My quote of the day This is the greatest country under the sun. But we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty, cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice. Madam C. J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove)

Green memory, by Langston Hughes

There will come soft rains, by Sara Teasdale (War time)

🌿 Postdoc opportunity in plant evolutionary ecology/genetics! My lab in the Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to start Fall 2026. We study plant adaptation, using weeds as model systems. #Postdoc #EcoEvo Pls RT!

A light exists in spring, by Emily Dickinson

Are you in the majority? I like Daylight Savings Time, but the sun wouldn’t come up until after 8:00am in Connecticut in December. I may not like it that much. - 64% of Americans want to stop changing the clocks

Global Warming has Accelerated tamino.wordpress.com/2026/03/07/g...

The US army corps of engineers is considering, right now, what would be the largest destruction of coral reefs in US history. To make a port slightly bigger. People know this, right? www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi... 🧪🦑🌎

Vinay Prasad resigned. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

The 2nd edition of Kieran Healy’s book will come out next fall, and he’s made a freely available version of the draft availble.

Journal Submissions Riddled With AI-Created Fake Citations www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

My quote of the day The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Wow! I did not know this. I wonder if there’s a way to turn it off. If there is, I’ll put it in my .Rprofile.

I am absolutely holding Fisher Scientific to what is printed on this order.

If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!

This is an amazing piece of scientific satire by @russcd.bsky.social. The first sentence alone is a banger: "The defining goal of the academic endeavor is to establish a single perfect value that completely summarizes entire careers’ achievements." academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction

A massive bloom of rimu berries in New Zealand fueled a mating surge among the critically endangered Kākāpō. spklr.io/6044E87xp 📸: New Zealand Department of Conservation

A hopeful thought from Margaret Renkl in a perilous time - “To see a whooping crane in the wild is to be reminded that we nearly killed something miraculous — and then, almost unbelievably, we didn’t.”

So... A friend was supposed to give a PURELY SCIENTIFIC talk at NIH within the next couple of weeks and it was cancelled because of a "new process" where all speakers/talks have to be CLEARED BY A POLITICAL APPOINTEE.

The Intuition for Why You Always Need Robust Standard Errors - Data Colada datacolada.org/133

What Do Social Media Companies Fear? Time Management. - “The more you organize your analog life, the less appealing you’ll find the digital alternative.” calnewport.com/what-do-soci...

Florida Board Approves Ban on H-1B Visas - First Texas, now Florida.

Restoration Update: In the Wake of Klamath Dam Removal • The Revelator therevelator.org/klamath-rest... 🧪🦑🌎

In the Next Great Transformation AI will not eliminate genuine expertise; rather it will make it more valuable — Crooked Timber crookedtimber.org/2026/03/02/i...

We had a very handsome Northern Cardinal at our feeder this morning.

UNC Chancellor Scraps Secret Recording Policy - Here’s what the chancellor said: The whole idea was to create clarity and reassurance. That policy clearly has not achieved that aim.”

#SilentSunday Sunrise in Coventry, CT

Larry Summers Resigns From Harvard Amid Scrutiny of Epstein Ties, Capping a Tumultuous Downfall

They may not have been involved in Epstein’s crimes, but a lot of prominent academics liked associating with Epstein and the other prominent academics he attracted. - Unmasking Academe’s Gilded Boys’ Club

Breaking news: Anthropic said that it will not concede to the Pentagon’s terms for full access to its AI tool Claude, saying it cannot loosen its restrictions against use in fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.

Harvard Places Math Professor Martin Nowak on Paid Administrative Leave Over Epstein Ties

NSF Plans to Boost Staffing, Halve Grant Solicitations - Increasing the number of staff is necessary, but I’m skeptical that reducing the number of solicitations will benefit scientific research.

I have a male friend who spent some time in Axel's lab. About the 3rd conversation he had with Axel, Axel broke the ice with "So, have you fucked [a female postdoc in the lab] yet?" My friend was horrified...

St. John's University says it no longer recognizes faculty unions after 56 years

Most Conservative Students Don’t Feel Persecuted on Campus

Controversy Can Be Created - “The clear intent of the Texas law is…to encode in law that certain groups are right, by virtue of being who they are, and others are wrong. In other words, some people are special and the rules don’t apply to them.” www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Final curve, by Langston Hughes

#SilentSunday Union Pond, Manchester, CT

Three postdoctoral fellowships in quantitative biology are available as part of a new Quantitative Biology Initiative in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland. Best consideration date: 3/14 Job Ad: umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/j... Department: biology.umd.edu/people

My department at CSU Northridge is hiring a vertebrate functional morphologist! We've got a great EEB group, and we're looking for someone to carry forward a tradition of enriching organismal courses and community-engaged research. App review starts March 15 csucareers.calstate.edu/mob/cw/en-us...

Using AI for a review? I remain dubious, but it’s probably a less ridiculous idea than you think.

Good news? At least the FDA is now going to review it. They should never have declined. - F.D.A. Reverses Decision and Agrees to Review Moderna’s Flu Vaccine www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/h...

Also, please forgive me for ALWAYS ranting about this but: You can't really write good stuff out of thin air. You DO need to READ. Yes, I get and champion the Three Morning Pages, the Shitty First Draft, the 15-30 Minutes Writing Sprint, BUT you DO need to read. Read to improve your writing.

BioOne has reached its Subscribe to Open target. 71 titles from 54 professional societies are open access in 2026.

Florida's attorney general, who spends his time targeting companies for stuff like “radical LGBTQ+ activism,” is getting paid $100K a year as a Univ of Fla adjunct to teach a 2 hour/week law class. His salary is 8X higher than what the median adjunct earns. 1/ www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

Advice on how to include AI in PhD training. Tl;Dr Build domain expertise first so that you can judge the output of AI. Then learn how to apply AI. - Expertise Before Augmentation

There are rare circumstances when “utilize” is preferable to “use”, but the default should always be “use”. (And don’t use “utilize” at all unless you know the difference)