Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet. After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

Okay, but now I'm curious...#chemsky what's on your science-themed playlists?

The Gary Larson cartoon incident

re: CH₂Cl₂

Hey #chemsky peeps! Are you or someone you know a grad student that has been affected by changes to the #grfp application rules? @cenmag.bsky.social wants to hear from you! My DMs are open :)

Career in academia

Resolved: "The Lottery" is actually about small college academic departments.

Hi chemistry/biology friends, does anyone have a link to resources for writing effective alt text for organic mechanisms and/or biomolecular structures? 🧪

Does anyone on Bluesky research proteins that are stable at high temperatures? 👀 #science #biosky #chemsky

One of those synonyms for “pseudoscience” isn’t like the others… 👀 #chemsky

it me, lady university admin on duty

Your regular reminder that genAI/chatbots not trained to do chemistry are bad at chemistry.

Routine for every class now: - sign out previous person who used the system - sign in to AV system computer - verify sign-in with authenticator on phone - wait for phone face ID to recognize - wait for AV system computer to load - kill Microsoft Teams auto-launch - sign in to course system web page

This, but first I make sure the classroom recording system named for Jeremy Bentham's dystopian surveillance prison is running smoothly. bsky.app/profile/bell...

This is the first post in a intermittently updating thread wherein I will eat every cheesesteak in Portland and rate them on a simple scale: if you served it in Philadelphia would you be immediately murdered, and if so, by what means.

Ruin a book with a car To Kill a Firebird

As an experiment, I started a Substack called Metallacyclic Logic for my random reflections and rabbit holes. You can subscribe to it here nealmankad.substack.com?r=dv3oq&utm_...

Come be my newest colleague! jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

Hey #AcademicSky, got parking woes? I want to hear about them. Tell me about your university's return-to-office plans, parking policies and any petty (or not petty) complaints about spot availability. Reach me here or on Signal: @ emmawhitford.96

This is a good, one-skeet summary of academia as I've experienced it.

Sometimes it's nice to remember that even Marcus Aurelius was like "you don't have to comment on everything bro"

Whoever wrote this question has had a bit too much laughing gas...

"you're a chemist, help the kids with their homework" The homework:

Archaeology profs are corrupting kids We're teaching that the pyramids are tombs, the fall of Rome wasn't simple, isotopes reveal ancient diet, and the theoretical debate b/t culture history, processualism, and post-processualism Oh, and how to make a bibliography *evil laugh*

Real academic freedom

Forbidden KoolAid

💅

"I'm hearing from scientists and doctors all over the country and they are in full agreement with me: the pKa of water is 14."

This is wild…somehow I had never thought to join the dots to this particular permutation before. The wealth of neurological conditions in inbred dogs, vaccines hesitancy in humans, and vaccine/autism paranoia being extended from children to companion animals. 😂, 🤯, or 😭? I can’t decide 👇

Anyone from the University of Montreal here? Please DM. Please RT.

Medical science: Ahaha we have invented tens of thousands of life improving and saving medications ahaha we are unstoppable Grapefruit:

I would read an academic murder book in which the murder was solved by reading the syllabus

Almost every one of these "ruin a book by adding Tom Clancy's to the title" posts sounds like an improvement on or at least an interesting take on the original.

Academics — Dozens of my published papers were used to train AI without permission of me or the publisher. Yours probably were too. Join the lawsuit and fight back.

#ChemSky #ACSFall2025 Huge thank you to Prof. Isaiah Speight, Prof. Kensha Clark, and Prof. Davita Watkins for organizing this amazing lineup of impressive speakers. Hosted by organicdivision.org POLY and INOR. Thank you to ACS President Dr. Phillips for elevating this to a Presidential Symposium

those damned outdoor pigs can't keep getting away with this

With constantly changing norms around work-life balance I no longer know if "Working 9 to 5" is a song about a difficult situation or an ideal situation

My paper "Social media for fisheries science and management professionals: How to use Bluesky and Instagram, and why you should" is formally published in an issue. It's a how-to guide to using Bluesky, the first ever published in the scientific literature! 🧪🦑🌎🐟 academic.oup.com/fisheries/ar...

“I trust it as far as I can throw it” is basically mass spec Determining how you feel about things by throwing them real hard

Celebrating a small (but exciting!) win today: the first chemicals for the VanOrman lab arrived today! ⚗️🧪 #ChemSky

@acs.org has named 36 members as new ACS fellows for 2025. These fellows will be celebrated at a ceremony held during #ACSFall2025 in Washington, DC. cen.acs.org/people/award...

So what actually happened with that retracted Science paper on arsenic life? @bribarbu.bsky.social offers a clear rundown on what you should know for @cenmag.bsky.social cen.acs.org/policy/publi...

Science finally retracts the Arsenic life paper www.science.org/content/arti...

UNC Greensboro has abandoned institutional neutrality (and it's metal)

My department at Colgate University is hiring a tenure-stream assistant professor in Organic Chemistry this fall. Please feel free to reach out with questions, and please repost. We're an undergraduate university with a strong focus on research. @chemjobber.bsky.social apply.interfolio.com/170152

I am on a glide path to retirement. So my colleagues are looking for a new physical/analytical chemist. I have had a terrific 40 year run at Bryn Mawr…and will miss the students a ton. #chemsky #womeninSTEM apply.interfolio.com/170426

As a glasses wearer I’ve always felt a little discriminated against when it comes to lab health and safety

This kind of smart, walkable, mixed-use development is illegal to build these days.