@martinlukk.bsky.social @kenworthy.bsky.social, Erik Schneiderhan, and I pull together threads from our recent books on donation-based crowdfunding in the Journal of Philanthropy. We argue that rather than being a disruptive new force for good, crowdfunding's benefits have been greatly overstated.

I spoke with @nadineyousif.bsky.social here about how the ostrich cull fight in Canada is drawing on threads of perceived government overreach, 'big pharma' criticisms, and 'natural' healing modalities.

For months, I’ve been following a Canadian ostrich farm ordered to cull its flock after a bird flu outbreak. It was a cause célèbre for MAHA activists, a MAGA billionaire, and, of course, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The trucker convoy with birds ended last night. They lost. www.msnbc.com/news/news-an...

"The tech industry tells us that chatbots and new A.I. search tools will supercharge the way we learn and thrive, and that anyone who ignores the technology risks being left behind. ...people who rely heavily on chatbots and A.I. search tools ...are generally performing worse than people who don’t".

"universities came out of this whole thing not too badly. The increases to the tri-councils in the 2024 budget came out relatively unscathed... The internal talent acquisition piece, while politically a little gauche... is a nice chunk of change – roughly $131 million/year for 13 years."

"The multiyear spending plan also calls for a 2% cut to the nation’s three major research funding councils. But that reduction is far smaller than the 15% cut researchers had feared was coming, and science advocacy groups generally welcomed the budget."

How much are MPs entitled to know about research grants? Not as much as they think. A parliamentary committee is asking for researchers' personal information in what seems like an anti-DEI crusade, by @picardonhealth.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti... via @theglobeandmail.com

Looking forward to presenting - bright and early - tomorrow at #TMM2025. I'll be talking about how how markers of legitimacy can be sticky - that is, hard to get out of the public domain and imagination - once they are in circulation. @stemcellnetwork.ca

""My son was very excited to hear that the chatbot thought Ronaldo was the better soccer player,”...when her son joked that Ronaldo had scored, the conversation went to an unexpected place. "The chatbot said to my son, 'Why don't you send me some nudes?'""

@gofundme.com backtracks & apologizes after creating automated fundraising pages for nonprofits that they had to opt out of to take them down from search results. One nonprofit admin was "frustrated that GoFundMe was creating extra work for him because he would have to claim and remove pages".

Unfortunate that this kind of messaging is now necessary in Canada.

1/ Thrilled to announce that @pennmehp.bsky.social is recruiting for our NHGRI-funded postdoctoral fellowship in the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genomics. Please share widely. Details at medicalethicshealthpolicy.med.upenn.edu/elsipostdoc

My department is hiring in Bioethics at the rank of Associate or Full Prof... Please take a look. philjobs.org/job/show/30182

Leveraging wedge issues, rage, & polarization for money, clicks, & political gain👇 How anti-vaccine sentiment helped raise funds for ostriches theconversation.com/how-anti-vac... @jsnyder.bsky.social et al. "Our research has demonstrated the benefits of linking campaigns with politicized issues."

Professor Emerita Bartha Maria Knoppers recently received McGill’s highest academic honour. “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Professor Knoppers’ landmark work in bioethics, the place where law and medicine meet” reporter.mcgill.ca/bartha-knopp...

"The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. has filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court against a pair of sisters whose unlicensed cosmetic-filler and Botox business allegedly resulted in a client's physical deformity." www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

FHS professor @jsnyder.bsky.social and alumnus Claire Wilson analyze how crowdfunding for a small ostrich arm in BC has rewarded and encouraged political polarization in Canada. #SFUFHS #SFUResearch #Vaccination

This piece builds on my research with Claire Wilson about how linking into politicized issues can supercharge litigation-related crowdfunding campaigns. As a result, savvy fundraisers may choose to exaggerate these political dimensions. @sfu-fhs.bsky.social

@bethanylindsay.bsky.social of @theijf.org & Michelle Ghoussoub of CBC just published a detailed and disturbing investigation of research misconduct & violations of scholarly integrity involving a former UBC professor. They describe data fabrication & other major breaches. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

What happens when a celebrated scientist is accused of fabricating results to promote his patented product? We’ve obtained a leaked investigation report into misconduct at UBC, and we’re making the findings public for the first time. theijf.org/ubc-misconduct #bcpoli #science #CBC

In @ca.theconversation.com, Claire Wilson and I discuss the incentive structure promoting political polarization in fundraisers. This can be seen in crowdfunding campaigns for an ostrich farm in BC that has profitably plugged into anti-vaccine sentiment in the US and Canada.

"These false claims gave patients and funders false hope by falsely claiming that Meshfill had quickly healed chronic pressure ulcer wounds. He also potentially endangered the health of future human trial subjects when Dr. Ghahary falsely claimed that there had been no adverse effects".

"Staff with the CDC’s institutional review board, which reviews the design of studies, and the ethics office, which oversees all conflicts and interests for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go." 👀👀👀 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

We’re excited to share a CfP for a Special Issue “Bioethics and Structural (In)justice” in Bioethics! We invite articles from all disciplines. Deadline: September 1, 2026 We can’t wait to read your contributions! Regina Müller, Mirjam Faissner, Isabella Marcinski-Michel & Stefanie Weigold

"The University of Toronto is taking steps to safeguard critical U of T research threatened by unexpected U.S. funding cuts — creating an emergency research fund that provides up to one year of bridge support to faculty most affected by the changes." temertymedicine.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-lau...

