if Wikipedia, an org with a shoestring budget and volunteer workforce can ban use of llms, what excuse do large orgs and universities have

Ecologists! I have received four sets of paper reviews back in the last month, and two had obviously AI generated reviews: @plos.org and @journalofecology.bsky.social. We also have reviews from @journalofecology.bsky.social that I strongly suspect were AI. Our peers are intellectually lazy.

If you are going to use AI to "help" you review, engage your brain and evaluate what the AI is flagging! It can't reason, and it is going to flag the things a 1st year grad might. Also, "internally inconsistent", immediate 🚩for AI use. Looking at you @journalofecology.bsky.social Reviewer 1.

Welp, just got an obviously AI-generated review back from @plos.org. Love that there was no disclosure and a students manuscript has been fed to the machine.

Oh NSF, for having the "best merit review system" you sure have problems with consistency!

NSF - Forced reorg - POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements) - Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …) I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing. “Details matter” 🙃

18-29 year olds: bless your heart, you were duped so badly. From +5 to -51 (!!!)

Just in case you ever forget that #rejectionistherule this was the ranking on a grant declined yesterday by the NSF.

I was literally just thinking about this. You know how they could, but don't screen for testicular cancer? Wonder why? Your modern doctor doesn't mean to cause pain, but our technology is a legacy of ignoring women's pain and discomfort. AND mammograms are inaccurate and lead to painful biopsies

Are you a natural resource or agricultural economics PhD or postdoc interested in real world policy work? Come work with CEPP's growing food team on quantifying subsidies in the dairy and beef industry! If not, pass the word! careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/food-sy...

Cutting until you hit something vital is the capitalist way.

Who is this article kidding? Error prone, probabilistic, hallucinating AI is coming for my University job!

So many ecological processes are highly tied to VPD. Here, Atmospheric aridity strongly influences fire behavior.

#terriertuesday #outoffocus Midge says "smile!"

The percentage of tasks AI "agents" are currently failing at may spell trouble for the industry... futurism.com/ai-agents-fa...

You can't make this stuff up folks: retractionwatch.com/2025/06/30/s...

A nice apricot sourdough loaf today #breadsky

Taught Fire Ecology for the first time this past semester. Just checked my course reviews: my work here is done.

For me, the biggest concern with these plants in the Sonoran basin and range is their transformative nature; increased fuel loads and continuity in a fire sensitive system during the pyrocene will transform the Sonoran.

Today a bronzed cowbird sang to me at very close quarters. One of the most bizarre bird songs I have ever heard from the gorgeous little parasite. macaulaylibrary.org/asset/45159

my hottest educational take is that schools should actively, non-punitively teach students how to admit when they don't know something, aren't sure or have made a mistake, with various teaching frameworks adapted to support this ideal, because people who can't admit fault are breaking the world

Post an insect that looks like it's generated by AI, but isn't! I found one of these in my yard for the first time ever after being an Arizona resident for 30 years. Giant mesquite bug (5th instar; Thasus neocalifornicus) Glamor shot vs the one in my yard. #inverts

#terriertuesday #terriertuned Midge's theme song is Donna Summer's "Bad Girl", deployed liberally when she is chewing something she stole underneath a bed

We have #nokings in #tucson #arizona

I still cannot get over a woman who shows up to a jungle prison in full glam make up complaining about “political theater.”

No words

Sprocket; leopard gecko lady, Aged 12-13.

My partner is at a NASA event and someone just presented linear regression as AI and machine learning. Which 1) tells you where we are in the hype-cycle and 2) illustrates how woefully ignorant of statistics many parts of astronomy are

#terriertuesday portraits

What could go wrong with relying on AI?

And just like that, Midge is down to her pajamas for the summer #btposse

Are you a #scientist worried about #AI taking your job? Don't hold your breath...I asked Gemini to make a conceptual diagram of adaptive plasticity, and got this breathtaking nonsense...

Hey #Rstats friends👋, I am looking for some real life examples of using #targets 📦 for a large-scale #ecology project. There are a couple of ways of doing things, so I am genuinely interested how people have been using this amazing tool⚒️ Please boost♻️

"Effective today, sources tell Science, NSF’s division of grants & awards is returning all grant proposals previously approved for funding and awaiting final signoff to program officers who oversaw the initial review. In the meantime, according to those sources, NSF will not make any new awards."

Please, if you are ever a PO or handing out any kind of award, NEVER EVER reach out to a PI and tell them their proposal is fundable, but you don't have funds, but you might in the future. Never, do this. NEVER. Just wait for the funds to come in and make your decision. They don't need to know.

#terriertuesday #thenandnow. Two terriers could not be more different. Dexter the schnauzer is "Mr.Perfect", always minding, while Midge the border arrived full of chaos, and while she has mellowed, she will never be rid of the bees in her brain.

NEW: The number of new grants handed out by the National Science Foundation since President Donald Trump took office has fallen by nearly 50% compared with the same 2-month period 1 year ago. | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Little cactus crowns everywhere in my garden

⭐️2025 Calow-Grace Review⭐️ Plant functional traits & the entangled phenotype - Sandra Díaz reviews concepts that have long been at the core of #ecology & #evolutionary #biology but are at risk of being increasingly ignored 🌎🧪

Experiments: they don't always work!! But you can pivot! We had very low germination of our seeds, but we are now assessing moisture retention directly in our seedballs

Look at these brilliant undergrads (including one from my lab) teaching the world how to remove the scourge of stinknet!! www.instagram.com/reel/DHZTchp...

Are we still doing that #rejectionistherule thing? Because I had a grant rejected today! But also, my hamster is cute. So who really won today?

Mentorship was key to me becoming a scientist, and I try really hard to pay it forward and encourage my students to do it as well!!!

Spotted in the 520

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

Little mammillaria nestled at the base of a saguaro in a tiny crack within a drainage.

When saguaro are drought stressed, they self prune and drop limbs. It's been a very dry year at Saguaro National Park.