#chemsky #compchem #machinelearning #PhDposition #MaterialScience #Heidelberg

In January, I start teaching a grad seminar on disability justice. I'd welcome word of any favorite pieces/books you might have! [image of a stack of books in disability studies--books I'm thinking with, though not necessarily teaching]

📚 Published peer review reports have higher informative content than unpublished reports www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

An already severely lacking system is now facing debacle. Perhaps it would be easier to understand thus way: you are biting the hand that feeds you. Stop. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

More than 1000 French academics from universities countrywide have signed a manifesto declaring their conscientious objection to the deployment of degenerative AI in their institutions. #ResistAI ✊🏽

Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who tackled one of the Bondi killers, became an Australian citizen 3 years ago. His deed was "his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship." He took 5 bullets, and fears he'll lose his left arm. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

While Amazon is investing billions of dollars to expand AI, independent bookstores are hosting community events, personally recommending books to readers, and providing a space that is safe and welcoming during a time when we need them most. Never underestimate the power of a local bookstore.

Amazing!! Women Help Women (womenhelp.org) is manufacturing their own abortion pills in order to make abortion safer, simpler and more accessible across borders. They designed an eco-friendly combi-pack that's easier to mail discreetly and centred around women’s experiences and needs.

I had to re-read this a few times because it is hard to believe. Demand from proposed new data centres might be as high as 5.8GW, equivalent to *peak electricity demand for the entire country*. www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

For people thinking: "whew, it's just for classes where they teach about race and gender": (1) what is wrong with you? That's unacceptable. (2) the obvious goal is to dramatically expand this to limit what all faculty can teach

Julia Hartley-Brewer: Why is colonialism bad? Me: “When Britain arrived in 1700s, India had 27% of global GDP. After 200 years of theft and millions starved to death, by 1947 India had 3% of global GDP, 90% living below the poverty line, a literacy rate of 17% and life expectancy of 27”

When transphobic “academics” complained about a “chilling effect” on their “research” they meant people describing their transphobic “research” as transphobic. Now there is a REAL chilling effect for trans academics of top-down establishment measures like fines & toilet bans. archive.is/oYqXS

During the debate, I will pose a moral question. “What human, social, and environmental cost are you willing to accept to help prepare your next publication or dashboard?” We each need to decide this when considering whether to use an LLM to help with our research.

As a Purdue alum, this is a shameful move. What I valued about my Purdue CS education was the intentionality given to thinking about process, how to treat programming as a set of idioms to be thoroughly understood and implemented, no matter the programming language. >>

“What I’ve been feeling most is just, like, how dare this country allow this to happen to someone like me twice?” Weissman told the New York Times.

The New School was founded by Columbia University professors who wanted a university run by the faculty with minimal administration. For over 100 years it has been a unique institution with progressive values and incredible students and faculty from Ai Weiwei to Hannah Arendt. We are devastated.

Last week, the New School issued voluntary separation & early retirement offers to 40% of the full-time faculty & the majority of non-union staff. These cuts to the bone are an ideological attempt to decimate historic spaces of critical inquiry & social justice. Share our statement tr.ee/qQBIDCpIuj

This is an excellent piece: embryo selection isn’t necessarily eugenics but the founder of Herasight is openly advocating for eugenics, largely without pushback from academics or academic societies

I wrote about the bizarre case of Herasight, the embryo selection company going all in on eugenics.

Reminder for everyone: Children have rights. Parents have responsibilities.

Structural Reducibility of Hypergraphs link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/...

We (@crossdale.bsky.social, Christina Pantazis, @roxana-pessoa.bsky.social, Tiê Franco Brotto and I) present the first academic peer-reviewed article, studying the criminalisation and repression of climate and environmental protest as a global phenomenon. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

AS A PROFESSOR, I AM ASKING HOW ARE OUR STUDENTS SUPPOSED TO LEARN IN THESE CONDITIONS? HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GO TO SCHOOL AND TAKE EXAMS KNOWING SOMEONE MIGHT JUST SHOW UP WITH AN EASY TO ACQUIRE AUTOMATIC WEAPON? HOW??????????

