If you haven't yet changed how you teach and evaluate thanks to AI, you probably need to. This is not something that educators asked to happen, but it is worth noting what is out there - in this case an OpenClaw tool designed to cheat.

"so basically, penetrance is fake?" - student, 1 inch away from genetics enlightenment

BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide. This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

listen guys let me tell you something I don’t know what’s on the midterm either until the week of the midterm when I make the exam

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work. "That is SUCH a great question!!"

The Church Evolution Lab (CEL@NYU) is hiring a postdoc! We have several new projects to study the genomic basis of biodiversity in model clades – especially Hawaiian Drosophila. apply.interfolio.com/179354 Come join our new group, you can study bugs and live in NYC! Feel free to share widely!

This must be weird news to see if you’re one of the literally hundreds or even thousands of university administrators who preemptively censored faculty, scrubbed websites, changed the names of centers, etc.

PEQG! My favorite conference ever*. Single session, fantastic talks, great discussions. Only once every 2 years. And in the best conference location too! Abstract deadline coming up Feb 5! *Disclosure: I am required to say it's the best conference because it is and I told my mom I wouldn't lie.

“O Christmas stonewort, o Christmas stonewort” Season’s greeting from the Characeae 🎄

This whole thing is amazing, but tucked away in a dropdown at the end of the markdown is... quite seriously the best essay I've read on the environmental impacts of AI?

new figure palette just dropped

Also that you don't need a community -- why ask a friend for help with code or grammar or paper suggestions etc when you can just consume this product?

I can't believe this still needs to be said (and more loudly): Trans rights are human rights.

On my final, I ask students to write about the topics they loved/hated the most, and I love when the answers are like, "Learning about the Krebs Cycle was horrible. Just absolute hell, my brain incinerated by the flame of a billion NADHs being oxidized. Anyway thanks for a great semester prof!"

Every time I catch academic dishonesty, I require a re-write/re-do. Not only does this give students a chance to make up for their mistake, but they get a chance to see what they can do when they are held accountable. It's more work & stress on me but IMO it's worth it. 1/4

time to start riding the subway with a can of spraypaint and a stencil of @sashagusevposts.bsky.social's blog URL...

taxonomy 101: whales are not fish taxonomy 201: whales are hoofed animals taxonomy 301: whales are fish

one of the pics is Billboard Chris (professional troll) saying "individuals who identify as trans should be automatically disqualified from holding any position as teacher or professor", with the undergrad's mom- an attorney defending J6 rioters- agreeing. this is about kicking us out of teaching.

New post by me on #MITPressReader @mitpress.bsky.social On the 100th anniversary of the #ScopesMonkeyTrial the ways we depict #evolution can still give an erroneous progressive view (that evolution leads to humans or ‘increased complexity’). thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/is-our-pictu...

Sooo here's a little public records request I just made to the University of Oklahoma.

If there is big biotech announcement happening, #MolecularNodes is being used for it. I only had the realisation in the past day, but it's strange to have my software very quickly become the visual face for $100M announcements and massive scientific breakthroughs.

Because international student enrollment is so often used as a cudgel in discussions about immigration, this is a good time to remind people that international students aren't taking up spaces for US students at state schools, they are paying full tuition that FUNDS SCHOLARSHIPS FOR US STUDENTS.

SAVE THE DATE: the yearly NY Population Genetics meeting will be back on March 9 2026, generously hosted by the @simonsfoundation.org. Details to follow. Please RT.

If you have tenure at Texas A&M and aren't maliciously emailing the president a dozen times every day to ask if you can say this or you can say that, then what's the point in having tenure?

This is horrific. The use of genetics (polygenic risk scores) to associate this monster with any of his traits is *exactly* what they used to justify their eugenics program. Our fate is not in our genes. He was the combination of many things, not many mutations. I literally cannot, WTAF...

We don't want people to think you can see evil in the genome, but we'll call our Channel 4 documentary "Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a dictator".

Daily dose of micro-rose propaganda ✨

this is how my intro bio class ended up spending 25+ minutes on photosynthetic sea slugs.

Programming skill is just a set of rules you've inferred via personal suffering

GASP

I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not against AI, I dislike bullshit

Imperial Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea) This is blue. I painted on hydrochloric acid to draw a smiley to showcase the color change due to acid directly on the petals.

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

C. elegans is a real animal and we set out to understand how it comes to have its distinctive biogeography. Its ancestral center of diversity is in the higher elevation forests of Hawaii. Its closest relatives are spread across east Asia. Did they travel from Asia? [Preprint 🧵]

Every basic scientist & PhD program director should be watching how cell culture and rodent models of Tylenol exposure are being used by motivated parties (e.g. it depletes your glutathione! Science proves it PMID...) to sell a narrative and sow confusion right now.

Another year using @kitchensjn.bsky.social + @gcbias.bsky.social's intuitive circle plots to discuss human genetic variation in my undergrad genetics class james-kitchens.com/blog/visuali...

Feels like a great opportunity to have students read scientific papers about the complicated genetics underlying sex and gender in humans, and to have them write about how such things legally exist in nature

One of the absolute coolest things about teaching bio now is showing students a list of the diseases I learned about when I first took genetics, and starting to check off ones that have become either very treatable or cured in just the last handful of years: SMA, Sickle Cell, CF, and now this...

ughhhhhhhh dear students, you and ChatGPT have distinctive writing styles and we can really tell the difference, i promise!

Holy shit, this is a huge deal

So cool they discovered the cause of autism on basically day they guessed they would. I’m also glad they are withholding this information for a few days to prep for a WrestleMania-style announcement. This is how science works.

“Nothing changed. These weren’t bad people. That’s the hardest part. They were playing by the rules of a system that rewards extractive collaboration — especially when it’s wrapped in the language of equity.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What a perfect date for my cells and microscopy day In intro bio!

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

Update on the Texas A&M professor / cell phone video situation: the professor has been fired by the A&M president president.tamu.edu/messages/an-...