What an amazing essay from the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin. I'll share a few sections in the reply but seriously, read the whole thing. It's all insightful and beautifully written. lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...

🌍🧪

"The pupils do not learn the scribal craft" is the new "the midterm average was 62%"

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

CU Boulder climate researchers compare blooms and pollinators over 100 years above Colorado Springs.

So tired. www.alligator.org/article/2025...

at least 50% of my aunts aren’t even *relatives*

Miller’s language is an almost verbatim copy of one of the powers granted Brazil’s military dictatorship by Institutional Act No. 5. (Authorization for the federal government to supersede or remove local and state authorities for reasons of “national security”) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institu...

I can’t think right now of another foreign leader writing honestly about what it’s like to deal with Trump. It’s both unsurprising (the man is consistent) and utterly nuts. But this is the key photo:

omg this whole speech is so embarrassing. It sounds like my kid and his friends playing fortnight…when they were 12.

WTAF. They are going for the Debarment of Harvard. As in “the entire institution”. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

An absolute GIANT in the study and conservation of tropical forests and one of the pillars of México’s ecological and ethnobotanical communities has passed on. Padrino to so many: Arturo Gómez Pompa news.mongabay.com/short-articl...

This guy is such a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual douche. The number of “sensitive 14 yr old boys” who imagine this is exactly zero.

That sound you hear is coming from your university’s Center for Latin American Studies, where the Brazilianists won’t stop yelling about something called the “AI-5”.

Texas Tech has banned a subject from discussion in their classrooms. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u... That’s all folks…it’s over.

Buried in the article was this gem from the Chair of the State GOP: “Professors and state employees should not weigh in on political debates…”

“UF supports the First Amendment right to free speech and embraces our university as a place where people are able and encouraged to exchange differing viewpoints or express their feelings through peaceful protest.“ (statements.ufl.edu/statements/2...)

🚨 NEW: Climate change is already causing 30,000 deaths per year - a global annual economic loss of $100-350B USD - but the true damage is probably 10x higher. Out TODAY in Nature Climate Change: the first systematic look at the science of "health impact attribution" 🔓 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Out today in @commsearth.nature.com from some of my newest colleagues at UMMP: evidence that the extinction of dinosaurs led to fundamental shifts in terrestrial environments, and that this signal is recorded in facies shifts tied to the K-Pg boundary: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

If you’re at UF, you know the Norman Hall tunnels have been where students paint rainbows in response to the state’s ban on rainbow crosswalks. The rainbows have been defaced & repainted several times. Painting this memorial here instead of the more visible 34th street wall is definitely a choice.

Victory

Political violence is wrong but botanical violence is ok?! First they came for the Anacardiaceae…

Ben Sasse complaining about some faculty writing a provocative Nature editorial in a Wall Street journal editorial is peak Ben Sasse. www.wsj.com/opinion/univ...

@napaaqtuk.bsky.social you will be devastated, I’m sure, to hear our former UF president is not a fan of a recent Nature paper. www.wsj.com/opinion/univ...

Worth listening to Noel King’s interview with Chris Rufo on @vox.com’s Today Explained. www.vox.com/today-explai.... The contrast between how profound a thinker he *thinks* he is and how unironically anti-intellectual he *actually* is…truly breathtaking.

There is “a good social media team” and then there’s Team Zohran. It’s like watching Brazil’s 1970 Seleção. This is Carlos Alberto’s goal against Italy.

Ladapo also argued Sweden's lack of mandated vax for school is proof they aren't needed. Sweden's vax rate: 97.2% Florida's 2025 Vax Rate (Kindergartners): 91.9% Where I live (Alachua County): 88.7% Sweden doesn't need vax mandates because they don't have anti-vax weirdos like Ladapo & RFKJr*

My brazil-to-usa coffee smuggling company will soon be expanding to usa-to-brazil vaccine tourism dm if interested professor muambeirdo dot com

Human beings live in Florida, so please knock it off with the “just let Floridians die” shit. We have to figure out a way to get us all through this nightmare.

Hi! We're putting a panel together for LASA 2026 on minerals and metals in Latin American history. So, if you do mining history, environmental history, riparian/waterway history, or history of science, get in contact!

Reminder that when Dr Ladapo was appointed Surgeon General he was also hired by UF’s Medical School as a tenured Professor. He continues to be paid by UF despite questions regarding what he’s actually done to earn this additional compensation. His UF salary is $337,000.

Clear and Present Danger. The movie ends with Harrison Ford telling of the President and then testifying in a congressional hearing.

A higher resolution pic than my screenshot that captured the salute, from Alyssa Pointer (Reuters) – press weren’t allowed past the front gate for security reasons.

Yes, Florida is one of the 16.

Holy smokes The Economist has come out swinging.

Science was one of our primary economic drivers and diplomatic tools and it’s burned to the fucking ground.

QUELLE SURPRISE

The ATBC Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics have been published as announcements at Biotropica. Both codes result from collective efforts involving ATBC DEI Committee members and ATBC Council and Leadership members. Code of Conduct: lnkd.in/dRDhwDsM Code of Ethics: lnkd.in/dHE93NSe #ATBC

“I don’t know how to facilitate a workshop therefore liberals are to blame for Chris Rufo” by David Brooks in the @nytimes.com

White woman puts Mexican flag on her truck to waste ICE’s time.

I miss Captain Holt every day.

Resharing as still relevant

GTFO

21 sick, including 6 kids, from raw milk in Florida. Thanks Kennedy.

Delightful story about a 17-year-old homeschooler who disproved the 40-year-old Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture. She decided to apply straight to graduate school, skipping the rest of high school and college. When she finishes, a PhD will be her first degree.

It takes a special kind of entitlement to argue that white male candidates for faculty positions in philosophy are victims of discrimination when ~75% of philosophy faculty are men and over 80% are white.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Stellar NYT reporter @jacknicas.bsky.social joins inimitable @petersagal.bsky.social on list of people I publicly call out for referring to the birds wandering Brazil’s Presidential Palace as “Emus”. Rheas. They’re called rheas. Rhea americana. R-H-E-A-S. RHEAS! You’re welcome.