My cat allergies have gotten soooo much worse. I used to have a cat - I lived with two cats for a decade+ - but between 2014 and now, boom. 45 minutes at the house of friends with a single cat, and even now, hours later and after sudafed, I’d dissect our my own sinuses if I could.

THIS is punk.

"Tell me you know nothing about the Muppets without telling me you know nothing about the Muppets."

Every Thursday night I live stream nail art. For my first stream of Black History Month I asked chat to choose between 4 Black scientists I’d pre-selected. Chat, in their usual fashion, said “all 4, please”. Hence: Margaret Collins, Kathrine Johnson, Sophie Lutterlough, and Charles Henry Turner.

I just sang the contents of this entire thread and I am delighted with *everyone*.

Statler: “What’s the theme of this conference?” Waldorf: “Interdisciplinarity.” Statler: “Ah… so everyone’s confused together.” “Ohhh hohohohoho!!”

Just put me on a flaming raft and push it out to sea.

Seriously? No credit? And you're a Harpers editor?

The CDC immunization survey keeps calling J, so he’s finally answered it. I’m listening to him answer their questions, and seriously wondering if I should suggest that he just tell them his partner works with epidemiologists.

IMPORTANT OLYMPIC NEWS: THE POLISH FIGURE SKATING TEAM HAS A PLUSH PIEROGI

Am I punk because scientist or scientist because punk? Does it matter? “Prove it” should’ve been my first tattoo.

Everybody reposting that pic of the pickup truck “in Minnesota” should really be able to tell that it’s not what it’s advertised to be just from the fact that it’s not butt-deep in snow, but since people can’t… Here. I googled it for you. It’s from last June. In LA.

Dude’s a “journalist” who should know better, too.

Graffiti on a window in my UG department. Steve is no longer with us, but his words are.

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work. "We don’t have the data to support that.”

I want to say this is unbelievable, but sadly it’s very believable. That big red horse on Team Haiti’s uniforms? The Haitian team was told the image of Toussaint L’ouverture, leader of their revolution, was “too political” - so the artist painted over the general and kept the horse as a statement.

Loving this for my Charlottesville friends particularly, who might get to have a rep who isn’t a festering pile of trash.

Graduate Students’ NSF Fellowship Applications Are Being “Returned Without Review” 🧪 eos.org/research-and...

I am deeply and profoundly angry about the death of the mass market paperback. My life has always been filled with them, stacked double-deep in bookshelves their height let me put extra shelves in, and I will mourn them forever.

Do I know anything about figure skating? No. But that’s a bad costume choice.

at the core, it comes down to this: I want better people running this country the fastest, easiest way to get that, given the practical reality of the existing electoral infrastructure, is to have those people win Democratic primaries

EVERYBODY CAN MAKE ART IT CAME FREE WITH YOUR HUMAN SPIRIT

They’re priests and nuns and ministers and rabbis… talking to you about your morality is LITERALLY their job. That you *invited* them to come do.

TFW it’s snowing and 12 freaking degrees again, so you use your zoom call ring light and the heating pad for your back to keep your office plants happy.

Share it widely.

Two competing shotputters, long at odds, discover they’re better together: Yeeted Rivalry

Human populations may have had unique adaptations to burn injuries due to long-term evolution in high-risk proximity to fire. I wonder if we also developed a degree of enhanced resistance to long-term smoke inhalation? 🏺 phys.org/news/2026-02...

i love finding out about a new bug we have to get his name out there (toxodera integrifolia)

There are seemingly a zillion people already reading and *loving* Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Strife, and I have never been sadder not to be one of the cool kids with a time machine.

I’m not sure I have *ever* laughed this hard at a news article. Ever.

“Cant sleep… i’ll just have a quick look at my phone”

I was literally just talking at length yesterday about how I don’t think about my gender much until I run into a wall, usually via a cis dude locked into rigid scripts. It doesn’t even have to be violent, sexual, or extreme — it can be banal & “harmless” exclusion of women from camaraderie & trust.

Add the CIA World Factbook to the long and growing list of disappearing government datasets: www.cia.gov/stories/stor...

Ascent in elite circles is typically a selection process for maintenance of some pretty fucked norms. this selection was disrupted, by demands for diversity, equity and inclusion and the inclusion of more marginalized people, and we are living through the backlash

The number of people who’ve apparently blocked me for saying I don’t give a flaming crap about a candidate who *disappeared* after the election is honestly funny. Especially since her announcement is that she’s just now going to set up an “organizing hub”. 🙄

TAKE YOUR BACKPACK OFF ON THE SUBWAY

🎧 “You say not all cops You say not all men Yeah you insist it's only 99% There's nothing new for you to learn Ok, sit back, relax, and watch it all burn”

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

I am Deeply Concerned that there is a virulent combination of institutional distrsut and collective amnesia leading to undervaccination, but at least I had a measles vaccine. There is no such opt out for the threat of nuclear war.

I can’t stop wondering how many of the women that were in these labs and offices are reading these emails and realizing - maybe for the first time, or potentially again - just what kind of people they worked for.

I didn’t even catch the first time that it says it “may help reinforce your INMUNE system”. 🙄

I honestly could not possibly give fewer fucks about what Kamala Harris is doing today, tomorrow, or any other day. Except that if it’s making me have to start listening to presidential campaign ads fully two and a half years before the election, I shall go mad.

Being a science writer right now is like… 9am - Coffee and constitutional crisis! 10am - Read a neat study on 5000-year-old beads. 11am - US science funding is off/on/off/on! Noon - Email a researcher about Iron Age skeletons. Afternoon - More constitutional crises and screaming into the void!

Firefox: Check it out, we’re going to add all these AI features users never asked for into our browser! Aren’t we so great? Users: *angry screaming* Firefox: Check it out, we’re making a no-AI browser with an “AI killswitch”! It turns off all the new AI features! Aren’t we so great?

The Washington Post became famous for exposing corruption—and is now being destroyed by it.

fiona the hippo just turned nine (9). truly, time is fleeting

Look at this adorable little thing. It just plops down right over a Mac mini

The drama and infighting is so think on here tonight that I just caught myself wishing I had tabs to keep track of it all. And THAT is the sign that I’ve had more than enough internet for tonight.