There's some chatter about whether avoiding the phrase "climate change" in an NSF grant constitutes censorship or dishonesty or cynicism or capitulation to fascism or whatever. I thought I'd share my perspective as someone who has grappled with with this (both now and back in 2017-2020).

It is a bit insane that the Artemis II crew started from the earth, flew around the moon, and came back to the earth, faster than it takes for the journals to send your paper out for review.

Regardless of whether it’s all talk, when the leader of our country expresses plainly genocidal intent, everyone has to do something. For citizens of all political stripes, it means rejecting this madness. For Congress, it means taking action to rein him in. Now.

On Transgender Day of Visibility, we celebrate the resilience of transgender Americans. We affirm, today and every day, that trans rights are human rights and that all our neighbors deserve to live safely and authentically.

My essay "An Exam is a Moral Document" was published today in Advances in Physiology Education. Thanks to the @apsphysiology.bsky.social for the invitation to write it! journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1...

“Given Israel’s deep involvement in almost every aspect of this war, it takes care and subtlety — both in short supply in our politics — to tease out the difference between reality and conspiracy theory.” www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/o...

The 7-year-old wanted tater tots for dinner. I said no. "But it's St. Patrick's Day!" he protested. I found this persuasive and gave in.

Each Friday night, I cover what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪 Year 2, Week 7: Feb 13 - EPA revokes authority to regulate emissions - FDA refuses to review new flu vaccine - NASA funding frozen - NCAR stripped of supercomputing - so much more (a rough week) buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

This is part of a pattern that is impeachable: Trump cuts previously appropriated Congressional funds, but only to states led by Democrats (California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota).

I truly believe discourse about voters (especially those who may have voted for Trump) would go better on this app if everyone was using the spectrum of allies as a framework commonslibrary.org/spectrum-of-...

No one is made safer by ICE snatching up our neighbors, our friends, or our colleagues.

Do not fall for this garbage. DHS came into my city with an offensive posture, conducted itself as an invader, often attacked residents without any plausible connection to immigration enforcement, violently seized people off the streets. Now it’s our fault people died?

Big if true.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

“Don’t call us the Gestapo or we’ll have to summarily execute people.”

We're mourning yet again in Minnesota — and struggling to square the gut-churning video of Alex Pretti's final moments with official accounts. I'm teaching techniques of neutralization this term, so I made this quick slide on the DHS statement. Share if it's useful. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/us...

Raise your hand if you know approximately where Kamchatka is because of playing Risk as a kid.

Hi there, I would like to talk about paywalls Today I had a rather large article drop in Slate and there was a soft paywall. A lot of people commented upset about that paywall Let's talk about: a) how to get around paywalls b) why you shouldn't be mad about them

I can't say this loudly enough: THEY ARE TRYING TO NORMALIZE THE KILLING OF CIVILIANS FOR PARTICIPATING IN FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED PROTEST ACTIVITIES.

Each Friday, I write a briefing on what is happening to American science & higher ed. 🧪 This was Year 2, Week 2: - science budgets avoid catastrophic cuts, but NOT okay - vaccination schedule hijacked & kids will suffer - university mergers in Oregon & so much more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

I wrote Tuesday "Part of the unbearable stupidity of the current administration is its feckless enthusiasm for doing things that seem like manly feats of strength to manosphere idiots and also make this country weaker." Withdrawing from all those treaties and sabotaging NATO since then....

Excellent, damning analysis of the video of the killing of Ms Good, from the NYT, including a quick debunking of the “evidence” the President showed other Times reporters last night. www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

Clear, compelling writing. I did quite well on those standardized tests eons ago, and I'm very glad faculty applications do not make use of those scores!

man the Access Hollywood tape really told us everything we needed to know didn’t it

If you're reading Jeremy Fox's book book "The Ecology of Ecologists", let him know what you think of it for a chance to win a signed bookplate: dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/s... #ecology #biodiversity #books

Many interesting statements have been falsely attributed to Winston Churchill, and I used one of them as an epigraph of my book, “The Incomplete Book of Running:” “When you’re going through hell… keep going.” Keep going, everyone. And Happy New Year!

Blog post: Just quit Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it. open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...

This year, instead of lowering costs for you, Donald Trump has worked hard to make himself, his family, and his billionaire buddies even richer.

On my far-too-late realization that science is done by people, and that people are idiosyncratic (and sometimes weird), and that this matters in all kinds of interesting ways.

Pete Hegseth needs to resign or be fired. Now. He’s a walking, talking national security embarrassment. The disastrous and illegal Venezuela strikes - and his refusal to accept responsibility - should be the last straw.

Trump's behavior crosses every line Public officials must be free to speak without fear of political retaliation Our democracy depends on that freedom👇

My 8-year-old is reading a graphic novel titled "Squirrel You Know It's True," so tonight I showed him where that title comes from. (I threw in "Blame It On the Rain" as a bonus.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdSm...

Today on Grading for Growth, Greg Crowther shares some data and reflects on the importance of letting students take home and reflect on feedback.

Thanks to @dccmath.bsky.social and @roberttalbert.bsky.social for the opportunity to write this and for excellent feedback on my first draft! gradingforgrowth.com/p/will-the-c...

Good question... But what metrics does one even use to assess the "success" of an illegal war?

My open letter to JD Vance: gregcrowther.com/2025/11/06/p...

I've said it before and I'll it again: there is no coherent strategy and anyone who tells you differently is selling you something. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/when-ameri...

We have been down this road before, and we should have learned our lesson from it. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

“Narco-terrorist” isn’t a thing. This is just lawless killing.

Still three full days for your children to dramatically change their minds about their costume

My 8yo seems to be imagining a podcast drawing inspiration from Casey Kasem's American Top 40, but featuring two Spanish phantoms that rank their favorite cheeses. He's calling it "Quesos, Ghost to Ghost."

A disturbingly realistic sounding scenario for 2026: changeshapers.substack.com/p/timeline-o...

My impression from BlueSky is that Seattle scientists, no longer able to count on the NIH and NSF, are finding reliable stability instead in...the Mariners.

Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

I'm disappointed that, while this article makes a few careful distinctions, it does not distinguish between mocking beliefs/actions and mocking physical appearance. In general, it's not great to respond to cruelty with more cruelty.

New, horrifying Eli Saslow just dropped. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...

Donald Trump has been illegally shutting down the parts of government he doesn't like and firing tens of thousands of federal workers since Day One. Republicans’ shutdown doesn't give him any more power to create chaos. It’s workers and the American people who will suffer.

NSF instructs peer reviewers not to use the first person in writing a review. Why on earth? And isn't this terrible advice?

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that intelligence shows anything “without a doubt,” but even if the intelligence was water-tight, this strike was still murder. No law permits the deliberate, premeditated killing of civilians.