NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics? 1) Write NSF 2) Write your Congressperson 3) CC us at [email protected] so we can compile + follow up Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

To echo others, I have written a few dozen recommendation letters/email recommendations in my 12 years of university teaching and of fucking course I have NEVER felt the need to describe a student's physical appearance in any of them, what the actual fuck...

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

In honor of the athletics budget town hall tomorrow about a new student fee to primarily fund athletics: 10 SJSU assistant football coaches appear to make more money than full Profs like me (some over double as much) and the head coach makes over twice as much as our president. #priorities

Going to try and watch this until I’m blinded by rage

i know portland doesn’t count as real america on the east coast but i saw very little national news coverage of this over the weekend—and the coverage i did see wasn’t prominent. i think a bunch of little kids and nurses and families getting gassed is newsworthy

Tear gas is banned in international warfare, yet classified as a “riot control agent” that law enforcement can use for crowd control. “It just doesn’t work well, and it hits the weakest people the most, and causes the most complications in them,” an anesthesiology professor at Duke University said.

Lead (Pb) in archived hair in Salt Lake City. "Lead (Pb) in archived hair documents a decline in lead exposure to humans since the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency " www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The California State University system spent $16.9 million last year giving ChatGPT to all students, faculty, and staff. We are asking the CSU chancellor not to renew the contract with OpenAI when it expires. Anyone can sign the petition — link below!

Meanwhile, at a school and university near you, AI tools that have yet to be tested on the types of students and subjects you teach are being rolled out to/in them without robust discussion and analysis. It's a major, shameful failing of the management of education systems.

Well, that’ll wreck you. Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

Another view of "Love Thy Neighbor" from first hand account of detention in Minnesota: www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

Time to call California state legislators. ICE really likes using private prisons because they can avoid accountability by pushing it off to a third party. Taxing them makes them a lot less attractive. www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/27/b...

The US government lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs last year, according to an analysis by Science of newly released OPM data, with 11 departures for every hire. And many OPM calls "voluntary" separations were probably pushed. www.science.org/content/arti...

Thank you @liccardo.house.gov for signing on to the effort to impeach Kristi Noem and hold ICE accountable for their unconstitutional and criminal actions.

My sister-in-law's dad died last week, in hospice in the VA hospital in Minneapolis. I just learned Alex Pretti was part of his care team. They shot Alex less than 1/2 mile from my niece's house while doing the same observation work that my niece is doing. These are real people. Step up folks!

Instead of buying cheap Valentines at a place you don’t want to support, strongly suggest the super awesome science valentines from @skypeascientist.bsky.social. Daughter gave the Love Bugs ones last year and we just ordered the marine theme ones. squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/deep...

We the people have the power. Join us tomorrow, January 26, for a virtual training on how to exercise your right to document ICE abuses in your community. RSVP using the link below. When using that link, Indivisible will know you came from us; their privacy policy applies.

Really hard to look at this and all the other examples of bravery and kindness from ordinary people in this moment not think also of the tremendous cowardice exhibited over the past year by some of the richest, most well-protected people in business, media and politics

Tip for Californians- @padilla.senate.gov doesn’t allow VM at his DC office during non business hours (which seriously??) but you can leave a message at a local office. Neither CA Senators ever have people answering the phones in my experience at any office even during business hours.

No science or nature today. ICE just murdered another person in my home state, an ICU nurse working with vets & now they're trying to frame him for the action . All because ICE is angry & afraid of the 50000 Minnesotans who marched yesterday. If you're not calling Congress you're letting them down

CC @liccardo.house.gov @padilla.senate.gov and @schiff.senate.gov

This is the chair of ACIP. Experimenting on America's kids. HE'S GOT TO GO. “What we’re going to have is a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles,” he said. “What is the new incidence of hospitalization? What’s the incidence of death?” www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/v....