Great piece on the massive conflicts of interest when private equity firms own IRBs that they then use to assess drug trials for their own companies. @hollylynchez.bsky.social: "If you are just focused on turnaround time, that doesn’t tell you really anything about quality.”

"Neuroethics Canada director Judy Illes said Musk politics should not have any bearing on the clinical trial. While she said the global health cuts are troubling, they should be “compartmentalized” from Neuralink’s research in Canada."

"At no point was I contacted by the central administration of the university as part of the review process. I was left in the dark as to the nature of the review being conducted, ...whether I was being investigated for potential discipline, and about when I might expect the review to be completed"

"Why would it bow to antidemocratic pressures by placing a professor on leave without their request, consent, or involvement? That any university would do this is beyond comprehension and is cause for alarm about the future of academic freedom in Canada."

I don't want AI making ethics decisions about research, that's what human IRBs are and should be for. But there's a lot that AI could improve in the IRB space, from better protocol submissions to helping reviewers incorporate the research ethics literature and prior decisions. 1/

OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

Hundreds of Ontario patients have been reimbursed for medical care in US since 2018, costing over $212 million. "We tend to look south as opposed to looking east and west, and if the provinces knew what each other were doing, then we might be able to cooperate more than we do".

@stemcells.bsky.social on new trends in dental stem cell banking: "Some clinics and cell banking firms are already suggesting dental stem cell banking as a source of cells to treat specific health conditions yet there are no proven uses. It’s not clear that the cells involved are even stem cells".

Call for Papers: 2026 Annual CPA Congress 🎓 Join us in Halifax, 6-9 June 2026! Share your work at Canada's premier philosophy conference. 📅 Deadline: 12 December 📍 Halifax, NS 🌊 Where ideas meet the Atlantic #philsky www.acpcpa.ca/articles/cal...

Osborne says more than 140 health-care workers from the U.S. — including 80 nurses and 38 doctors — have accepted positions with B.C. health authorities since the launch of its campaign in March 2025. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

This ought to be engraved somewhere.

This would affect a lot of Canadians. Third largest H1B source country after India and China. Conversely, Canada might want to re-start its program to bring in highly talented H1B holders who suddenly find themselves unable to enter the States… www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

My department, Sociology at the University of Calgary, is hiring FOUR (4) tenure track professors this fall in the areas of systemic justice and structural harm. Please help us to circulate this widely within your scholarly networks!

"After a screenshot was shared by a far-right media figure who described the comment as a reaction to Kirk’s assassination, Marshall denied that it was about Kirk but rather “atrocity denial in Gaza.” She tweeted her own screenshot of the post in what appears to be its original context".

Surgery wait times prompting GoFundMe campaigns: "Inspired by a neighbour who used GoFundMe for a shoulder replacement, Bestard's wife, Marla Stiles, started one of their own. About 50 friends and family members chipped in $30,000 to cover private surgery at a Quebec clinic, plus travel expenses."

When Carney was elected it was clear so many areas that required major investment, in the name of national protection and nation building: military, housing (public housing specifically), tariff supports, infrastructure (towards econonmic diversification), health care, but hugely, *education*

Now out and open access, Claire Wilson and I examined politically oriented Canadian crowdfunding campaigns posted on the @givesendgo.bsky.social crowdfunding platform. We found that these campaigns are financing politically extremist activities in Canada - more in a short thread:

Congrats to Jiangchuan Liu, Kora DeBeck, TJ Salway and Tammara Soma on being named to the Royal Society of Canada, the country’s highest academic honour. They join the growing number of SFU researchers whose leadership is shaping a better future for Canada and the world. www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stor...

What makes me skeptical AGI is around the corner is how ChatGPT is now handling prompts that elicit any kind of self-harm info. Gives a hotline warning, even when the request is a summary of Romeo and Juliet: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... Reddit is flipping out: www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/se...

@uvic.ca students "will have free access to Studiosity, an academic writing feedback tool that touts itself as an ethical “AI for learning.”" The university ...is "supporting students and professors in the ethical and appropriate use of AI in learning and teaching."

Jeff McMahan, a prominent just war theorist and Emeritus Sekyra and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, weighs in on the question of responsibility for healthcare scarcity in Gaza. Online first in @JME_BMJ jme.bmj.com/content/earl...

FHS is pleased to announce that renowned health scholar and researcher Dr. David Bangsberg will begin his five-year tenure as dean, starting on October 15, 2025. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Bangsberg to FHS! www.sfu.ca/fhs/news-eve... /1 #SFU #SFUFHS #HIVResearch #NewDean

The new acting head of CDC faces an incredibly tough job. Agency leadership has been decimated, morale is low, and employees no longer believe that the administration respects their mission of protecting public health. So who did RFK Jr. turn to? donmoynihan.substack.com/p/your-gover...

"Faculty associations say while reforms may be needed, they shouldn't come at the expense of schools, which they say were encouraged by governments for years to pursue international students to help bolster revenues."

"Peng, who has lived in Canada since 2016, has completed a double undergraduate degree... But new federal rules that took effect in November require that international students changing post-secondary schools must apply for a new study permit... processing times can take up to 173 days".