Firewise community leader Climate policy, climate action, health, flying less, forestry. - Stop burning stuff. - Here I am, placing my grain of sand when I can. Freelance science writer/editor UC Berkeley & UC Davis: Eco Evo UCSC: SciCom
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A ranking of the "most unsettling questions of our times." 1. Is nuclear armaggedon a possibility? 2. Can we prevent environmental collapse? . . . 19. Do people think cereal is a soup? . . . 54. Is Cal football for real in 2025? . . . . 770,451,393. Can AIs suffer?
NEW: Tenure-track position in History at UC Berkeley in the GLOBAL HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY. We are casting a wide net here: *all* periods, places, and fields are under consideration. I'm on the search committee, so do let me know if you have questions.
Palestinian city of Jaffa, about 50years before the nakba and founding of Israel.
turkey vulture feeds mechanical as a red oil rig head rocks down up down stiff-legged dog rises goes grumbling after squirrel old ears still flap snowy egret—curves, lines, sculpted against pond blue; white clouds against sky banded headed bird this ballerina killdeer dance on point my heart
I figured!
Yup. Two years ago I contracted with a real estate agent to sell my house. She casually let slip that she didn't have much use for single women (like me) and then tried to repair the slip by saying I was not like other single women. "You have friends, you have people over." I just stared.
senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, former chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) & director of budget and spending policy for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign👇🏽
NEW: Belgium has decided to recognize Palestine as well take multiple measures against Israel, including -The ban of all settler goods from being imported -Sanctions on Smotrich and Ben Gvir -Restrictions on imports from Israeli businesses -No consular services to Israelis in the oPt
I would like to request that we not start quite so many pieces of writing with "If you haven’t been paying attention,"
It is unusual and excellent. By Ben Wiseman.
I will probably never have an experience like this again in my lifetime, so I will always treasure my summer with this family of burrowing owls. 💕🪶
I see some cracks in the wall, like my house after a few 1989 foreshocks, 8 miles from Loma Prieta.
To be clear: Donald Trump is a rapist, not some kind of technical rapist, but an actual rapist rapist. Just finished, "Not My Type" by E. Jean Carroll.
Burning Man also had a birth this year. Neither the mother nor the father even suspected she was pregnant. Fortunately, they were camped next to a group of obstetrics experts.
I'm less interested in Trump's "involvement with Epstein" and more interested in his history of raping children and adults.
The mood difference between the DPK Democrats and PPP Conservatives in Korea's assembly
That's like arguing that your car will eventually reach light speed if you drive just 1% faster every week. No it won't.
😂
Drivel. Living things tend to have fairly consistent maximum life spans. You don't see a mouse with a two-year lifespan make it to 50 years. Even plant clones tend to top out at few thousand years. Forever isn't a thing.
Good question! AI trying to keep itself busy?
Yup. Exactly. For decades I've been hearing how awful the service is at the DMV, but I have always had great service at the DMV. But I'm convinced you are right.
Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be
I hate it too. I am discouraged by how many people assume it's harmless or useful or bluesky people are overreacting to it.
News is finally starting to trickle out of the remote regions of Afghanistan and it is terrible. BBC reports there are many fatalities and collapsed buildings. Landslides are hampering rescue efforts. www.bbc.com/news/live/cy...
Awful!
Did she get better?
Short-sighted economists with little knowledge of biological constraints have paved the way (literally) for the collapse of global ecosystems.
Thank you! They are gold diggers. Biologically, their sperm parasitize our eggs and then our bodies. Culturally, we provide all kinds of services. But many men will extract anything else they can squeeze out of us. We see it here every day.
Too late, but thanks!
I had a coworker who was working from home three days a week, then after she had a baby, our boss said she could only work from home two days a week.
So glad they are not married! My ex bullied me into a post-nup that was not in my favor and HIS lawyer didn't advise me to get my own representation, which should be illegal (and maybe is). I was a lot younger than him and he told me things that were not true, so I went along. Big mistake.
Trying to imagine a building inspector not red tagging it.
Because a lot of things cannot be openly said....😂😂
I did. Gilbert is rolling in money but doesn't rent her dying ex lover a place to live?