Cal State University’s deal with OpenAI — providing ChatGPT to all faculty, students, and staff — will expire in June 2026. Amid the prospect of layoffs in the CSU, we’re asking the chancellor not to renew this costly and demoralizing contract. Link below and anyone can sign:

This makes me so angry that it almost takes my breath away, but I think what Stephen Miller et al do not understand is that this will make a lot of people who are a lot further to my right just as angry, too www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

he's demanding control over a sovereign nation in an email to a second sovereign nation because a wholly different third sovereign nation didn't give him a prize remove him from power, the bar isn't even in the ground anymore it's buried six inches under the floor

For some reason, very few people these days will stand up and say it, but: the US federal bureaucracy is one of the great wonders of the world, staffed with incredibly diligent people who do their jobs well and care deeply. Trump's destruction of the federal apparaus was a historic crime.

This was a fascinating read!

Kennedy, obsessed with vaxxed/unvaxxed studies that would not be approved by US ethical review boards, planned to fund one in West Africa — one that would have caused unnecessary disease and death for extremely vulnerable children. After negative media attention, it was canceled. Coverage matters.

Still disappointed to not see my rep @liccardo.house.gov supporting Noem's impeachment. As usual, no info available from office staff-just told to check social media. Love to hear what actions he would support to stop ICE from shooting & tear gassing people and entering homes w/o warrants.

this is all to say that should democrats win the house and senate this november, they should hold similarly dramatic — which is to say televised and highly publicized — hearings on the conduct of ICE and CBP, with testimony from victims. we want as much of *this* as possible in the record. (3/?)

I've been calling his office to ask him to support impeachment too. Even set up a feed of Democrats announcing their support for impeachment on here. bsky.app/profile/davi...

Disappointed that I don't see my rep @liccardo.house.gov on this list. ICE is acting with impunity and Congress needs to step up.

Trump’s EPA is now ONLY considering the costs to corporations when setting air pollution rules, not how many lives could be saved. He does not care if you live or die — if it means his billionaire buddies can save a buck. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

Remembering today that having your heart broken is a necessary step on the path to becoming fully human. Whichever heartbreak is your first, it’s probably critical that a state break your heart so that you can develop a political imagination. If this is your first, I’m sorry and also welcome.

Once again, I implore media outlets to stop saying these are CDC decisions. These are changes being made unilaterally by RFK Jr. against the expert advice of CDC scientists. I note that RFK Jr. no longer recommends flu vaccine for kids in the midst of a horrible influenza year.

"I don’t know why my fellowship was terminated. I suspect that it has something to do with studying a species that doesn’t fit the binary of what we expect to see in nature, with completely different males and females." @carlzimmer.com profiles my wonderful coauthor @jjinsing.bsky.social Gift link.

Updating this graph for the holidays 🎁 (datapoints are a selection of journals publishing in neuroscience)

Congratulations to everyone who wrote an op-ed about how he just wants americans to eat better

As someone not with NCAR, I use NCAR-based software everyday to help identify and track regions of excessive precipitation to help NWS forecasters protect lives and property. NCAR is extremely valuable and we need them.

Why read a 300-word "abstract" summary of a paper written by the actual authors when one can read a 300-word summary produced by an AI prone to hallucinations?

At least two of the Brown University students who were on campus when a deadly shooting unfolded there on Saturday have survived school shootings before. “What I’ve been feeling most is just, like, how dare this country allow this to happen to someone like me twice?”

Gun violence is the number-one cause of death for children. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Each semester I go in my classroom and I try to figure out what we would use to block the doors, if it would be safe to crawl out the windows, where we could hide if there was a mass shooter in campus. It’s such an indictment of this country how we have normalized these preventable tragedies.

This is an absolutely bonkers story. Not the craziest thing but as a physiologist dropping them at 15000ft w no acclimatization and expecting them to not only climb a very challenging mountain but also set up equipment is insane. Also not realizing the heat of the generator would cause issues?!!

A few weeks ago graffiti threatening a mass shooting targeting certain groups was found on my campus. While the police did not find it a credible threat, only 22/115 students came to my class the next day. I wonder how many of my students have lived through a mass shooting. #GunSenseNow.

in every other advanced nation this is all but impossible statistically but we live in America, a nation that chooses when, where, and how to be exceptional the power to do marvelous or terrible things on a global scale is in our hands

Please join me in signing and sharing this petition, and calling your Rep in the House. RFK Jr. must go!

I still can’t believe the National Science Foundation is being forced to move out of their brand new, purpose-built building because the HUD secretary thought his building was ugly. The Trump administration is destroying the best parts of this country, and it will take decades to rebuild.