Just wow! 🧪🌍🦑🐳🦭

Our latest preprint evaluates sampling strategies for the detection of avian influenza virus from the environment @profgemmell.bsky.social @dwinter.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run. My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor... A thread

A large number of articles with fake quotes from me have appeared on "Resist"/Dem accounts. I suspect they were written with AI because they are so formulaic. Other "experts" are cited -- all without links. If you see a quote from me without a link to the source, beware. Examples of fakes:

New: The International Court of Justice’s finding that granting fossil fuel exploration licences could breach international law casts a shadow over the New Zealand Government’s oil and gas plans. newsroom.co.nz/2025/07/25/w...

Smartphone alerts of preshake warnings for 2.5 billion people in 98 countries countries over the past 3 years @science.org science.org/doi/10.1126/...

US science politics Political meddling of scientific datasets? And not logging changes. “We found that 114 (49%) of the 232 included datasets were substantially altered.” – mostly changing 'gender' to 'sex'. Data manipulation within the US Federal Government www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

We seriously need a crowdfunding campaign to put a billboard up like this everywhere

Love this initiative about my old hood in South Dunedin. The dots further enhanced with a photo such as this one showing Donaghy's rope walk but also a Chinese market garden on Macandrew Rd c. 1920s. Something for Phase 2 when the community adds their dots www.dreamsouthd.org.nz/did-you-know...

Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research. about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens. Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important". Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary. substack.com/redirect/169...

Oral submission times for the Regulatory Standards Bill have been slashed. This Government doesn't want to hear from you.

@thneed.bsky.social congratulations!! www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

Oh, & another @netgalley.bsky.social read, this time from @liammcilvanney.bsky.social: THE GOOD FATHER in which a family experiences the worst kind of nightmare... this walks the line between commercial thriller & something even darker, and will hit you where it hurts, emotionally. Due out July.

Shane Jones is out of step with NZ values. The Trumpian, pro-mining, ‘Make New Zealand Great Again’-wearing resources minister says he wants to see the Department of Conservation's extensive land estate dismantled and opened for development (mining). #nzpol

Across the motu there are New Zealanders contributing to the Wikimedia Movement in a variety of ways – from writing articles about their local history or favourite insects, to adding photos of historic landmarks, and even uploading data to better represent women's contributions to science 👩‍🔬🧬

May the anti-ICE movement continue to spread nationwide! This is the Los Angeles spirit your news broadcast isn’t showing…

My co-chair François Houllier and I are delighted with this resounding success, after 2 years of preparation and many hurdles to overcome. The recommendations will be presented to Heads of State and Governments tomorrow, the day before #UNOC starts. #OOSC #ScienceForTheOcean

Simon Fraser University invites applications from world-renowned researchers for the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) 2026 competition, offering up to $8M over eight years to support innovative and impactful research. Learn more and apply by June 30: www.sfu.ca/vpacademic/a...

Amazing. Respect the lede.

Lots of information being gleaned from eDNA (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) but with increasing use of shotgun based approaches, there is also a risk of false positives, which I discussed with Warren Cornwall @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

No words

In case people are amazed/confuses/shocked/whatever by the devastating cuts proposed for US science, technology, and innovation, please remember that autocrats always go after three main targets: 1️⃣ Media 2️⃣ Courts 3️⃣ Academics It’s literally textbook and, yes, it’s happening in the US.

Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

Omg what an amazing thread. In love with this biscuit art. If you followed me from twitter you'll know I'm a huge fan of theme baking

Good luck, America. It's always easier to destroy than to build. Which is a shame, as the US has built so much in its history. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I think in local parlance this is called “Selling the farm to buy a tractor”…

Poor Aussie bat 🥶🦇 www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

Gutting to see Predator Free 2025 disestablished in the latest budget and rolled into DOC, which in turn is facing its own budget challenges. Lost funding and, more importantly, capacity and capability through this disestablishment makes the goal harder to achieve. newsroom.co.nz/2025/05/26/i...

"Go to the main page of Wikipedia. Click any link that leads to a Wikipedia entry....click the first hyperlinked word in the main text. Keep doing it...Make them as varied as Nuclear Gandhi, Cow Tipping, and Exploding Trousers. All of them will lead you to the Wikipedia entry on Philosophy."

Excited to announce that we're collaborating with Citizens of the Sea! www.citizensofthesea.org/news/citizen... It's an amazing citizen science effort to equip ocean cruisers, racers, commercial vessels with #eDNA collection devices. So much data from so many vessels and locations!

This is completely false. Even the largest university endowment cannot sustain large-scale scientific research. In my 25 years at my school, the most monumental research fund drive raised $325M in *total*. Federal research here costs $200M per *every year*. This is an extinction-level event.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court holds that the Trump administration violated the due process rights of Venezuelan migrants last month in its rushed effort to expel them to El Salvador in the middle of the night (which SCOTUS blocked). Alito and Thomas dissent. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

Next week's cover of @newyorker.com, out this morning.

The Endeavour Fund, NZ's largest source of science funding, has been cancelled for the 2026 round to "support a smooth transition and provide certainty ... as we transition to the science, innovation and technology system of the future". scienceskillsandinnovation.cmail20.com/t/r-e-thdkhu...

Our #1Lib1Ref campaign with Wikimedia Australia begins tomorrow! We're calling on Librarians and Information Professionals to add one reference to Wikipedia (or more!), helping improve the quality of openly accessible information. Learn more ➡️ www.wikimedia.nz/1lib1ref-2025/

The state of NZ science and research. Grossly underfunded. Watchdog warns of ‘grave danger’ if science reform botched newsroom.co.nz/2025/05/09/e...

There you have it - when economists say slashing science finding may be dire, likely it is catastrophic.

BREAKING: Over 40% of of universities predict imminent deficit. More than 4 in 10 English universities expect a deficit this year due to lower international student recruitment. OfS raises concerns over recruitment targets “that cannot be achieved”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

At the rate Trump is saving lives from fentanyl, death will cease to exist by August!

Higher education hit hard in Trump’s skinny budget proposal. #AcademicSky www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

#WarOnScience #JustSayNo

Just one example: In the past 2 weeks, NIH has terminated dozens of programs to support students pursuing scientific careers. These MARC or U-RISE (T34) grants provide rising undergraduates with opportunities and stipends to participate in science. Where are these programs? Not in the Ivy league:

1. We contacted the 100 largest American companies and asked a simple question: Do you support the tariffs announced by President Trump on April 2? These are tariffs that have already destroyed trillions of shareholder value NOT ONE COMPANY WOULD ANSWER THE QUESTION

I’ve taken the Senate floor and will speak for as long as I’m physically able to lift the voices of Americans who are being harmed and not being heard in this moment of crisis. Watch here:

Booker finally yields after more than 25 hours of speaking 👏👏👏

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

And before the day ends, perhaps my most anticipated paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #eDNA #metagenomics applied to *all* organisms, including (and especially) macroorganisms/eukaryotes See how to and shoot me an email if you want to know more. - species IDs - eDNA decay

CDC leaders "who oversee global health, chronic disease, HIV, sexually transmitted disease, tuberculosis, disease forecasting and information technology were among those notified Monday evening that they would be reassigned to the Indian Health Service" www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...