@nycsanitation.bsky.social I’d like to report a sweep

Well, would ya look at that! NSF is going to send >10% of its current budget to industry (read: tech start ups) instead of universities…it’s as if the admin is trying to dismantle our basic science mechanism and use it as a start up fund for private companies 💁🏻‍♀️ www.nsf.gov/tip/updates/...

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

Remember: Wealth cannot be separated from power. We're seeing in real time how the extreme concentration of wealth is distorting our politics, rigging markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of people. Taxing the rich isn't just an economic issue, it's a defense of our democracy.

Kind of surprised that this hasn't been bigger news. It's finals week for a whole lot of universities, and yet, Canvas (a learning/grading platform used by ~9,000 schools globally) is currently inaccessible because of a pay-or-have-your-data-leaked hack. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

The abstract deadline for #SBN2026 has been extended to May 8 🎉 If you've been thinking about submitting an abstract to attend our conference and enjoy the spectacular views of Niagara Falls and nearby places, you still have time! Submit an abstract here: whova.com/call_for_spe...

Penn State Biology is hiring! We have an opening for a tenure-line faculty position in plant biology - if you'd like to pursue awesome science in a supportive and interdisciplinary community of researchers, consider applying! psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

How it started / how it’s going — Jay Bhattacharya edition. 2025: “We will never use this agency to censor scientists who disagree" 2026 : Bhattacharya “has canceled the publication of a study that found that the Covid vaccine sharply cut the odds of hospitalizations and emergency visits”.

I would submit that a gerrymander by politicians saying fuck the voters and one by voters saying fuck the politicians are two wholly different animals

Hungary under Orbán was one of the most effective such regimes in the world. Fidesz developed an incredibly sophisticated system for marginalizing the opposition, including controlling 80-90 percent of media. This @kimlanelaw.bsky.social piece has details. www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how...

The recent presidential budget request has a 40% increase in military spending and 10% cut to non-military spending, including a 25% cut to the NIH. It seems worth pointing out that NIH (and other R&D) boosts the economy by 250%, whereas military spending (except R&D) shrinks the economy by 10%.

Nearly 450 hospitals are at risk of shutting down due to Medicaid cuts. Roughly $1 trillion in funding is expected to be cut. Services like mental health and maternal care likely will be affected. www.healthday.com/health-news/...

In all seriousness though, elder millennial jokes aside, I think it’s important to resist the media framing of any mainstream resistance to the status quo as just the shrill nonsense of middle-aged women with nothing better to do. This isn’t the first time they’ve run out this playbook.

I've never seen a PCAST so dominated by Silicon Valley venture capitalists (and the worst of the bunch too). What a farce.

>10,000 STEM PhDs have left federal service over the past year (including 30% of the federal colleagues with whom I’ve worked closely). Those still left are holding federal science together with duct tape. What an extraordinary act of sabotage against the American people.

Let's be clear: banning mifepristone = a national abortion ban. Mifepristone has been safe, effective and FDA-approved for 20 years. Extremists won’t stop until abortion is banned everywhere. I'll keep fighting to pass my Women’s Health Protection Act to restore the right to abortion nationwide.

Heroes.

That's right. Worse than Pointless www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

So when thousands of women (and children) were being duplicated--including in non-consensual AI porn--it was no big deal. But it took "only a 15-sec clip" of these two famous white men to draw outrage and fear. Gotcha. Cool cool.

Democracy is when voters choose their leaders. Autocracy is when leaders choose their voters.

North Carolina lawmakers have voted to remove all college campus voting sites. Specifically at the largest HBCU in the US NC A&T. They now have to walk 30 minutes to their nearest polling place. Students are protesting this - pls share and support. www.tiktok.com/t/ZThx29BJ9/

Neat demonstration of how artificial so-called intelligence is taking us backwards. "ChatGPT produced content most consistent with the 1960s and DALL-E 3 in the late 1980s and early '90s." #AI - see @shannonvallor.bsky.social's work for important thinking on this phys.org/news/2026-02...

