Great advice, and I loved the line, “And if you don't understand a talk, honestly that's not your fault, it's the person giving the talk who is doing it wrong”. My advice: it’s totally fine to take a nap or to leave early if you need to — some conversations are better fully awake than half asleep!

also this would clearly be a field where the expertise of faculty from historically excluded groups would be a huge benefit, given the bias that has been consistently demonstrated in AI because of its source materials, killing two birds with one stone But YOU KNOW that will not happen 🙄

I'm heading off to EntSoc and here's my take on navigating your first scientific conference. Hope to see lots of you there! scienceforeveryone.science/getting-the-... #EntSoc25 🧪

This conversation between ChatGPT and the young man it encouraged to commit suicide is just...my god www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...

Hey folks, as news of Watson's demise spreads, please don't set aside his weighty legacy of misogyny and racism. He was truly among the worst of us. www.vox.com/2019/1/15/18...

Stay hydrated, eat snacks, fan girl your science heroes, say yes to hanging out, introduce yourself to strangers, go to cool talks as well as ones in your field, and have fun!!!!

The arc of history is a foot-long, but it bends towards justice.

understanding extreme events and #speciesonthemove is rarely possible with modern-day datasets. instead, we screened hundreds of papers and read agency reports (like these books from the UCSC library) to bring old observations of range extensions to light. some species shifted 1000s of km in a year!

Can we set aside that crisis of young men being driven to the Right? From NBC’s exit polling for young men 18-29: VA: Spanberger +14 NJ: Sherrill: +10 NYC: Mamdani +40

“As Eugene Debs once said…” SWOON!

Those five new California Dems that we’ll get in the midterms better damn not be more namby-pamby corporate Dems. The more folks who step up in the primary the better!

This

this is a reminder that we dont have to settle for newsom in 2028

As many have pointed out, Mamdani didn't stand apart from our trans brothers and sisters. He didn't play the "Gee, gosh, it sure is complicated," milquetoast moderate card. And he crushed. The way forward is together, not over the bodies of our own.

Y’all I needed this I needed this badly 🤩🥰

Republicans thought they had a permanent hold over young men. They didn't. Spanberger wins men 18-29 by 14%, Sherrill by 10%, and Mamdani by a stunning 40%.

Warning. ⚠️ If you are writing an NSF GRFP, new this year, you need official transcripts to apply. Beware. They will not review applications without official transcripts. ‼️

Mamdani is a generational talent, with clarity and values that connect with American voters of all backgrounds. He's a gift to the Democratic Party, ready to be embraced. He and other young progressives are our future. I suppose it's up to corporate Democrats to decide if they want in on that.

They gutted the Washington Post. CBS. NYT. Now Teen Vogue. The point isn't to bring in more conservatives. They've reached that saturation point. They are killing the fourth estate and buying up the social media to control the messages we see. These were all targeted to disarm the left of truth.

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day. certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

If you think your kids aren't old enough to hear about what's happening in this country, remember that there are millions of kids their same age who don't have that choice.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Higher ed and science journalists - this is the first report I've seen that the UC is thinking about cutting their internal postdoc program, which has been a roaring success. Something to look into?

The President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, PPFP, has been a jewel in the crown for faculty development and recruitment at the University of California for years and the results have been an expanded faculty with almost 100% tenure rates — unprecedented success.

UC Provost Katherine Newman has announced plans to defund this program, a preemptive capitulation with the feds that has not been ordered and should not occur. Newman has done this with zero consultation with campus-level leadership and none with any faculty — mentors or former fellows included.

This academic year my role has me working with a lot of the administrators who run my university (as Academic Senate Chair). One thing that I didn't expect is that they send a lot of emails on the weekend and in times when I am sleeping. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this.

Thank you @hormiga.bsky.social for writing this book. Beyond learning what may be right/wrong with current practices and many new tips, it makes you think throughout what kind of teacher you want to be and how to get there. Highly recommend press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... #teaching #AcademicSky

Rendezvous on the Beach, by Edvard Munch, 1896

Links (and a hot take on a hot take about "cancel culture" and The Population Bomb) scienceforeveryone.science/academic-mix... 🧪

A scoop that I’m not happy to report: CBS News has gutted its climate change reporting team, one of the best in the business, and one of the only ones on cable news that consistently called out fossil fuels as the main source of climate pollution. heated.world/p/cbs-news-k...

My 2¢: your in-person talk isn't about maximizing data-delivery, it's about being a person. What are the things a paper CAN'T do that a speaker CAN? Voice, affect, personal reactions. Share "Y was a fucking slog". Control my attention: "Z is tricky, stay with me lol". Say "Look! Cool, right?"

My methods is one slide and I spend about 5 seconds on it. A senior colleague have me a *thorough* post talk feedback session recently. I implemented their advice in the next talk and I've never had so many compliments. It was a lot of the same advice Terry gives her.

I find there's a huge mismatch between the standard advice that people give about scientific conference talks, and how people actually give talks. So I picked out the most important pieces of advice that are most often ignored. 🧪

Yet again i want to remind everyone that Bill Gates and several other billionaires have invested in mining projects in Greenland that are only accessible because of melted land and sea ice, he and other billionaires are essentially shorting the planet

Had an advising appointment with the parent of a toddler today, so I rolled out the handy dandy cart of kid entertainments. (It could be a basic backpack or duffel in the department office, too.)

Biweekly and bimonthly mean the same thing 🤔

Blue Jay Ben Houstie ~ Heiltsuk 2024

Cool (weird) new biology just dropped

Californians, you can vote now!

How adorable (complimentary), the Blue Jays have a special home run jacket. And oh they need it again just as I’m typing!

Daaaaaaamn

I just read something that feels 100% true. You get mentally exhausted by work, but that doesn't happen when you're working on you love. You get mentally exhausted while working on about something you're not excited to work on.

Tolkien, who saw almost all his friends die in the Somme, and knew the seduction of despair, wrote both Denethor and Saruman as doomers.

Yesterday, our campus had the honor of hosting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She said a lot of interesting and valuable things. One thing that's stuck with me is this claim: "The only thing that distinguishes the ordinary from the extraordinary is hard work."

Curious what FIT is all about? 🪲 🧑‍🏫 Come see how entomologists are reimagining education, outreach, and engagement from classrooms to communities at the #EntSoc25 Business Meeting! Monday, Nov 10, 2:30–4:30 PM PT, OCC C124. Come connect, collaborate, and shape the future of #EntoEd! #FITatEntSoc25

Inside the Hermitage, the winter palace where Tsar Nicholas II and his family lived before they were executed—in a country where Russians were starving.

For anyone who needs to pass these on: www.alieward.com/ologies/geno... www.alieward.com/ologies/revo... www.alieward.com/ologies/arti... www.alieward.com/ologies/cons... www.alieward.com/ologies/trol... www.alieward.com/ologies/crit... www.alieward.com/ologies/blat...

Not long ago, student advising meant a file folder in the office for notes and recordkeeping. Now, advising is logging into 3 systems, 2FA, cross-checking, and troubleshooting. More time clicking, less time in human conversation. For all of the convenience and power, it's very inconvenient.