Dear funding agencies, I know we all want to discover the wonder drug that will cure the horrible diseases, but to do that, we need to invest in basic, unsexy, foundational research on how the systems work. Funding can’t all be drug development. Sincerely, Looking for basic research grants.

Are you passionate about solutions-based research to help address planetary health challenges? The Planetary GeoHealth Lab may be the right place for you! Looking for 1-2 graduate students Interested? Please fill out this form: federicoandrade.github.io

Work less, be more productive? Study in 6 countries found 4-day work week led to: ⬆️wellbeing ⬇️burnout ⬆️job satisfaction Likely due to better sleep, improved work ability & less fatigue. This was compared to companies that stayed with 5-day work week. #publichealth www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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It is never helpful to remind one grieving of what they have not lost or of the fact that it could have been worse. We do not grieve what we have but what we do not have. We compare our loss to the good we had, not to the bad that never happened. The empty space is that — empty.

Once again, to inject some research into this conversation...although millionaires often threaten to move if taxed, that tends not to actually happen. The millionaire tax flight thing is a myth. See book below ⤵️ www.sup.org/books/sociol...

This is a Hall of Fame reader comment on a very reactionary op-ed about Zohran Mamdani's victory that was published in my local paper today.

Advice to incoming interns:

Congratulations, the universe sent you this dog because you have been chosen. Joy awaits. 13/10

It’s weather like this when you really start to realize how many streets have zero trees. ☀️🥵 More funding for more trees! 🌳

I challenge Sam Altman to climb K2 using an AI route shortener

“Historically, no one lived past age 35” "I’ve heard *so* many versions of this claim, including recently from a menopause doctor (implying menopause is not “natural” because noone lived long enough to go through it). Every time someone states this “fact,” a demographer loses a piece of their soul"

The first U.S. bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV—a refugee himself—is mobilizing priests to accompany migrants at immigration court on June 20. (Via Christopher Hale)

🔴The ‘Millionaire Exodus’ the UK Media Told You About Never Actually Happened The equivalent of 30 stories a day were published about an exodus of wealthy people that a new study finds was “non existent” bylinetimes.com/2025/06/10/t...

Another excellent piece from a demographer, this time Stuart Gietel-Basten, on how "pronatalism is a dead end" "Without addressing the root causes of low fertility—inequality, instability, and the incompatibility of work and family life—top-down efforts to “encourage” childbearing will fail"

Ok, time for a short thread about this paper. My sense over the past six months or so is that chain-of-thought prompting as used in e.g. ChatGPT o.3 improves substantially upon previous systems such as ChatGPT 4.o, at least for certain tasks. But how revolutionary is it?

Here's a baby otter to start your week.

Tips For First-Time Hikers theonion.com/tips-fo...

I ran an experiment, simultaneously posting articles on Bluesky and X, and then testing to see how many people actually clicked and read them. The numbers on Bluesky are higher, both because the X algorithm downranks journalism, and because Bluesky attracts readers, not just shitposters.

The AI industry is full of blatant lies, but the claim that we can reliably detect AI-generated writing is one of the worst. The idea that these pseudoscientific AI writing detectors are being used to justify punishing young people makes me incandescent with rage.

Gorgeous, devastating writing by @tessairini.bsky.social telling the story of one of my grad school heroes, Daniel Janzen, witness the disappearance of life he's spent his career studying.

We're looking for a new PhD candidate to join the lab. Please share 🌱😄

Tip for PhD applicants reaching out to prospective advisors: Don’t use an LLM to write these emails. It’s not a great first impression to express your admiration for a recent paper the faculty member published if that paper does not exist.

Just sharing that this would make an amazing film and we need ⁦‪Taika Waititi‬⁩ to do it. The bizarre story of when Australia went to war with emus—and lost

Carl Sagan speaking at MIT in 1987 on lowering our C02 emissions. Apply these words to any technological problem our world faces today and it holds up.

Hats off to the MPPGA Class of 2025! 🎓"The problems are big but so are our learnings, so is our hope, and so is our responsibility.” #UBCGrad https://sppga.ubc.ca/news/hats-off-to-the-mppga-class-of-2025/

Hard work. Friday. Good morning Blue Sky

“Life is better when we leap together.” Kermit the Frog delivered a commencement speech at the University of Maryland on Thursday, the alma mater of his creator, Jim Henson. nyti.ms/4dwMuhQ

Ran into this beauty while out for a walk in the woods today. #wildlife #birds #owls

lol

The children's series has found a new streaming home — Netflix, PBS stations and PBS KIDS will air new episodes on the same day. And Netflix will also run 90 hours from the Sesame Street library.

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READ. THE. SUBHEAD.

Choose Science. Choose Europe. A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call is now open. With a budget of €404.3 million, it will support around 1,650 researchers from Europe and beyond. Apply by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF

Only important news. (Rat)

Which academic communities have a good record of sharing domain-specific open source tools? Bioinformatics and geospatial analysis comes to mind. I am trying to think about if they are examples to follow or if there is some difference in the domain (to Infectious disease modelling).

I made this video about Black Mirror and ChatGPT before the LAST season of Black Mirror, but I think all of this still holds and is a good reminder. :)

I would love to never see the phrase "little is known about" in a paper ever again. (1) Most of the time the authors are far more confident about that statement than they should be. (2) There are lots of things we know little about because no one cares. Just not knowing isn't a good motivation.

My daily reminder to just be present and enjoy myself

🌍📢 Exciting news! The ISEE Communications Committee is re-launching its support program to cover publication costs for early-stage investigators from LMICs publishing in Environmental Epidemiology. Apply before submission! 💡📝 🔗 To find out more: iseepi.org/news_manager...

Starting to dip my toe in the postdoc job search and would love to hear from Euro friends/followers - I'm trying to work in either Germany or Austria (my partner is German + lives in 🇩🇪), what do I need to know? Know anyone seeking postdocs working on trees, forest disturbances, pest outbreaks?

If you know me, you know I am obsessed with building dashboards. 😅 Well, I am excited to share that @ernesto-deleon.com, Max Paulus, & I were awarded a small grant to build an #rstats package to make them accessible to other researchers. And we’re hiring a Research Assistant to help us do that!

#TidyTuesday Week 15, 2025 - Base R Penguins 📊 A gender-based comparison of penguin body mass across species with median highlights, using Antarctic island data (2007–2009). 🔗: andresgonzalezstats.com/visualizatio... #DataViz #Rstats #ggplot2

This week's #TidyTuesday looking at data on timely and effective care by US state 📊 % healthcare workers vaccinated against flu 🗃️ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services #DataViz #Rstats #ggplot2 #r4ds

We're hiring! Come work at UIUC! Assistant Professor in Molecular Epidemiology Tenure-track, 9 month position Closing date March 21 illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

In response to the measles outbreak that started in west Texas, claims are circulating about the use of vitamin A, steroids, and antibiotics. There is no cure for measles. The only way to prevent measles is the safe and effective MMR vaccine. For more: podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/864-the-meas...

In England, people from ethnic minorities or living in more deprived areas are disproportionately affected by bloodstream infections. We've shown this with our latest study, just been published on @eurosurveillance.org. A thread 👇🏼