My sister in hospice had a home health aid who was similarly giving her a lethal combination of drugs. My sister also "demonically cottoned onto the plan" and texted for help. Family arrived and fired the aid, who was really pissy about the whole thing.
Eat, Pray, Love, Murder?!? What?!
A friend told me she signed up for calculus in high school, but when she entered the classroom, the teacher took one look at her and told her she was in the wrong classroom. All the other students were boys. She persisted in staying, but then the teacher ended up seducing her.
Banned in 1952.
I THINK? the sign says, "GAY" But I still don't understand what he's getting at.
Yes! As a former lab tech, I know what it's like to be nearly the sole person actually doing the work on a project for two years with no authorship. In one case I got an acknowledgement at the end of the paper. In the other case not even that. Invisible me!
cowboystatedaily.com/2025/08/30/t...
Every year since, participation has increased and now includes the world’s largest shipping companies. The incentive? Ship staff don't want to kill whales AND the companies value the public recognition: www.sierraclub.org/sierra/when-... (no paywall) and bluewhalesblueskies.org. 🌎
😀
But they should each donate a kidney before they go. They won't need all those extras.
I haven't read the studies, but I tend to trust Kate Manne to get this right. Happy to dig in if you really think the conclusions aren't supported by the evidence.
I'm working on a series of black ink drawings of Dutch indigenous species. I drew this Papilio machaon (🇳🇱 Koninginnepage) for #InverteFest 🦋 #invert #butterfly #inkdrawing #drawing #art #SciArt #insects
Part of the problem is how numbers are reported. I can easily look up the fraction of white voters who voted for Trump or Harris. But when I try to look up what fraction of Trump voters were white, I can't find that number. I'd have to reconstruct it.
Palestinians warned of a genocide in 2023. Why weren’t we believed? | Ahmed Ibsais
Now do that same split image at home where both sexes spend most of their time. Boys lolling on the couch playing video games while women do dishes, shop, cook, vacuum, do laundry, organize snacks and beers for everyone watching a football game, etc, etc, etc. katemanne.substack.com/p/why-marria...
I'm sure you know there was way more happening than "Harris is boring." Harris was hardly a clone of Biden, but she was not going to campaign against him. What did people like you offer that excited the electorate? Why if progressives were doing their jobs did so many "independents" stay home?
It's true an SUV ran over me at the exact moment my leg broke, but correlation is not causation.
It seems like he's talking a lot more than he used to.
Stephen Miller wouldn't know the scientific method if it was a Caterpillar 6090 FS excavator rolling over him. Stephen Miller wouldn't know the scientific method if it was a pack of spotted hyenas gnawing through his femurs.
Goodness, if the President has a serious health problem I certainly hope he follows the expert medical advice of his Secretary of Health and Human Services
And now government doctors got my entire channel removed. Don’t worry. I won’t base my entire identity around this or claim it is worse than covid. 😂
Zero boundaries. All you need to know.
newrepublic.com/article/1996...
This story has it all: aquaculture, Black Flag, Bernie Sanders, Star Trek as policy, John Hodgman, male tears, and a candidate citing Luthen’s monologue from Andor. Meet Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman trying to crack the senate. @grahamformaine.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/1996...
Giant metal poppy sculpture I can't get enough of.
I also expect they will be trumpeting some made up bullshit numbers of various sorts confirming that “Americans are healthier due to the Dear Leader’s infinite wisdom” by the end of the year.
"Another new study, using a different approach, also found the tipping point is probably going to be reached around the middle of this century." agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
"We found that the tipping point where the shutdown becomes inevitable is probably in the next 10 to 20 years or so. That is quite a shocking finding as well and why we have to act really fast in cutting down emissions.”
At some emissions levels, 70% of the model runs lead to collapse, while at lower emissions levels, 37% of the model runs lead to collapse. Even with low future emissions—sticking to the Paris Accord—AMOC eventually collapses in 25% of the models. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
trains are such a great example of how the future is here, if we want it and are willing to subsidize it
And no plants either! I really want this for them.
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.
Partly they were lucky, partly they were better at surviving that particular strain of plague whether through a pattern of exposure or subtle genetics. But they weren't better at anything else. They were not smarter, healthier, faster, etc. Just mostly lucky. Just not dead from plague.
