I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.

Yingnan Gao has a major overhaul on his paper investigating how to detect selection in lineage tracing data using tree balance statistics! #evoSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We're excited to announce final program of the @alife2025.bsky.social SONI session which will host a panel discussion with @blaiseaguera.bsky.social, @risi.bsky.social, @emilydolson.bsky.social & Sidney Pontes-Filho Check out the full program: sites.google.com/view/soni-al... See you in Kyoto ⛩️

I love a good creative action! I just sent my rep a duck - send yours one too!

#Workshop Call! Does ALIFE have a "marketing problem" ? We think so - and we're trying to do something about it! Come help us, at the Societal Outreach Initiatives for Artificial Life Workshop #ALIFE2025. More details: imytk.github.io/blog/2025/al... @alife2025.bsky.social

Excited to see this effort to get a proposal for statewide ranked choice voting on the ballot in Michigan! Voting methods are a fascinating topic, and I like this website for experimenting with them: votevote.page (I believe the IRV option in the runoff methods box is equivalent to the proposal)

“The goal of academic training is not to solve problems as efficiently and quickly as possible, but to develop skills for identifying and dealing with novel problems, which have never been solved before.”

Since inauguration day I've really started noticing how one of the toxic byproducts of fascism is how the "all these people are unworthy of life" idea has become more accepted on the left- the same shit as on the right but merely the targets flipped- and we really have to push back at that.

Introducing our #ALIFE2025 Ambassadors! Our ambassadors: - are champions of the conference & the field of #ALIFE - encourage interest and participation from old & new audiences - lead outreach efforts & build new relationships - are positive advocates for the conference and the wider community!

Today I saw a family of two geese and a whole bunch of goslings cross the road in a perfect little line at a crosswalk (they even had the walk sign!) and it was the cutest thing

Court invalidates NSF 15% indirect cost cap. Strong ruling. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

You can find her on Bsky here: @emilydolson.bsky.social

This is awesome work! Also, I'm biased, but I'm loving the empirical support for holding conferences in the great lakes region :)

🚨HUGE SCIENCE WIN ALERT🚨 NIH Grants to be restored en masse!!! Thank you Judge Young for standing up for science! #StandUpforScience #SummerFightforScience

Our biggest, bestest national celebration. I expected this to be a terrifying fascist spectacle, but instead I actually feel a little sad, like the time my friend Charlie and I set up a lemonade stand when we were seven and nobody stopped all day.

🚨BREAKING: 300+ NIH employees call out the harm of censorship & politicized science in scathing email to Bhattacharya, demanding an end to political interference, a lift on funding freezes, & rehiring of fired staff whose work saves lives. This is historic - insiders are blowing the whistle. 🧵(1/5)

[ANNOUNCEMENT] 🔔 Call for Art Pieces 🔔 #ALIFE 2025 invites artists, designers, and makers from all backgrounds to contribute to the Community Artworks & Demos showcase, which sits at the creative forefront of artificial life. Full details: 2025.alife.org/submit#CALL-... Deadline: 31st July.

I appreciate the offers from other scientists to help Harvard (students, labs, etc) through this attack, but what would be most helpful is for you to use your position to contact your elected representatives and make it clear this fight isn't just Harvard, it will affect you, and their districts too

I love the concept of domesticated transposable elements. I like that my genome has its little viral pets to feed nucleic acids and take out for transcriptional walkies. 🧬

We’ve lost a giant. He was always very kind and encouraging to me as a young #kelp forest ecologist. Go listen to @futureecologies.bsky.social’s kelp series for a wonderful episode where he tells the stories behind his classic work. www.futureecologies.net/kelpworlds May his memory be a blessing.

I would like my vaccines, thank you very much. Go comment.

As a part of the @standupforscience.bsky.social Summer Fight for Science campaign, we want to host 1000 teach ins across the US between now and Sept 30th. Yeah, it’s a big, hairy, audacious goal. I know. Here is a running list of ideas, please scoop and do! 🧵🪡

🚨🚨 Alarming NSF policy update By accepting an NSF award, an institution now must say it's: 1. Not engaging in boycotts of Israel (yes really) 2. Not advancing or promoting DEI in violation of anti-discrimination laws Announced via a footnote today: nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/gc1-ma...

