Spotted at #PAA2026! Those are some snazzy looking posters and even more amazing researchers! Look for the MPC logo as you wander around and you'll be sure to find something great. 🤩

🎧 Our new #GLaDpodcast episode—Baby Talk—is all about, yeah, babies. Plus the academic life course, careers and the messy business of advice and decisionmaking. What's not to love?! With @darribas.bsky.social @levijohnwolf.bsky.social & @pietrostefani.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/5TDJ...

Last week we released Google embeddings for UK's small areas. While preparing workshop materials, I ran into this nice little example of what they’re capable of. Read on to find out why Battersea Power Station is such an interesting example! me.darribas.org/2026/05/05/w...

Just back from a fully packed week in the Bay Area, I jotted down a few notes to commit the highlights to memory (and battle the post-academic high blues!): me.darribas.org/2026/03/23/n...

At 12 ET today me and Jason are doing AMA on the main technology subreddit about the tech ICE is using, the nationwide network of AI Flock cameras around the U.S., and the state of surveillance in general. Get your questions in before then: www.reddit.com/r/technology...

I don't like to talk about stories before they are fully reported, but I am writing on ICE in a Minnesota town that isn't Minneapolis. However bad you think it is, it is worse. It is a campaign of pure terror whose only strategic goal is more terror. There is no strategy other than to break people.

Good morning to everyone but the City of Cambridge for producing a map that appears to show no fewer than three different kinds of "being in Cambridge." (this matters for those who might, just hypothetically speaking, be trying to run every street in the city)

Remembering Alex Pretti and honoring his legacy. A powerful statement from the Dept of Geography, Environment, and Society at U of Minnesota. A graduate of GES, Alex embodied character, integrity, kindness, and commitment to human wellbeing. cla.umn.edu/geography/ne...

Freelancers continue to provide some of the best, most innovative coverage of communities' fight against the Trump administration's deportation forces. Today, for @prismreports.org, freelancer Ankur Singh wrote about the role workers played organizing Minneapolis' citywide shutdown.

Geographers, in case you missed this detail, Alex Pretti graduated from the Minnesota Geography department in 2011.

DHS employees entered our store this afternoon and served us a Notice of Inspection, demanding copies of I9 forms for each employee. In 27 years as shopkeepers, we have never been subjected to this type of investigation.

The great @usefulnoise.bsky.social made a request that we all write something about what life in Minnesota is like for folks who live elsewhere or might be outside our normal neighbothis-Bluesky footprint. So I went to cursed Facebook and wrote this. Maybe it will help you share your own thoughts.

The Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota (@minnpop.bsky.social) is hiring a postdoc in Population Health. Happy to chat about the MPC, UMN, and the Twin Cities, which are all awesome in my humble opinion! pop.umn.edu/training/pos...

After the killing of Ms Good, Greg Bovino of the CPB led a raid on a Minneapolis HS. An official there said: They don’t care. They’re just animals,” I’ve never seen people behave like this.” All MPLS schools now closed for the week. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

The 2025 IPUMS Research Awards are currently open for nominations. 🏅 They honor outstanding research that uses IPUMS data to advance understanding of demographic processes. Cash prizes are awarded in several categories! www.ipums.org/impact/ipums...

Participants at the 50th meeting of the Social Science History Association take a moment to remember the great Andrew Beveridge. Steve Ruggles, Margo Anderson and Vernon Burton led the appreciation! www.gc.cuny.edu/news/memoria...

Extend the fun of GIS day with the University of Minnesota 2025 Spatial Forum, TODAY, Thursday, Nov 20, 1:00pm @ Wilson Library. A series of free events and talks capped by Dr. Janet Franklin delivering the 19th annual Borchert Lecture. events.tc.umn.edu/event/22535-...

Does your US State have a higher or lower Human Development Index than Germany? Source: buff.ly/NU3L634

For prospective Masters students interested in cities and computing, mapping and visualisation, digital connectivity and data analysis, here’s your chance to learn more about our stellar programmes at UCL CASA in London

One way sighted people can determine what to put in alt text: Imagine you sent the post or article to a friend, and the image didn't load. What would someone need to know to get the equivalent experience and context? This will help you identify the important details.

My blog, Twin City Sidewalks, turned twenty years old today. Wow. That's a long time! tcsidewalks.blogspot.com/2025/10/20th...

🌍✨ Our next seminar is with @grantdmckenzie.bsky.social "Place, Privacy and Mobility: Navigating the intersection of location science and human dynamics" Date: 4th November 2025 @ 2pm UK time (online only). Register here: tinyurl.com/3bzv63rj ✨🌍

What academic worth their salt trusts the word of ANY Big Tech company? Their histories demonstrate they will lie, cheat and steal and that they do not care about anything about making trillions; why trust them? Why entrust our students to them? Why train your chatbot replacements?

The National Institute of Aging made half as many new R01 awards (primary mechanism for funding) in FY25 than in FY24. This is devastating for younger scholars who study aging. Many newly hired faculty/researchers now face an uphill battle to keep their careers.

