I never met Raul in person, but deeply admired him on Twitter and Bluesky. A true public scholar committed to helping us all succeed in academia and an incredible son who built his career in Mexico so he could be near his mother. May you rest well, Raul.

I never met Prof. Pacheco-Vega IRL & only knew him from social media. Over and over again, mostly junior scholars & people doing non-mainstream research said how kind he was. The outpouring of grief & love for him is striking tonight. In a biz full of smart people, his kindness distinguished him.

If you’re interested in dams, this is a good read. I used to live in PA and had heard about the infamous Johnstown Flood of 1889, but had no clue it was due to a dam failure. Or to the reckless actions of rich white men.

It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

Only in Minneapolis. One of the classes in my kid’s preschool made their own version of the Walker Art Center’s spoon and cherry sculpture 🥄🍒

This is bad. Bad for researchers. Bad for science. Bad for universities. Bad for professional associations. For example: 1. Every award would be vetted by political appointees, who could overrule peer reviewers and deny the award if it doesn't advance the president's priorities. 1/🧵

I’m writing a qualitative paper for a journal with a 9,000 word limit including appendices and it…ain’t easy.

Jacob Lawrence, "The Libraries Are Appreciated," 1943 www.philamuseum.org/objects/59568

Academic journals let qualitative researchers write longer papers challenge

We are renovating our kitchen and the little construction firm we are working with is just fabulous. Plus the master carpenters currently installing our new cabinets are a woman and a nonbinary person. I love Minneapolis.

Minneapolis has officially earned its renewal of its UNICEF Child Friendly City designation, making it the first U.S. city to achieve this milestone. 1/

I switched the search engine on my computer and phone to Duck Duck Go a few months ago because I was sick of seeing the AI overview. It was easy and you can too! time.com/article/2026...

If this is what Israel does to international, including Western protesters, imagine what it does to defenseless Palestinians under its control. www.cnn.com/2026/05/22/m...

“Units of the NIH are privately directing grantees to request permission in advance for any co-authorship with a scholar affiliated with a foreign institution, even if all the work was done in the United States.” Grantees also told to remove papers with foreign authors from progress reports.

Beavers dams are the best kind of dams. Hunted virtually to extinction 400 years ago, only 1,200 beavers were left in Europe and northern Asia at the start of the 20th century. Their successful reintroduction has done wonders for ecosystems and climate resilience. 🦫 www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...

I watched a documentary about Lego on my flight home and it was super interesting. Did you know: -The name is derived from the Danish phrase “leg godt”, which means “play well”. -By 2032 they plan for all bricks to be made from sustainable materials — recycled or bio-based plastic.

I would have stepped right over these small bricks in the sidewalk if my Italian friend hadn’t pointed them out. They are memorials for Jews who had lived in Ferrara and Florence before being sent to Auschwitz. Only one made it out alive. Franca was 28 and Marcello was 15 when they were killed.

Rainforests being pushed to breaking point by new demands for resources, report says. The living biosphere is being murdered on *our* watch, so every one of us is living at probably THE most crucial moment in human history. Get into the fight to save nature 💪🏽 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

🇧🇷Pica-pau-dourado-escuro 🌎Piculus chrysochloros Conservação: Pouco Preocupante O pica-pau-dourado-escuro é uma ave da ordem Piciformes da família Picidae 📷 Celso B Almeida

The #TransitCat of the day enjoys a visit to an Italian cafe, of course.💜

Everything is old in Italy. Even the kid seats on the bikes.

this king ordered a caffe meowcchiato

I caught a student using AI by discovering fake citations in her paper. The citations were by real researchers, in real journals, on topics they really studied. It’s just that the actual articles didn’t exist. This makes it hard to detect AI references. Yet another challenge for peer review.

We were sitting at a cafe in Ferrara when a guy biked up with his cat in a carrier in his bike basket. The cat then sat on a chair at the table while he had coffee with his friends.

🇧🇷Tiriba-de-testa-azul 🌎Pyrrhura picta Conservação: Pouco Preocupante A tiriba-de-testa-azul é um Psittaciforme da família Psittacidae. 📷 Adolfo Alarcon

Venice is a bizarre city that feels like a theme park, but I really liked these columns from the 13th century. Especially the first one of a woman eating a chicken leg.

My new article on the “Pig in the Python” argues that the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. 1/28

They just don’t make things like they used to (in the 1500 and 1600s).

In Europe the cars get smaller and smaller (and more electric). In the US they keep getting bigger. Sigh.

The Twin Cities has among the highest concentrations of trans people in the country, if not THE highest. I run into gender non-conforming people every single day in Minneapolis. We welcome you, we appreciate you, and we want you to be part of our quirky, caring community.

I’m at a museum at the University of Bologna looking at maps and globes from the 1600s. Did you know that Europeans back then thought that California was an island separated from the rest of the continent by the “Red Sea”?

I'd really like to see Cornell raise the funds for a fitting memorial to a young man (and rural sociology major) who was murdered by white supremacists for trying to protect Black Americans' right to vote. Fundraising priorities reflect university priorities. www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...

I was just asked to review a paper for a journal that pays $350 for the review. Perhaps this is the norm for econ journals, but it is definitely NOT the norm in the journals I typically review for. In an era of broken peer review, this is an excellent incentive for getting reviewers to agree!

Federally funded science can lead to incredible discoveries. If only this administration had slightly less disdain for universities and their researchers. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/h...

Anyone in the Twin Cities area interested in getting rooftop solar? We are really happy with the company we used, and you can get $500 off your solar system if I refer you during the month of May. ☀️💸☀️

Atmospheric CO₂ of 340 ppm

I like this approach. We can’t abandon the policy goal but it’s worth evaluating what we can achieve lead with it campaign-wise.

Polling has shown that climate change is among the issues Americans care about least. As someone who studies climate change and health, I find this absurd/depressing/shortsighted. But Mamdani barely mentioned climate, and his policies will be good for climate change. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/o...

Another zinger was him blaming stagnation in US life expectancy on NIH-funded research not being innovative enough. The nerve to say this to a bunch of demographers, many of whom study the social determinants of health. Whew.

Heading back home after a wonderful PAA in St. Louis, chock full of demographer friends from near and far. But not before @andyfenelon.bsky.social and I made the obligatory trip to the top of the arch.

I just checked my Canvas site and it loaded just fine. Is the hack over? If not, what am I missing here?

:( :( :( more like cantvas

Just another day in dystopia. “The funds would be pulled from money that Congress appropriated for health programs tackling malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, nutrition…to pay for things like legal costs, pending invoices and asset sales” www.cnn.com/2026/05/07/w...

This is NOT the news I was hoping for. The Canadian wildfires have taken a huge toll on our air quality the past few summers. And it’s likely to keep getting worse with climate change. Sigh.

Excited to be settling into a #PAA2026 session hosted by GPAC on how scientists can effectively draft and submit op-eds to advocate for population science and crucial data infrastructure.

At a session on pronatalism and antinatalism at #PAA2026. @alisongemmill.bsky.social’s talk about “population chatter”—in this case YouTube comments on videos about fertility change—was fascinating.

Here’s another. Any ideas what train station this is?

TIL about this; check out the linked post on the history of this statue

A few weeks ago I posted about the negatives we found behind our kitchen wall during renovation. We figured out that they are from the family who lived in our house in the 1940s and 50s. Well well just got the negatives developed and the photos look so good for being buried in rubble for 70 years!

I will always be a New Yorker, but my kids are Minnesotans. Case in point, my 3-year-old: