How I'm walking out of 2025

How far right is infiltrating everyday culture | The Guardian share.google/dwD6VESpoUfK...

there is no spoon

It is simply not true that “you can’t publish negative results”. 👇 [what people normally mean when they say this is they’re annoyed they can’t get a Nature paper saying someone else’s Nature paper is wrong]

Tfw you read a popular book and it's actually great

Just out: Supporting the mental health of undergraduate women in chemistry

Religions have their drawbacks but it’s undeniable that searching for divine meaning has inspired an extraordinary outpouring of much of history’s best music

There’s something in here about how after Jesus was born, Joseph fled with Jesus and Mary to Egypt under the cover of night…for ~4 years until Herod died.

Santa was very good to me this year

Authors and academics used to (and still do) get this kind of stuff through the post, or via email. As gatekeepers in the employ of Big Something, we kept them quiet. Now, through the power of social media and dumb-as-a-rock AIs, the whole world can enjoy reading them. Good luck, you poor saps.

when AI tech is mature next year, i will create a video of a white blonde woman getting fired from her job for refusing to apologize for being white. video will go viral. next, i will start a gofundme, which will earn me $2M in tax free income, allowing me to buy a home in a walkable neighborhood

Total gaslighting. Anti-trans activist; chooses to speak in person, provoking students who want to protect trans rights; they exercise their freedom of speech to tell her she isn't wanted; she gets to speak anyway; the BBC dutifully platforms her again; and now she threatens to sue everyone.

please let “bugs bunnying” become the slang for manipulating an LLM into ignoring its guardrails, i have never seen a more succinct and evocative term for it

From @science.org Breakthrough of the Year: Solar Energy

Samuel L Jackson is 77. This is wonderfully in-depth interview conducted by @bilgeebiri.bsky.social Jackson is insight as usual on the technical aspects of acting but as you can see below, he’s just damned entertaining & straight-talking: www.vulture.com/article/samu...

"How can funders avoid crossing the Szilard point?" The Szilard point is "the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding."

for all the people sharing this Colin "Swipe" Wright post today, you should also know that he's one of the most unhinged anti-trans conspiracy theorists out there: juliaserano.medium.com/lies-damned-...

These are the people the mainstream media is constantly telling us to understand and sympathize with.

Also, again, a reminder that "AI" is such a broad and useless marketing term that it's almost entirely useless. I can't say I will never use "AI" because it covers so much programming ground, including ground previously not under its umbrella. I can say what creative things I won't use it *for.*

Do not cite an academic paper unless you’ve read it

This sheet should get the Nobel Prize in physics and chemistry!

Good piece.

"concept artists can experiment with AI to make their lives easi-" wrong I smack you with Claire Hummel's immaculate and detailed understanding of costume design, which she got by studying historical references, which made her strong, which you will not become by relying on AI get good

mrw anyone makes an AD&D reference and gets something slightly wrong

18. I don't think I ever used a waterbed or a typewriter. I'm not 100% sure I had an AOL email as not American, but I had email in the late 90s so I'll take that one.

there is literally no high profile murder – not even this one of such a highly personal nature – that transphobic ghouls won't try to pin on trans ppl

Research questions generated by AI. Questionnaires filled out by AI. Paper written by AI. Paper reviewed by AI. Just make it stop.

🚨WISC is excited to announce we are changing our name to Women and Inclusion in Supramolecular Chemistry! ➡️ www.womeninsuprachem.com #WomeninSTEM #EDI #SupramolecularChemistry #ChemSky

What a mess.

The 2025 RSC MASC Supramolecular Chemistry Award 🏆, our most senior award, goes to Prof Job Boekhoven @boekhovenlab.bsky.social. Congratulations, Job! Thanks @cellpress.bsky.social for sponsoring the award! #MASC2025 #RSC_MASC

Highlights of last night's #MASC2025 dinner include an amazing cheesecake, and the prospect of the dancefloor playlist including "Walking In The Air"

One of the most galling things about Trump's disgusting, narcissistic, inhuman comments on Reiner's murder is that when he dies any criticism of him will be shut down as inappropriate, gauche, immoral, speaking ill of the dead, etc.

Look back over Stuart's feed for a behind the scenes look at the Nobel Prize ceremony and celebrations for Uni. Melbourne recipient Prof. Richard Robson. #ChemChat

Congrats to Dr Simona Bianco (University of Glasgow) and Dr Jiarong Wu @jiarongwu.bsky.social (University of St Andrews/Universität Würzburg) who were awarded the 2025 RSC MASC Group PhD Thesis Award trophy 🏆 given in memory of John Fossey! #MASC2025 #RSC_MASC

🕊️🧬A Special Issue of Trends in Chemistry in online now! www.cell.com/trends/chemi... Our Dec 2025 issue is joint with @cp-cellrepphyssci.bsky.social on The Chemistry of Nucleic Acids, highlighting the innovations and thought leadership on nucleic acid research in the physical/chemical sciences.

Conference dinner time, and the hats are GLORIOUS

Very well deserved award of the supramolecular chemistry prize to @boekhovenlab.bsky.social, who is giving a fantastic talk at #masc2025

A coffee break after a fantastic first session at MASC 2025 here in Milton Keynes! @openuniversity.bsky.social #MASC2025 #RSC_MASC

It's the most wonderful time of year #MASC2025

Here is a bit of my resignation speech from last night

Today in "Don't Trust AI to Tell You Facts": How several different "AI" programs messed up the simple fact of to whom I dedicated a book, and what that means for how much you should trust "AI" to tell you the truth about things (spoiler: not much at all): whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/13/a...

WHY ARE YOU ANNOYED THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO HAPPEN

All I want for Christmas is books! I asked 10 researchers about a book that galvanized them; they cooked up a poignant, serious yet joyful and ultimately uplifting collection. "I have never read a book like this before — deeply personal, yet relevant to everyone." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

PhD contract available in the @icmabcsic.bsky.social in my group to work on the synthesis and characterization of New Photosensitisers for Panchromatic Photoisomerization. Retweets appreciated. Candidates please contact me directly.

Intriguing study…! www.nature.com/articles/s41... /cc @rorinstitute.bsky.social

I’ve said it before: peer review at good journals can be good and valuable, but at the system level, “peer reviewed” [alone] does not convey any level of validity.

Good news chemists, none of us need drugs because our brains are working perfectly 💁‍♀️ #chemchat

For reasons that are too complicated to explain, I am reminded of Adam Stuart Smith’s 2005 paper “Are Jaffa Cakes Really Biscuits?”. Here’s his cladogram (it says they aren’t): Full paper here: plesiosauria.com/pdf/smith_20...

Doing all my analysis in chatGPT so I can say "sorry, my LLM is bullshitting" instead of "sorry, my code is compiling"