“You starve your public schools to feed your private schools and charter schools,” said one superintendent about the state’s efforts to grow charter schools. “Our foundation was set up for a free and appropriate education for all kids. All kids!” (Published Oct. 2025)

In today’s Winter Olympics photo of the day, see the Ukrainian Olympic athlete whose memorial helmet got him disqualified from the Games: theatln.tc/ATHGnQrA 📸: Robert Michael / DPA / Reuters

As someone who listened to a lot of grunge in the 90s, let’s stop pretending that understanding the lyrics is sooooooo important as to throw a hissy fit.

As I say here, there is no scientific justification to revoke the engagement finding. In fact, over the last 15+ yrs, the evidence of how climate change affects our health has only grown. Higher risk of allergies, dementia, fertility, heart disease, and death: that’s what’s on the line. @nature.org

Oh, FYI the science didn’t change - just the administration www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Videos out of MN are being suppressed on Tik Tok and MSM is not reporting what’s happening. Things are just as bad if not worse than they were. ICE is releasing people wrongly detained in the middle of the night with no coats, no phone, no money, nothing. There is a team that is camping at

Green River Rocks is coming again in April. Fun learning about geology, paleontology, and archaeology in eastern Utah. I'll be leading the Old SR-24 Diving into the Cretaceous Fieldtrip. Nothing else quite like it. See you there. @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social

If you find yourself wondering why I care so much about mine workers, it’s because I was one. I spent 2 years working in an open pit mine breathing in dust. I still remember the smell of a cyanide leach pad. I remember the feeling of having to be constantly vigilant for rockfalls.

This is me reminding all my followers that a new silica rule was supposed to go start last year to reduce allowable silica limits in air, but the Mine Safety and Health Administration decided to just not enforce it. It would have saved many miners from the horrors of black lung disease.

The person photographed here who is in their bathrobe filming armed, masked federal agents in St. Paul is MPR News journalist @samstroozas.bsky.social @mprnews.org . She is an incredible journalist and person. We do not deserve her.

I wouldn’t want to be a foreign tourist in this country at this time.

Went hiking in Arkansas with out older kid, sprained my ankle. Now every muscle that had to compensate hurts way more than usual. Down through Pennsylvanian, Mississippian, and into the Ordovician at Buffalo River. Hemmed-in Hollow Falls

The PLL tried to use drones last summer to follow play, it lasted one weekend (4 games). Not so much the noise, but trying to follow the ball and play using a drone was a bad idea. And nauseating.

I appreciate the use of drones to follow the skiers, but the whine of the propellers is annoying and keeps freaking me out.

Ugh.

Come be my boss! The North Dakota Geological Survey is hiring the State Geologist position. They are casting a wide net in terms of professional experience, including paleontology given the strong program we have here. To apply go to www.nd.gov/jobs and search for State Geologist.

It's Trilobite Tuesday! Some trilobite fossils provide extra insight about life in the Paleozoic seas—like this 430-million-year-old Arctinurus from the Rochester Shale of New York! Its 5-in- (12.7-cm-) long body is covered in brachiopod shells that hitched a ride on the trilobite's carapace.

Rep Mark Alford (R-MO) says House Rs are "investigating" Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show & talking with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Alford says he didn't watch the whole thing & also doesn't know Spanish but suspects it might have been "much worse than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction"

Congrats Greta Ramirez, who successfully defended her PhD thesis, 'The ecology and diversity of Late #Ordovician & Early #Silurian paleocommunities of Québec.' L to R: Hans Larsson (McGill), Katalin Patonai (UdeM), Dr. Ramirez, JP Zonneveld (U Alberta), me.

Remarkable. Report of a Brazilian spiny-rayed fish dating to the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous, preceding the oldest known acanthomorphs by ~20 million years. Gondwanacanthus extends the roots of one of today's most prominent vertebrate radiations: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Minneapolis for the win.

Become our colleague! The University of Lethbridge is hiring a Canada Impact+ Research Chair (Professor/Associate Professor) in Remote Sensing! Only candidates who are both working and residing outside of Canada, incl. Canadian expats, are eligible to apply. uleth.peopleadmin.ca/postings/8951

ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

A reminder to the haters it takes this many states to outnumber the American citizens in Puerto Rico (~3.5m v. ~3.2m)

Terrified Conservatives Lose Ability To Speak English After Exposure To Bad Bunny Performance https://theonion.com/terrified-conservatives-lose-ability-to-speak-english-after-exposure-to-bad-bunny-performance-dios-mio-cry-millions-of-panicking-republicans/

I'd watch a muppet show movie where the muppets infiltrate an academic conference.

