Lots of political posturing this morning about whether Canada should have taxpayer subsidized school lunch programs. So let's summarize the peer-reviewed evidence: Thread [1/8]

The concept of Andrew Scheer hiding behind the House chamber curtains during the entire budget vote yesterday is wildly funny. He was like the Wizard of Oz if the Wizard had been weirdly into milk products

“At $73 billion in direct impact on the national GDP, Canada’s cultural industries contribute more than oil and gas extraction at $71 billion.” www.timescolonist.com/opinion/comm...

"Are we going to support talent here in Canada and the development of our students and our researchers who are here?'" Whitaker asked…simply injecting a wave of high-profile academics at the top without supporting the foundation beneath them is "going to leave us short-changed." @caut.bsky.social

abolish letters of reference

Everything so stupid but I have faith it can get stupider

With sequencing of Hitler's DNA making headlines, time for a reminder: analysing a polygenic score from a dead historically-significant figure won't give new insights into that person's behaviour. In a brief paper last year, we used Beethoven's genome to directly illustrate the fallacies involved.🧪👇

Maybe it’s just the Humanities professor in me, but let it be noted that events of today (ahem) have demonstrated the value of being able to assess a large volume of qualitative data and do careful textual analysis with deep attention to context.

First time on Bsky and first big announcement! I am excited to announce that our new study explaining the missing heritability of many phenotypes using WGS data from ~347,000 UK Biobank participants has just been published in @Nature. Our manuscript is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Great that top Canadian universities are hiring top scholars (why wouldn't they?) but the Ontario Progressive Conservative government has starved the post-secondary sector and the province has the lowest per-student funding of any Canadian province. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/educa...

I feel like the business community in Canada is just not getting the message - there is no miracle deal with Trump and any arrangement we make will be immediately upended when he somehow takes offence at some trivial thing.

Folks have been telling me they’ve noticed I’ve gotten “a lot more political” on social media this year. Of course I have. The circumstances have gotten nightmarishly worse, and the consequences of inaction and staying silent infinitely more obvious. Everyone needs to get “a lot more political.”

Joining Gander Social

Talked about the prospect of another pipeline and Carney's recent comments on my Monday political panel. As I said, the biggest impediment isn't regulations or even Indigenous opposition but the lack of a viable business case. www.nationalobserver.com/2025/10/23/o...

🚨🧠🚨 POSTDOC POSITION 🚨🧠🚨 in my lab: www.ru.nl/en/working-a... Connectivity in Working Memory. Deadline 12 Nov! Apply via website; please repost.

Annette Karmiloff-Smith. She ended every seminar/keynote I ever saw with a picture of her kids and grandkids as a note on what's important and that succesful women in academia can have a family too. I told her the second time how inspirational I'd found that and she was absolutely lovely.

Why anybody would choose to vacation in a fascist state where people get picked up on their school run and thrown into privately owned concentration camps is a mystery to me.

It’s begun. Just saw the first snowflakes of the season in Londontario. Could see up to 10 cm by Tuesday, and likely more in typical snowbelt areas. #WinterIsComing

My favourite hotel on earth (at least in Montreal). It is really a brutalist low rise motor hotel high a top of a concrete plinth. It remains gorgeous & perfect 60 years later. Heaven.

THINGS ARE PRETTY GOOD HERE 🇨🇦 PeaceLoveCanada.ca

The brilliant Andrew Chang in his @cbcradiocanada.bsky.social 'About that' feature provides a detailed analysis regarding the legality of the Trump tarrifs: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksjq...

Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).

Zain Velji on the Conservative Party's handling of Matt Jeneroux's resignation: "Andrew Scheer ultimately saying that the Liberals have the political skill to stare into your soul and pick you off the Conservative caucus lineup is like one of the weirdest messages I've ever heard."

We are going to be OK

A couple weeks ago a friend was telling me about someone she knew who had been on maternity leave, and said she had taken "the full year." I said, "A whole year? Wow, what kind of fancy job does she have that gives her a YEAR of leave?" and my friend looked surprised & said, "... welcome to Canada?"

Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...

This is Finn. His human stopped scratching his back, so he had to take matters into his own hands. 13/10 (TT: anna.ve.w)

The 🇨🇦 Standing Committee on Science and Research passed a modified resolution this afternoon that the requested ricouncil applicant and reviewer data can be aggregated and anonymized. Thanks to the many researchers who signed letters pointing out legitimate data privacy concerns. 👏👏

It’s insulting to tell 🇨🇦 scientists we need international scientists to run to our rescue & ensure innovation. 🇨🇦 scientists have exceeded expectations with paltry funding. If the gov funded Tricouncil > & sustainably; imagine how innovative we’d already be!! /End

Wow

Mamdani: "New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant."

Mamdani: After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.

✌️❤️🍎 Hope

This is important. It means the Trudeau era increases to the Tricouncils are preserved, but with a bit of a haircut. Funding will go up, just not by as much. At least till the hordes of researchers from abroad come.

I asked Premier Ford why public colleges and universities are being left behind while private colleges with political connections get millions from the Skills Development Fund. His Minister ignored my question & stuck to his talking points. Ontarios deserve real answers. #onpoli

Here's our paper in measuring individual score change in Kindergarten children using our screening measure. Check out our change score calculator described in the paper and available online. @tpham62.bsky.social @numcog.bsky.social @drmarcj.bsky.social Janis Oram www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15...

JASP Raincloud plots! More transparency, clearer patterns, better science. New BRM paper by @vlott.bsky.social, @donvdbergh.bsky.social, @fbartos.bsky.social, @njudd.com, @jordyvanlangen.bsky.social, @lukekorthals.bsky.social, @rogierk.bsky.social, @ejwagenmakers.bsky.social et al.

it actually means you're an unfunny little worm of a man, hope this helps!

oh cool an extra hour of 2025, exactly what everyone wanted

and to think we could have been reminded what happiness was like

I'm proud to announce the launch of JUMP Math Prima—an evidence-based preschool supplement developed with Dr. Tracy Solomon to support early math learning through purposeful play and guided exploration. To learn more, please contact my team at [jumpmath.org].

Love fall on campus #westernu

Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵

“I get a vaccine not just for myself, but because it also lowers the risk that I will bring something home to my family or that I will be spreading one of these diseases to other people.” www.ctvnews.ca/health/artic...

[email protected] CRC in Sensorimotor Neuroscience and @schulichmeddent.bsky.social professor and his collaborators recently published in Nature on how our brains not only plan out our actions, but they actually anticipate unexpected disturbances. Learn more: news.westernu.ca/2025/10/sens...

Pete Hoekstra is the worst American ambassador to Canada. He can fuck right off and go back to his dear leader, Donald Trump. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Businesses here in Singapore invested nearly $8 billion in Canada last year.   We will expand on that — to attract more investments, find new customers for Canadian industries, and create new opportunities for workers and businesses in Canada.

We have an open postdoc position in Social Science Genomics in Berlin! Includes gene-environment interplay within German population cohorts & experimental online survey studies to probe public perceptions of potential DNA biomarker applications 🔗 www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/2196134/2025...

Canadians care about the world and we care about each other. So we’re going to fight climate change and build a stronger, more competitive economy – together.

Incredible! "Trump to raise tariffs on Canada by 10% over Ontario’s Reagan ad" The US has elected a baby man as president & he behaves accordingly. The US needs to sort out its political system so that it can promote a competent leader. www.ft.com/content/8e90...