that. I have a book coming out! "Who's Got the Power? The Resurgence of American Unions", comes out October 14th from The New Press. It's an optimistic book for perilous times. 1/

Just like Northwestern

What is alive? What is dead? To follow the tree of discussions, click below and navigate. Here, I briefly give some reflections that might be useful to spur further discussion. A “life thread” 🧪🧬🦠🌍🌐 🧵 1/