Maria is one of hundreds of children, who — like Liam Ramos — have been held at a Texas detention facility where parents say children languish as they’re served contaminated food, receive little education and struggle to obtain basic medical care. Here's our attempt at telling their stories. 2/

A lovely find today with @geologyjohnson.bsky.social at Robin Hoods Bay. Lots going on here in this Staithes sandstone including: scallop, oyster, and a cute little crinoid ossicle 🤩 #FossilFriday #Paleontology #Geology #Fossil

Welcome back to #fossilfriday! Here are the impressions of the Inoceramid clam Mytiloides mytiloides. This specimen comes from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian) Greenhorn Formation (Colorado Group) in northwestern Nebraska.

My kids have now reached the age where I have to really work hard to come up with new ways to get them to open up and tell me what’s going on in their lives. Their counterintelligence operations have improved so much.

You fired the wrong writers.

This has slowly been happening at all but flagship public universities. This would accelerate the practice, and I expect more states (including some blue states) to follow suit in the coming years.

Folks outside SF/F don't know that Asimov was a sexual harasser because while he was alive fandom thought it was cute (up to and including Asimov being invited to give a lecture on "The Power of Positive Posterior Pinching" at Worldcon, which he, wisely, declined). daily.jstor.org/asimovs-empi...

I like to imagine that few commentators would publicly articulate a "slavery was good" argument--yet when it comes to the violent dispossession of Indigenous homelands, there seem to be many willing to speak up in defense of settler colonialism.

Sheltered me had two great epiphanies as a young adult: 1) College: the amount of racism that existed, just casual racism. Not white guys going out and burning crosses. Just white guys in college, majoring in business, engineering, whatever. Relatively intelligent people were. Then (see next)

Being disgusted at 55-year-old men running around with 14-year old girls is NOT a moral panic. It’s having a basic sense of morals.

We're hiring a full-time technician to support radiocarbon analyses. If you have some experience with analytical instruments and background in chemistry, earth sciences, archaeology, and/or ecology, this could be the job for you! arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

A couple months ago, I compiled a list of best practices (including the unwritten rules) for applying to graduate school, at least as it applies to North American science programs (and w/ a bias towards my own preferences). I've now published that here ucalgary.ca/labs/waterSH... #AcademicSky 🧪⚒️

(Long) Before mobile phones: hand drawn PPL and XPL views of porphyritic dolerite from Ben Hiant, Ardnamurchan, Scotland. From my undergraduate mapping report. #ThinSectionThursday 🧪⚒️🌋

#foioklahoma By Nuria Martinez-Keel, oklahomavoice.com: The new draft deletes controversial elements of a 2025 version of the standards that the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down over violations of state open meeting laws.

Really SVP? You’re just going to ignore decades of sexual and academic misconduct, marrying a student AT one of your conferences, and every report I’ve filed (implying that’s what you do with reports) to defend famous Horner? You’d rather have pedophiles than students is your message?

A Christian substitute teacher wanted a religious exemption in order to disrespect transgender students. The district said no. She sued. Now, even the appellate court is mocking her: "We readily decline [her] invitation to run the public schools." www.friendlyatheist.com/p/court-rule...

The world is on fire so please enjoy these nice middle #jurassic trace #fossils. @ichnologist.bsky.social one for you! #geology #paleontology #dinosaur

Reptile Handler At Birthday Party Ruthlessly Heckled By 6-Year-Old For Showing Amphibian https://theonion.com/reptile-handler-at-birthday-party-ruthlessly-heckled-by-6-year-old-for-showing-amphibian/

US immigration policy: pushing capital overseas since 2025. 🤡 @bloomberg.com #$GOOGL www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Excited that this paper, led by former PhD student Natalia Varela (based on her dissertation), is now out! We use the occurrence & characteristics of thin, silty turbidites from the Ross Sea to interpret Antarctic Bottom Water outflow since ~3.3 Ma. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

2 weeks left: Call for abstracts and global activities are still open for @carbonateforum.bsky.social 2026 (12–13 May). Submit an abstract or propose a local activity (field trip, lab visit, workshop): sedsonline.com/the-carbonat... sedsonline.com/the-carbonat... Deadline: 15 February

they should make a movie series about how it’s irresponsible to use technology to mess with the natural order of things for profit

All I want from bluetooth headphones is that they are: good-sounding, easy to use, comfortable, and don't drop the signal. I don't need them to sense when I happen to bend over to pick something up to move one side to hear something else and subsequently assume I am not longer wearing them and stop

Ok, positive scientific thing (for a change): We're going to talk about the work of Yale seismologist Maureen Long, because her work is focused on the most direct evidence of mantle flow and convection we can get. Her career essentially defines our direct knowledge of mantle flow.