What herd immunity is NOT is letting everyone get sick over and over until only those with some resistance are left. That's natural selection. Think of the black death, which killed 25 million Europeans. Were the survivors of this mass selection event broadly more "fit?" No!
We get vaccinated to protect everyone. The idea behind "herd immunity" is that when enough people are vaccinated, very few get sick.
A 🧵 on herd immunity. Speaking of not being able to get vaccines, I get frustrated with people who only get regular boosters against covid to protect one other person in their life, as if we needn't bother if we don't have a sickly relative or friend.
Way more men voted for Trump. In 2024, 46% of women voted for Trump and 55% of men voted for Trump.
Many of us never forgot. What's interesting to me about that particular quote is the ambiguity of "they." I think a lot of people think it means "women let you do it to them." But I think it means other men let him do it. And they have and they do.
The companion piece to Thiel's famous blog post saying that democracy was over and women shouldn't have the right to vote was a Thiel pal saying that the future was technolibertarian exit to oceangoing seasteads. www.businessinsider.com/godfather-of...
I'm curious to know what Thiel et al think will happen when, say, China sweeps in and claims their fantasy tech islands? Do they have a plan for that sort of thing? Are they counting on a publicly funded US military to defend them? Or do they plan to just text Eric Prince?
Outside the CDC, people are chanting “USA, not RFK.” They are fed up with having one unqualified person dictate the nation’s health. #USANotRFK
I did. It's so commonplace.
The usual.
The "pop-up city, Vitalia, was set up there for two months in 2024, ... is close.. to a ... clinic selling an unproven longevity “gene therapy” for around $20,000. The people behind Vitalia referred to it as “a Los Alamos for longevity.” " Sounds like a Los Alamos for a population bomb.
Yeah, I saw that in the Tech Review article... Not sure I want the details!
Just flashing on this piece, but I am getting the impression that he's well liked by people who know him casually, like from parties and similar, but haven't necessarily worked with him.
I do like this sentence. "Longevity science is a field that’s long courted controversy, owing largely to far-fetched promises of immortality and the ongoing marketing of creams, pills, intravenous infusions, and other so-called anti-aging treatments that are not supported by evidence." Ouch!
I got what you were doing.
😱 Who on the editorial board thinks Bhattacharya is "credible" on vaccines and infectious diseases?
We don't even take guns from people who are legally not allowed to have them and are known to have them. Because, you know, somebody might get shot. Taking books from librarians and children is so much safer for fascists.
Exactly. They don't want anyone to actually respond to how offensive their opinions are.
Or at least multiple suits.
“Some activists launched ‘No sleep for Ice’ rallies, with chants and music blaring through the night, in hopes of pressuring the hotels to kick agents out. Now, public records shared w/the Guardian show that the protests indeed sent federal agencies scrambling …” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Full resignation letter from Demetre C. Daskalakis, a CDC leader, does not hold back. "The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning. My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud."
😂
I had serious doubts about CDC Director Monarez’s willingness to stand up against RFK Jr.’s personal mission to destroy public health in America—I’m glad that I was wrong. If there are any adults left in the White House: we cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of CDC. FIRE HIM.
If I die of anything before Trump is gone, throw my rotting corpse on the White House lawn.
Key update: The CDC director HAS NOT RESIGNED. Especially wild that she was a Trump 2.0 **appointee**. But now Trump 2.0 wants her out for standing up for science.
It was a study of male college students. I think it was lower than 90% but still really high!
Older academic friend insisted to me that no one he knew would sexually harass or assault women. I showed him a spread sheet of academic harassers—including multiple men in his own department who he had to have known.
I'm going to repost this every day.
FINALLY! SOMEONE IN THE MEDIA GROWS A SPINE!
You are sciency enough for me. It's just nonsense. Evo psych is also mostly nonsense. If men were waking up more, they'd be saying it evolved to "protect the family."
For a second I thought he rendered you unable to speak!
WTF. What next, skin lightening for the wedding "just this once?" Ask a white friend to go and have her tell everyone she's your white body double, "Just for the wedding, you know."