Strategic underfunding is par for the course in Georgia and across the south. Offer benefits so we say we do, but make it extraordinarily difficult to actually receive them. In this case, we are spending more federal money on red tape than health care. www.propublica.org/article/geor...

🎧New #GLaDpodcast 🎧 Everything you ever wanted to know about mobile phone data in social science and never dared to ask, all in an entertaining™️ conversation btw @levijohnwolf.bsky.social, @rsfrankl.bsky.social, yours truly and the one and only @wenfeixu.bsky.social. www.podbean.com/ew/pb-ufnqe-...

The Grand Rounds trails are one of the best parts of the Minneapolis parks system. There is also room for significant improvement, and that’ll cost real money and political energy. So you gotta start somewhere. I would nominate the Lake Harriet and Minnehaha Creek (Lynnhurst to Portland) as priority

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

Here at your friendly "Geography, Life, and Data" podcast, we do a lot of Geography, a lot of Life, and a lot of Geography Life. This one's for the Data—mobile phone data, that is. ☎️ @darribas.bsky.social @levijohnwolf.bsky.social @wenfeixu.bsky.social #geography open.spotify.com/episode/7Hmx...

Never forget, a 13-year study found that protected bike-lanes led to a drastic decline in fatalities for all road users. ALL ROAD USERS. And painted bike-lanes? No safety improvement at all. For sharrows, it’s actually safer to NOT have them. Via @usa.streetsblog.org @nyc.streetsblog.org

Our awesome EdTech team at TRU has produced a really good guide for instructors on GenAI in university education: "This guide provides practical strategies and best practices for integrating or avoiding generative artificial intelligence tools in your teaching practice." aieducation.trubox.ca

Fantastic keynote session from Dr Michelle LaRue, University of Canterbury discussing #remotesensing imagery for monitoring the Antarctic emperor #penguin population. #giscience2025

The study is the first to look at the health hazards arising from pollution generated across all stages of the oil and gas lifecycle, from exploration and extraction; storage and transmission; oil refining and gas processing, to end-use activities, including storage, transportation and consumption.

Read the whole thread, looks like a fully AI generated paper. @nadiah.bsky.social perhaps you should report this to the journal or to retractionwatch.com ?

🚨 We’ve just updated @carbonbrief.org's factcheck of Trump’s ‘critical’ climate report. 🚨 Huge thanks to all the dozens of climate scientists who have helped us pull together this rebuttal — including the authors of our brand new additions. interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factchec...

And one more: www.cosit2026.uk

The Spatial Data Science Symposium #SDSS2025 is back. Check out the Call for Sessions and Call for Papers: sdss2025.spatial-data-science.net

Y'all, my seminar for first year students is on this list. 🧇🗺️

On the left: Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old DOGE staffer and college dropout. On the right: Mohammad Halimi, a 53-year-old exiled Afghan scholar. This is the story of how DOGE targeted Halimi on social media. Then the Taliban took his family. 🧵

Ya girl got a ribbon on her first crop art entry 😭😭😭😭

Happy to share the release of the 2nd edition of Mapping, Society, and Technology. Props to @smmanson.bsky.social for wranging multiple of us to update it. It's a free text suitable for many introductory GIS courses, hosted at UMN Libraries. open.lib.umn.edu/mapping/ #gischat

AI is now definitely changing how we live our (geography) lives! Join @rsfrankl.bsky.social, @darribas.bsky.social, and me for another episode of GLaD, where we discuss whether you should be vibe coding w/ Claude, sending ChatGPT review requests, or running on AI-made routes! shorturl.at/GLNKd

Join us tomorrow (8/15) at 12pm EDT for the last webinar in CURA's summer webinar series on Public Data for the Public Good. We'll hear from Joy Bonaguro who will share the many lessons she as learned as the Chief Data Officer for California and a civic tech consultant cura.osu.edu/events/lesso...

The newest executive order makes major changes to federal grantmaking, including additional review by presidential appointees and prioritizing applications with lower indirect cost rates. To the extent that federal funding remains, this is a big deal.

Jerry added great material throughout the book, joining work from other contributing authors. Shout out to Dudley Bonsal, @alyolli.bsky.social‬, Eric DeLuca, Rachael Huerta Carpenter, Jennifer Immich, Melinda Kernik, Steven Manson, Laura Matson, Sara Holiday Nelson, and Julie Santella.

🚨We are delighted to announce our opening plenary for RSA Regional Futures Conference, 13-14 November 🚨 📣Andres Rodriguez-Pose & Rachel Franklin 🪑Luisa Corrado 🔶Spatial Economic Analysis Lecture We have extended the abstract deadline: ⌛18 August ℹ️and submit: bit.ly/4lgfLj3 Join us in London 🌟

The newest NHIS data are now available through IPUMS!

The Zed editor @zeddotdev is a masterclass in space usage for an IDE When I’m developing apps & software I need a clean, uncluttered UI and Zed is the best I’ve found It’s why I’ve struggled to use VSCode and its derivatives (Cursor, Positron) for dev work; too much going on

Check out this blog post describing our hands-on IAPHS workshop from fall 2024 featuring the NHIS LMF data harmonized by IPUMS. @ipums.bsky.social