That’s right

This and the discussion about how academics can now just read AI summaries of things really drives home how much these guys always confuse the product for the goal. You don't do a coloring sheet because you want to have a colored sheet at the end!!! The coloring is the point!!!

incredible weekend for haters from the University of Texas

My response to anything over the next two weeks

At an @agu.org Town Hall today, @ncar-ucar.bsky.social President Antonio Busalacchi spoke to #AGU25 attendees about what's at stake if NCAR is dismantled. One attendee asked anyone who uses NCAR research to stand up. Almost everyone in the room stood. Read more here: eos.org/research-and...

They’re stealing from us. They are stealing from us and we have to put a stop to this. This cannot stand.

NSF now planning to let POs largely decide what gets funded, and to send PIs reviews that are only 3-5 sentences long. They don't have to use outside reviewers (except maybe 1) and don't have to convene panels. (1/5)

A couple of days ago we went to check out one of the most beautiful bends of the Trinity River in east Texas, a bend that is likely to be cut off in the near future 🧪⚒️

YOUR STUDENTS ARE NOT YOUR CUSTOMERS. Get the fuck out of education if that's the way you're talking about them.

For a couple of years now, I've been fascinated with what's happening at small liberal arts colleges, which are running out of money for reasons unrelated to Trump funding cuts. Businessweek let me go deep on the problems, and one college that's trying to blaze a new trail.

“By placing the blame where it belongs (academia), you may find more peace in your science.” Amen, I had a very similar realization about 6 or 7 years ago; and, like this author, found a solid fit for my career (which is dissimilar from the traditional arc ingrained in us by the old guard).

Beautiful sentence. God bless America.

Another thing @agu.org could do is highly visible trainings for attendees on civil liberties and immigrant rights by groups like @aclu.org and @aila.org (whose resources they are already sharing), and promoting the work of their litigation partners like @democracyforward.org and @aaup.org

Benthic forams in the news www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/c...

Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan has a neat little natural history museum on campus with a wonderful microfossil exhibit featuring hand-made glass radiolarians and 3D printed foraminiferans.

I've got a piece up today at @lukeoneil47.bsky.social's Welcome to Hell World. Check it out: www.welcometohellworld.com/a-coordinate...

I wrote about the dirty, demeaning, absolutely booming business of turning something like a shitty bigoted college essay into a shitty public career as a bigot, and also estimated how old Marine Todd would be today. defector.com/the-conserva...

This year, the NSF funded 35% fewer grants in geoscience, with 25% less money. Meanwhile, the Office of the Director spent almost three times as much money as in a regular year. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

🛎️ 🛎️ New(ish) paper alert!! 🛎️ 🛎️ After 9 years, I have finally managed to publish the results from my MSc thesis during my time at the University of Birmingham on the MSc in Applied and Petroleum Micropalaeontology course! jm.copernicus.org/articles/44/...

Wrote strange a story for @sciam.bsky.social about where on Earth you'd put a time capsule if you wanted to find it as far in future as possible. Maybe bury a laser-etched zircon in Namibia and hope it erodes out of central mountain range of Pangaea Ultima? www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-...

conservatives basically want to implement the caricature of affirmative action for conservative students. acceptance without meeting qualifications, good grades and degrees without having to do the work.

Dying at the first time Swedish Chef sees Big Bird

There are two methods for cranberry harvest- wet method and dry method. Pictured is the ‘wet harvest’ method where the cranberry bog is flooded and the plants are shaken to dislodge the submerged berries, which float. (Fun fact: in a flooded bog the workers become high ground for the spiders.)

Gift link www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

Everyone loves Jesse Welles the Guthrie-esque protest singer but don't sleep on Jesse Welles the Nirvana-esque screamer covering Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvc7...

This is so good

Now, there are 59 episodes posted in the collection, from scientists/technicians/office and support staff; early career to retired; from Glomar Challenger to Chikyu. Take a listen! If you have a scientific ocean drilling conversation to contribute, contact me. archive.storycorps.org/communities/...

Methodology

Over the past months (and at least 11 versions!), I was lucky to work with 11 amazing colleagues on a call to action to reform academic publishing. Not another declaration, but an appeal to our powerful friends, research funders & institutions, to Stop the Drain of Scientific Publishing. 1/n

Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ. It's a surreal--and troubling--read. drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...

Seems bad!

BREAKING: Starbucks workers have launched a massive, nationwide strike. Baristas in 40 cities have walked off the job on the busiest day of Starbucks' year. Upwards of 12,000 @sbworkersunited.org members could ultimately go on strike as the union escalates.

A particular interest of mine has been how Earth system processes, including terrestrial methane cycling, have been perturbed by past warming events. Our new paper, led by Wuhan colleagues, is another contribution to that understanding! pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

Another person who started down this path from the most “innocuous” advertised uses of ChatGPT: homework help. I have been struck by the cases of people getting lost in delusions after using this product for work or school: ie the use cases we are supposed to encourage as faculty.

time for everyone's favorite annual tradition: getting pissed off about how much AGU registration costs, then looking up their executive compensation and getting even more pissed off. projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/o...

Hear that, centrists? Your plans to run on a platform of “we don’t have room in the big tent for trans people” went down in fucking FLAMES, MOTHERFUCKERS

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

man these people are committed to evil, what is even the point of having the word “evil” if not for this type of shit

This is why we can’t have nice things

For the 6th year in a row, a player named Will Smith has won the World Series 2020 - Will Smith (C), Dodgers 2021 - Will Smith (RP), Braves 2022 - Will Smith (RP), Astros 2023 - Will Smith (RP), Rangers 2024 - Will Smith (C), Dodgers 2025 - Will Smith (C), Dodgers

I think this is the truest baseball tweet for me

oh my god, The Tweet is exactly ten years old tonight

If you have home plate seats at the World Series and they catch your ass dinking around on your phone back there a big claw game thing should come down and pluck you up and out by the head.

I did! A good paper, but an even more essential one is Gambetta/Origgi on Italian academia and the preference for low-quality work. Literally everybody I know who has read this and has experience in China has remarked on how useful it is. diegogambetta.org/wp-content/u...

this question being led by a private firm (and potential privatization of rollout) is a worst case scenario if you ask me

When TEA took over Houston schools, they replaced some of the school libraries with "detention centers" and funneled state money to their own businesses. These state takeovers are utter crap, orchestrated by deeply disingenuous people, and Texans should fight back against this naked oppression.

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

The Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster dataset is back and now at @climatecentral.org! Through the first half of 2025, there were 14 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters across the United States, costing $101.4 billion. 1/2 www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv...