And yet, AI has made many aspects of life demonstrably worse.

It’s easier to date Kash long distance apparently.

We can do better than comparing people to arachnids/insects. I hate seeing insects used in this way.

The AI scientific method: Dubiously compile old data Consume a lot of energy Present true and untrue information with same confidence Generate a report claiming science has occurred

🚨🚨🚨 Science will be much more efficient without scientists. Universities are being destroyed because we don't NEED them anymore. Instead, all existing data will be fed to AI "agents" who will mine them to "test new hypotheses" and "generate scientific breakthroughs". 🤨🤢🤮 #academicsky #edusky 🟦🧠

When I was a grad student I was invited to submit a review by a friend of my PI. I submitted the first draft to the editor, and he spent the entire evening sending me minor text formatting and comma errors in the references. He mused to me and my PI that I must be too stupid to do this. 🙄

You know what has been a science triumph of epic proportion in my lifetime? The fight to diminish the damage wrought by HIV/AIDS. I really hope this is not the start of Bobby and Bhattacharaya returning us to the ravages of “herd immunity”.

Everyone loves to talk about Mothman, but almost no one including those in the cryptozoology community is willing to talk about the biggest threat to its survival, Akanthomyces, the unapologetic moth-destroying fungus! #Mushrooms #FungiFriends

This...is exactly the kind of theory that has been needed for longer than a decade in microbiome-host evolution studies

AND it axed countless research, library, and museum grants! THOUSANDS of student jobs lost and children prevented from learning ~humanities~

Learn more about Terry's mission to find the elusive alternate host of coffee leaf rust. ☕️🍃🔬🍄☠️ #mycomonday #herbarium #fungarium #fungi #coffee #rustfungi ag.purdue.edu/news/departm...

I’ll be your huckleberry, Charlie Brown.

Microbiologist Dr. Rita Colwell was born #OTD in 1934. She is recognized for her study of global infectious disease spread through water sources. Her research on cholera helped save 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 lives. She was the first female director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), 1998-2004. #WomenInSTEM

Though I’ve only encountered it a handful of times, the aborted form of the blushing rosette (Abortiporus biennis) is among my favorite fungi! These coral-like projections are not filled with basidiospores, but instead are filled with ellipsoid to subglobose asexual chlamydospores! #Mushrooms

Does this mean nobody is reading my lists of five accomplishments I sent to a full email?!

Elon Musk donated $277 million to Trump so he could steal the federal government’s data, dismantle the nation’s infrastructure, and stop foreign aid from going to nonwhite people. It’s a quid pro quo breathtaking in scope, corruption, and damage, & completely unprecedented in American history.

We cannot forget this or let this go. Just because it’s “gone” doesn’t mean: 1. Some of the people are still embedded in the govt in places with data access, and those people didn’t always go through proper background checks. 2. The damage doesn’t go away when the entity goes away.

TAKE ACTION! Hit the phones with us on Saturday and Sunday for @aftynbehn4tn, and help bring sanity back to science policy. Sign up at zurl.co/5aOiP (linked in our bio) to get started. All you need is a phone and a zeal for action!

DOGE was created for data theft and infrastructure dismantling and it wildly succeeded on both counts within the first few weeks of its existence. It will take a generation to rebuild what it destroyed and the breach of data is unprecedented.

Having worked for DOGE should be disqualifying for any other position. Bastards.

The committee that settled on the phrase “underscoring his determination to challenge scientific orthodoxy” should be dissolved and its members compelled to take a remedial course on the scientific method.

Even though the infectious diseases will look fondly on this quack, I guarantee history will not.

went springtail hunting this morning after a rainy night. Here's a portrait of a beautiful yellow "short-legged springtail" of the family Neaunuridae. Note the "pointed mouthcone" as Frans would always point out 😭

That spider is about to have a VERY confusing tea party. 🤭

Scientists have been crying "Lysenkoism!" since RFK Jr. took office, but what does it mean? RFK Jr. is reviving a dark chapter of history where ideology trumped evidence, with deadly consequences for millions. Dissent is patriotic. We're fighting to #impeachrfk

GOOD 👍

It’s good to explain that the CDC is lying and vaccines still unequivocally do not cause autism, even if it just reaches one person on here who has doubts. But the fight is out there, not in here; and the time to let go of the information deficit model of science communication was decades ago

“And people will be able to press this ugly Netflix button accidentally… forever!”

Hey @harvard.edu! I would gladly teach Larry’s five classes. I don’t know what they are, but I’m better qualified because I have not emailed Jeffrey Epstein for advice on an affair with a Harvard student. Let me know!

A great opportunity for students to stage peaceful protests or speak with the media to force Harvard to do the right thing. #SchoolsOutForSummers

Hey @harvard.edu! I would gladly teach Larry’s five classes. I don’t know what they are, but I’m better qualified because I have not emailed Jeffrey Epstein for advice on an affair with a Harvard student. Let me know!

So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism. Got it.

i'm sorry but we really should just grind the entire country to a halt until we break this fucking monstrous apparatus. this shit is insane. it's insane to go to work while this is happening

“Olivia Nuzzi” is a cool name that deserves a better person

Pandora sp. parasitising a caddis fly / Trichoptera sp. #fungifriends #fungi #microscopy #mycology #parasites

NIH scientist Dr. Jenna Norton was just placed on nondisciplinary leave. She led a team who wrote a sign-on letter critical of The Regime. A person at NIH asked to give a reason for her leave called her “radical leftist”; while the NIH Director has claimed that “dissent is productive”.

In June, after Jenna Norton put her name on public criticism of the NIH's direction under President Trump, Jay Bhattacharya told us: "Respectful dissent in science is productive." kffhealthnews.org/news/article... Now she says she's been placed on leave. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

Regretfully (for the sake of the authors and journal staff), I have this morning declined an invitation to review for a @royalsociety.org journal because of the Society’s continued refusal to stand up for its values in dealing with Elon Musk FRS.

NEW: Jenna Norton, an NIH employee who is openly critical of Trump & RFK Jr, has been put on "non-disciplinary" administrative leave. She says the administration is trying to "scare and silence me." An HHS official, asked to comment, called her a radical leftist. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

Been thinking about his mode of communication. It’s familiar?? I could see it as a product of him hanging out with high level academics. This language reads as an ignorant person mimicking how an intelligent person communicates.

Over many years, and a pandemic, we have worked with an international team of researchers to answer the question through genomics. We believe the origin is recent (in the last few decades, in line with previous research) and spatially from Western Europe

JEFFREY EPSTEIN: hello my friend Martin did my pedophile money find you well MARTIN NOWAK: sure did boss, made my institute name at Harvard spell out an acronym that’s basically a real world Pizzagate just like you asked JEFFREY EPSTEIN: what

🤮

Oh look! Weird times have come around again. Has anyone looked into Nowak mentions in the emails?

wild to me that whenever Epstein is in the news, bsky science folk are up in arms about a couple of famous academics who barely knew the guy rather than Martin Nowak, who took millions of Epstein dollars to run his lab, hosted Epstein there often, and somehow is still teaching at Harvard

They broke that compact for me so the understanding is already destroyed as far as I can tell. 🤨

Where is the article on the explosion of the Make America X Again initiatives. It’s a meme now, right?

Ah yes, these are the places folks sample from when they call their research “global”. 😅