The best books I read this year were: The Organs of Sense - Adam Ehrlich Sachs I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman The Founding Fish - John McPhee The Loser - Thomas Bernhard

Extra idiotic because the NHL was fully ahead of the curve (by sports standards) with inclusivity initiatives like You Can Play and then decided to just can all that shit.

It bears emphasizing: The same admin that is attacking and defunding our universities, over what they call an antisemitism crisis, is now saying antisemitism isn't a problem at all.

what does it mean to be thirsty?? @dsamorod.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-it...

Netanyahu's regime has spent years making it increasingly clear that they don't care in the slightest about the diaspora's safety or well-being.

This kind of Guy plays mandolin in a folk band with his buddies at the local VFW and hates ICE. He is an angel.

Very cool paper out today on ancient variants of genes that supposedly got an "update" shared by all modern humans — and the effects these variants *don't* have on the rare people who carry them. If you needed more evidence that a single gene can't explain what makes us human, here it is! 🧪

hopelessly naive about what? STEM degrees aren't any more useful for getting jobs than anything else

The work is slow and hard. An Intergovernmental Panel on Pandemics, for example, mustn't have an answer that boils down to "panic! but: science!" The problems are complex, and like with climate change, we're past the era of silver bullets and into Forever Solving Tiny Consequential Problems

Worth noting that what Walsh is citing here isn't just the idea of IQ—it's the much more egregious "national IQ" data from Richard Lynn, something several colleagues and I wrote about last year for STAT News

Experts Decry Prasad Memo’s Lack of Transparency as Vaccine Stocks Dip www.biospace.com/fda/experts-... via @biospace.bsky.social

Thanks Dan, you freak. Sequencer's newsletter is available here, for free: www.sequencermag.com/beautiful-se...

In today's @sequencermag.bsky.social newsletter, I have a bit of writing about Stephen Jay Gould, and how his writing shaped my worldview. Particularly these two diagrams of hyena genitalia.

Historian of eugenics here. I don't normally like to retweet bad arguments, but this is such a fundamental misunderstanding of eugenics, I think it's important to point out. I don't have time to debunk all of the ways this is inaccurate, but I'll highlight a few things and then recommend some books🧵

Worth watching this whole clip. Indistinguishable from Nazi leaders talking about Jews in the 1930s.

The Elsevier investigation mentioned was initiated after a STAT news piece on the problem, co-authored with Cathryn, @dsamorod.bsky.social, @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social, @jedidiahcarlson.com, @jameslingford.bsky.social and @jowiph.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/r...

MPR reported earlier today that the number of Somali people in the entire *country* with TPS is 705. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...

I also collated some responses to my request for encounters with James Watson in the wild: www.sequencermag.com/a-few-encoun...

In the wake of James Watson's death, I tried really, really hard to come up with something to say. And all I really had to say was: we really fucked up with treating this guy like a hero. Watson sold the world a bill of goods. For @sequencermag.bsky.social. www.sequencermag.com/james-watson...

The Making of the Atomic Bomb is one of the best books ever written.

Very rare to see someone lay out so explicitly that they do not consider "never again" to be a universalist creed. I don't know how people who talk like this can stand to look themselves in the mirror.

this really irks me. she means "the bullet hypothetical."

LOCAL ANGLE: we need to talk about how every physicist on planet earth was on Epstein island

The Central Dogma is really more of a guideline.

wrong

In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart. liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...

If you have a James Watson story you'd like to share with me, DM me here or msg me on signal, dsamorod.25

It's really important to note that not only was Watson a racist and misogynist but his contribution to the double helix was listening to a Rosalind Franklin lecture and getting mad because Francis Crick wouldn't invite him to his sex parties.

That sucks ass but I find succor in Jacob Frey being miserable for another four years.

It only ratchets one way — until the fear-mongering hate and consultant-class grift are called out for what they are.

Waterfall in Fall Creek Gorge, Ithaca, NY

Remembering fondly how there used to be a really nice park at the foot of the Sabo Bridge, and a nice green space parkway on Franklin and Cedar. But, literally because Jacob Frey is a huge asshole, neither of those things are available anymore. What kind of mayor takes nice things away?

Jacob Frey being a miserable asshole with a palpable disdain for his own constituents is a perfectly good reason to vote him out. That attitude permeates his policies.

@boneshakerbooks.bsky.social is looking so good at 26th and lyndale 🌟 open now, go check it out!!!

See also the non-stop histrionics about there being more than two sexes, or sex being a spectrum, or similar, because to them it implicitly gives people permission to be trans (even if the two concepts really have nothing to do with each other).

the posture brothers

Come join me, @jasonkoebler.bsky.social, @sabs.bsky.social, and @maddiebender.bsky.social on October 24, for a virtual session discussing “How Worker-Owned Media Outlets Can Work.” It’s one of a bunch of events kicking off the national Science Writers meeting! #SciWri25 sciencewriters2025.org

clocking in at the Maine Guy Tattoo Takes Factory, hope you all had a good shift, take it easy now

It's pub day!! The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2025 is out. I'm thrilled to appear with @sequencermag.bsky.social alongside many talented writers whose work I revere. Including the pieces in this anthology Get a copy from an indie store to support the series bookshop.org/a/114150/978...

more and more people are coming to minnesota for reproductive or gender-affirming care. i talked to some of the pilots who can help 'em get here.

when I was a junior in high school, NY held a state-wide contest for one of these kinds of things. I came in first across the state by spending all my fake money on Apple and Google stocks and then forgetting about the project until it was over. got invited to albany and everything (I didn't go)

unearthed video from a 2017 candidate forum, since we’ve previously only had a screenshot of his tweet making this promise: jacob frey says he will end homelessness in 5 years

Shout out to the one guy with the Trump/Vance sign overlooking the Minneapolis No Kings protest

Genetics has no place in understanding human behavior and anyone who is trying to do it is has retrograde ulterior motives

With a major influx of new people on here, guess it's time to re-share and update my starter pack of researchers working on scientific racism. If you know of any scientists, historians, journalists, or anyone else working this beat that aren't already included, please let me know so I can add them!

To support Boneshaker's big move, follow their link for financial donations and also divert any donations intended for us and bring them to any of our other drop spots! ❤️ Arbeiter Brewing ❤️ b Resale ❤️ Duck Duck Coffee ❤️ Modist Brewing

greatest city on earth exhibit #5,298

I don't think it's unfair to say that people who say things like this should not be allowed to show their face in polite society.