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

WATCH as Maine nurses show up at Susan Collins’ office to demand she vote against funding ICE following ICE’s killing of nurse Alex Pretti. #ICEoffOurStreets

An extraordinary document. Read it. “Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. … ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

Amazon Web Services hosts massive surveillance systems for both ICE and DHS. Citizens Bank provides nearly $1 trillion in credit & bonds to private prison companies. AT&T has a $147 million contract to provide communications services to DHS. Know who is profiting from ICE’s cruelty.

“There’s no point to calling because my senators already agree with me” “There’s no point to calling because my senators won’t listen” These are both false information and you should correct and/or block anyone circulating them. Your calls are tallied and create support and/or real pressure.

YOUR PHONE CALLS TO THE SENATE ARE WORKING. KEEP CALLING. 202–224-3121 Three Democrats who previously broke with the party and voted with the GOP are now saying they will not vote for the bill. That’s enough for the bill to be unpassable right now.

Do it. I beg you. This madness ends a lot faster if billionaires lose money.

MLK was only 39 when he was killed. Growing up, I thought that was old. But I’m 43 now and I’m stunned by the burden he shouldered at such a young age. I’m also a lot more aware of how hard it is, at any age, to carry the hopes and dreams of an oppressed people on your shoulders, as so many do.

BREAKING: TIM WALZ: "If you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record." "Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution."

NEW: An analysis of years of previous F.D.A. decisions about the abortion pill mifepristone found that the agency did rigorous reviews, largely followed apolitical scientific recommendations and repeatedly concluded that mifepristone was safe. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/h...

AOC: I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face.

This is why we need to rebuild union power. Strong unions serve as a countervailing force to runaway corporate power and ensure workers share in the profits their labor creates. Otherwise, the rich eat up a larger and larger share of the pie — like this:

We remember Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “The chaos that ICE and the Trump administration have brought to Minneapolis made this tragedy sadly predictable,” writes Jacob Frey, the city’s mayor.

Parent and pediatrician here. All vaccines are still available & recommended. Talk to your pediatrician for more info. Know this: Even as our government shifts its recommendation language, I would never forgo the RSV, hepatitis A & B, or meningitis vaccines for my own kids.

Statement from Stand Up For Science: Politicizing the Childhood Vaccine Schedule Will Cost Lives. "Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, this change will lead to preventable illness, death, and devastation for American families. Congress must act now to impeach and remove Secretary Kennedy."

Spotted at the independent bookstore near my mom's house @drtraceyshors.bsky.social

We can't work with foreign collaborators, but they can send money to a foreign PI to conduct an ethically questionable study in a vulnerable population in another foreign country? This is what corruption looks like.

Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

The RFK, jr effect.

Are you a business that's colluding with ICE? Caving to the biased attacks on DEI? Funding this administration for tax cuts? Guess what? #WeAintBuyingIt Nov 27–Dec 1, instead we are putting our money where are values are.

This Texas woman developed preeclampsia, leading to still-birth. She DIED, leaving her young son behind. This happens while an all-male panel in South Carolina is deciding whether women should be charged w/ murder for their pregnancies. Abortion is healthcare. How many more women have to die? 🧪

AOC: Should this AI bubble pop, we should not be entertaining a bailout of these corporations while healthcare is being denied to Americans and SNAP is being denied to Americans —

SBN is extremely pleased to announce that Dr. Nancy Forger, Professor at the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University, is the recipient of the Larry Young Mentorship Award. 🥳

Medicare for All would save $450B a year. Every dollar spent on food stamps generates $1.50-$1.80 in economic activity. Each dollar going to low-wage workers adds $1.20 to the economy overall. It’s not about what this country can or can’t afford. It’s about priorities.

Excited to have my piece on perimenopause published @thetransmitter.bsky.social "Perimenopause: An important—and understudied—transition for the brain" We need more studies & better education -we need this to be mainstream- knowledge is power! #WomensHealth www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...

The elimination of USAID was an unforgivable moral atrocity that should haunt Trump, Elon Musk and Marco Rubio for the rest of their days and beyond