New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/

He cited Audre Lorde in his resignation letter. This is a good quote on silence: “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” Related: ““When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision—then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid”

The Infinite Monkey Cage/BBC resignation letter of @robinince.bsky.social has now simply got me thinking about all the people who don’t use their platform and privilege to support those lacking both… 👀

I'll talk about #ResearchIntegrity at the Virtual Winter School on Computational Chemistry @vwscc.bsky.social #CompChemSky on Jan, 28th, 9:00 CET Thanks again to the VWSCC Team for the kind invitation, in particular Sandra Gomez @quimicafisica1.bsky.social

Exciting news! Our article “Problem-Based Learning in Sustainable Chemistry: A Student Startup Model with PET as a Case Study” (with Buse Sonmez) has been accepted in @suscircnow.bsky.social. #ChemEd #SustainableChemistry #GreenChemistry #GreenChemistryEducation #ChemSky

Behind this lies a structural reality: in many countries, more than two thirds of researchers work on short-term contracts with limited prospects for tenure. Project funding dictates employment, institutions rely on contingent labor, and early-career scientists face instability. #philsci #SciComm

Academic careers run on precarity. Years of temporary contracts, relocations, endless applications—just to “maybe” earn stability someday. How much talent is lost because researchers spend more time surviving the system than advancing knowledge? #TenureTrack #SciencePolicy #philsci #SciComm

WOW. @haleaziz.bsky.social with a new scoop: ICE now gets a running list of every person who is going to be taking a domestic flight inside the United States from the TSA and runs it through their database looking for targets. This explains the Babson College student's arrest.

Thanks to generous funding from the @sloanfoundation.bsky.social, John Basl and I are thrilled to be running the AI and Data Ethics summer school in 2026! ~12 graduate students, $10k stipend, 9 weeks to learn about scientific and ethical issues raised by AI. Please apply! aidesummer.org

I need help! 🟢 One reviewer report for this JOSS article is complete. 🟠 Since we haven't got a response from the second reviewer, we need to assign a new one. 🔵 Any volunteers to review the manuscript? 🟣 Regression estimators and R. Thank you in advance! github.com/openjournals...

Is the US seriously going to do DNA sequencing of *every single visitor* to the country? And what happens to all of that data? How long can they keep it, and who will have access? This is some Stasi-level bs. #Trumpland #USFascism

NEW: Five years of social media history is only a fraction of what the US Government will shortly demand of overseas visitors. The full requirements will end tourism in the United States. Below is the full, mind-blowing list. 🚨THEY. WANT. YOUR. DNA.🚨 1/

NSF - Forced reorg - POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements) - Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …) I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing. “Details matter” 🙃

Disabled scientists shouldn’t have to self-advocate just to do their jobs @rsc.org Accessible labs = innovation #ChemSky #DisabledInSTEM Adjustable fume hoods to assistive tech, solutions are here NOW we need action #InclusiveLabsRSC How can we drive meaningful change? www.rsc.org/news/disabil...

10 Dec 2025 @rikiwilchins.bsky.social -- Northern CA's biggest provider of GAC, Sutter Health is apparently bowing to administration pressure and ending its pediatric care program Dec 10th, leaving hundreds of parents and their kids across the Bay Area medically stranded.

Time for every academic to demand that international conferences not be held in the US

If you missed the paper from Konni, Hannes, and Aron, the results are nicely summarized in the PR below 👇 Thank you @unibayreuth.bsky.social and @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social for the great collaborations! 🔗Original paper: advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Always useful for scientists making figures ⚗️ 🧪

Time to stop working for free to springer and elsevier.

In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science. The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.

For anyone interested in the treatment of EDs: doi.org/10.20935/MHe... James Downs, Marissa Adams #AcademicBluesky

#AcadLife #SOGIData #LGBTDemography #GenderStudies #translivesmatter

A new issue of our open-access journal, The Political Librarian, includes ‘We Will Not Be Erased: A Militant Manifesto for Libraries’ by Nicole A. Cooke. buff.ly/ywXmp6s

The Journal of Philosophical Logic is dead (again!?). Long live Philosophical Logic! https://www.openlibhums.org/news/875/

Highly recommended for all mentors and advisers who work with deaf students in graduate programs: academic.oup.com/jdsde/advanc...

'Berkovic said it was difficult to imagine the Human Genome Project gaining traction in the current funding environment, where policymakers expect predetermined results from their investments. Much of its $3 billion...costs were met, somewhat inexplicably, by the US Department of Energy.' 1/2