NEW: One of the most progressive institutions in the U.S., The New School, has begun destroying its humanities departments. They have cancelled one of their most popular classes, "Global Soccer and World Politics." We are going to teach it anyway. karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-new-sc...

Woke professors should fight back on #highered attacks by demanding "viewpoint diversity" among American CEOs. www.nber.org/papers/w30183 #academicsky

This is AWFUL. Univ of Texas is consolidating 4 depts into 1: African and African Diaspora Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, and Mexican American and Latino Studies will become "a Social and Cultural Analysis department." www.texastribune.org/2026/02/12/t...

I can't help but visibly gag every time someone says to my face that they just use LLMs to help with "moving past the blank page". "Moving past the blank page" is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of the writing process -- it's the part where you DECIDE WHAT YOU THINK.

This woman's story is terrifying. Originally arrested at Columbia protest. Held in detention for a year. For overstaying a visa. Gift link:

if you make acceptance decisions using AI, your school should be shut down permanently we are here to serve students as a public trust. they deserve our full attention. those who we do not admit are also part of that trust: we may admit them at some point; they deserve the best education possible

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"The rhetoric of inevitability serves a clear function. It forecloses debate, consolidates power, and discourages meaningful constraints, all in the service of the larger goal of gaining cognitive and economic dominance."

Forget LLMs -- the greatest software innovation of the last decade is Microsoft's "Snipping Tool".

Surprisingly unmentioned here, a truly illogical and unjust compensation practices is #highered: Paying faculty on a supposedly "9 month salary", but then secretly requiring them to work during the summer with little or no pay. #academicsky

I tried to take a photo of a grasshopper on my windshield, but now it looks like a gigantic bug destroying the town.

THIS 👇: "appeasement is being coordinated while resistance is not" GIFT LINK: wapo.st/4qomlXe

Bad Bunny understands the value of the humanities, history and academia. #academicsky

Give the entire ICE budget to public schools.

Who am I kidding. No one bothers to learn anything.

While independent bookstores are giving out free whistles, hosting protest sign making events, and donating proceeds to mutual aid, Amazon is *checks notes* providing technology that assists ICE in their terrorizing of communities. Independent bookstores deserve your support. Amazon does not.

Spicy take: This isn't an attention span crisis. This is a cultural shift. Young people don't watch movies and they don't want to. There is nothing wrong with their brains. It's like how people memorized WAY more stuff in ye olden days. We could do that but we don't want to. Accept the new reality.

"job placement" lol

No Tenure for Oklahoma. Instead, faculty will be on "renewable contracts “tied to teaching effectiveness, student completion, job placement, and economic alignment.” #academicsky

"This decision must also be understood in a broader national context of democratic backsliding. When political leaders use executive power to weaken independent institutions, silence professional expertise, and punish those who produce inconvenient knowledge, democratic norms erode." #aaup

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#Sleeppeeps, I've a confession: I'm uber-skeptical about scalp EEG definitions of "memory reactivation". I've worked on this too, but proliferation of approaches is far outpacing our understanding of what any are REALLY measuring. Let's keep working on it, but still feels very early/exploratory.

I don't need to be more productive, to work faster, or to "offload" tasks. Corporations need me to do that. So that GDP will grow... gains which will not be shared with the working and middle class. And the cost is this:

Washington Post, 2017: Democracy dies in darkness! Washington Post, 2026: [Emperor Palpatine voice] Democracy dies in darkness.

"Post-Learning Offline Pauses Support Consolidation Beyond the Mind-Wandering State" www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

Just out—a piece I wrote a piece for the APS Observer (@psychscience.bsky.social) in which I share recommendations and resources for running a research lab at a small, liberal arts college. I hope it helps others in the same boat! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

The Onion finally gets around to sleep studies.

"..should resist the urge to treat AI as an inevitability that must simply be “managed”. It is a choice, and like any infrastructural choice it reveals what we value." Of all the specious arguments I've heard about "AI", this one runs deepest. And it's metastasizing throughout academic life... 1/x

WTF is this guy thinking? Seriously, these people are just in their own little realities, with little caring about how their delusions affect others.

Dr. Oz: "50% of our cortex is designed to read the face of the person in front of you." 🤔... 🧠🟦 #psychscisky

Tomorrow, we stand together and demand an end to censorship at Texas A&M. No more bans. Students deserve to learn without uncertainty, and faculty deserve to teach without retaliation. Join us. @tamu-aaup.bsky.social @texasaaup.bsky.social @texasaft.org

Other than re: memory, the main way I encounter the word "consolidation" is when I have to stuff my purse into my laptop bag at the airport.

1-inch margins for a Word document are gigantic and super-weird. Why all that white space? Why is this the standard?

Having a degree doesn't make you a scientist, and being famous doesn't make you a good scientist.

🚨 Preprint altert 🚨 **Opposite Effects of Alpha Oscillations on Mind-wandering With Eyes Open and Closed** www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Led by Esther Thielking and Luca Iemi!

@davidtingley.bsky.social obsessed over this issue w.r.t “replay” for like half of our PhD, which turned into a great review with @apeyrache.bsky.social

About the Go/No-Go task....

How many versions of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) exist? And how much does this affect research using the IGT? More than you might think. 🧵

Wow, inspiring work. IMO the 'jingle-jangle' fallacy is a majorly underappreciated source of confusion in many fields. In my field (sleep/memory), we have issues of a similar scale re: -What is a "sleep spindle"? -Correlations between "sleep stages" and "memory performance" 1/2 #sleeppeeps

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

I hardly ever use the "confidential comments to the Editor" box on manuscript submissions... but sometimes you really need it. #academicsky

Someone read this + noted a coding error to determine the 3-day mean correlations. Now updated with the new code + submitted a revision to bioRxiv. On one hand, induced a moderate shame spiral. On the other, super appreciative to see how I hope these open-science practices will work in action!

🥳 This strikes down the cynical claim that supporting underrepresented minorities is illegal under Civil Rights law. BUT...Will universities actually reverse course on capitulation? Or have they already embraced advance obedience so fully that this win will be barely noticed? #academicsky #edusky

“If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

This is a photo of someone being tortured, not someone being restrained

I try to avoid hyperbole when it comes to Trump policies, but this is absolutely frickin’ insane—on about eleventy different levels. Massive, systemic Fourth Amendment violations because … reasons.

Immediate punishment for speaking out against the regime.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

"He talked about “incredible national security implications” of AI models ...” saying to imagine “100 million people smarter than any Nobel Prize winner,” all under the control of one country" The AIs will be sidelined from policy making, maligned by the public, and lose their funding? #academicsky