🚨URGENT RESPONSE CALL🚨 🌪️23 LIVES WERE LOST OVERNIGHT AS TORNADOS HIT KY. KY has one of several regions in the US without 24/7 National Weather Service coverage, due to DOGE cuts. W/out overnight monitoring, ppl don't receive weather warnings. THIS is how science cuts cost lives. shorturl.at/JgTjU

NEW: The Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staff have Great Lakes scientists concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and sicken people. By @annaleighclark.bsky.social

This. Love yourself enough to believe in learning and teaching yourself something and growing as a person. Do I remember a single term paper I wrote? No. Am I a writer now because of them? Yes.

SaveNSF is a coalition of concerned scientists and allies who are working to save funding for scientific grants through the NSF. The mission is to support and advocate for the continuation of vital research and innovation. Join: www.savensf.com

I at first thought 1/10 was the rating of the week and honestly hard to disagree

I must once again repeat: CONTACT 👏🏽 YOUR 👏🏽 OFFICE 👏🏽 OF 👏🏽 SPONSORED 👏🏽 PROJECTS 👏🏽 TO 👏🏽 FIND 👏🏽 OUT 👏🏽 HOW 👏🏽 TO 👏🏽 INITIATE 👏🏽 AN 👏🏽APPEAL 👏🏽

Do people in the same household share strains when they have the same species? How many cells transmit when a strain is shared? Can strain composition be dynamic when species composition is stable? We answer these and related questions for the facial skin microbiome in our latest paper. 🧵[1/10]

1. In a landmark ruling, a federal judge has blocked the passport ban for transgender Americans... government ban likely violates equal protection, and is made with animus. Though the ruling only applies to plaintiffs, it is expected expand in coming weeks. Subscribe to support my journalism.

If you're an NSF grantee who receives notice of cancellation per today's announcement, please get in touch here or via Signal mzahneis.09.

Happy to see MSU following Harvard's lead in web design! msu.edu/researchforyou

🧵 THREAD: A federal whistleblower just dropped one of the most disturbing cybersecurity disclosures I’ve ever read. He's saying DOGE came in, data went out, and Russians started attempting logins with new valid DOGE passwords Media's coverage wasn't detailed enough so I dug into his testimony:

It’s essential to revive this earlier point: NSF is REQUIRED BY LAW to evaluate all proposals for broader impacts. DOGE will likely ask/make NSF break the law. And it’s key for members of Congress and the public to know that. More NSF-specific legal context: www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

I can't emphasize enough that the most important thing journalists can do right now is publish exactly this kind of article

If you pay attention: everything they say they don’t like for Black people: affirmative action, diversity hires, quotas, identity politics, ideological litmus tests, they are trying to mandate and enforce for white people.

The great thing about fighting back against this stuff is that if you end up losing anyway you get the same outcome you’d have gotten from complying but you don’t have to fucking hate yourself too.

First, they said they’ll send undocumented immigrants with no due process to a foreign prison camp. Next, they said any immigrant — documented or not. Now, they say it’s citizens. And that once they send you even on accident, they can’t bring you back.

BREAKING: On Friday, the federal government issued new demands of Harvard University. The university's lawyers just responded: back off.

Yay! Proud of MSU for this.

I'm trying really hard to understand how this bullet point from Representative Tom Barrett's list of accomplishments in his newsletter is anything other than a bald-faced lie. The bill he and his colleagues passed *removed* overdraft protections, increasing possible fees from $5 to $35.

Nice to see this work! This is certainly reflective of anecdotal experiences with my family and informs our path forward. YOUR voice as a scientist matters!!! #StandUpForScience

Unless I've missed it, I don't believe we have computational models that would accurately predict how a *bacterium* would respond to a novel compound. Just, you know, for context.

Here's the message about DOE cuts that I just left for my representative and senators (this version is tailored to my rep because he needs more convincing). I cut out a few parts while I was talking because this is a little long, but I'm posting the whole thing here in case it's useful.

Hopefully this one doesn't hold up in court either.

[Report for 🧪 feed] A trusted editor has asked if I can identify a lab or PI or research team who have lost funding/shut down a project, whose loss will help narrativize the current moment for an everyday reader. Is this you? Or someone you know? Would love to hear recs or be in contact.