No, I am not worried about 'declining' birth rates, I accept them as post-modern birth rates, the birth rates that naturally happen once the conditions are set that children can be expected to survive to adulthood reliably and that women are allowed to be educated and become full citizens.

If you don’t need everyone in your society to be white and you don’t need for a dozen white men to be richer than god, you do not need to give a shit about the birth rate

Further, we contend a lack of unanimity on how to define sex is not inherently problematic and a universal definition is not necessary to pursue. No matter what definitional choices are used, we provide actionable recommendations to improve accuracy when describing sex.

There is No Consensus on Biological Sex At this critical moment when misinformation about sex is being applied to policy globally, scientific clarification on the definition of biological sex is valuable. Here, we evaluate the primary appr...

New paper out in ecology letters! with @andylee.bsky.social @allydefduf.bsky.social

We synthesized the active debate on how scientists define sex, including limitations and assumptions. We believe this discussion will lead to more accurate science.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Kansas has, overnight, invalidated the drivers’ licenses of trans people, a pointless cruelty that upends their lives

If Brits think “it won’t happen here” think again! Groups in the U.K. who want the same thing are routinely invited to consult with Labour and normalised in our press!

Ah fair, will keep that in mind in future!

Fab, thanks so much! It was very much just me getting confused on the OS website then 😅

I had no idea these maps existed, very cool! Do you know where it's possible to get hold of them? Maybe I'm just getting confused by the OS website but an initial search isn't bringing anything up

Libby and borrowbox for the library - range available depends on which library you have a card for, and you can add multiple cards! I prefer Libby's app, but use both. Kobo and XigXag for buying

Mm hm. No mention of the sexism Franklin was constantly forced to endure in this cosy little, “they were all respectful colleagues, actually” article.

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.

I like this piece a lot about Rosalind Franklin’s role in solving the structure of DNA. It really respects her as a full scientist - what she saw, what she didn’t appreciate, what could have been if she’d had true peers to support her, or had not died so young.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

If we let the paid employees of a small number of ethics-free AI companies dictate the directions in which our scholarship should develop and the ways in which researchers must go about their work now, we are indeed fucking ourselves over.

Screenshot of text: unfuck google drive by shooting gemini Hey folks! Google is fucking you via sneaky enshittification again! Want the shit in your google drive to load instantly again, instead of taking for-fucking-ever? Open your gdrive (web OR app) Settings > Manage Apps Gemini was checked "use as default" (and i sure the fuck didn't set it that way, this was a silent push) Nuke that, and suddenly, folders that took up to a minute to populate and sort do so in a fraction of a second.

friend shared this, immediately updated my settings

The best way to counter this tactic is to familiarize yourself with the database of dogwhistles. The ADL is deeply problematic in so, so many ways, but they maintain the best and most solid database of symbolism: www.adl.org/resources/ha...

"Who decides what is normal development? Who decides what is natural biodiversity or pathological deviation? Who defines the distinction between defect and difference?"

Eugenic attacks on people who are disabled, neurodivergent, queer, trans... They are all linked by fear of diversity

I suppose if the question here is 'why don't these fields produce new discoveries at the same rate as the sciences' the answer is a pretty obvious, 'because they're not funded like the sciences.'

We could do a lot of archaeology with, say, a few billion dollars a year!

Who defines the distinction between defect and difference?

This is an incredibly important conversation and one that is close to my heart. A moving and eloquent article, from top to bottom.

Thank you Naomi! Glad it is interesting 😊

Thank you - it's a relief to hear positive responses after my hesitation to share!

So glad to hear it resonates!

Thank you, that's so nice to hear!

I've been a bit quiet on here - mainly using bluesky for non-science things atm and mainly just lurking - but it's nice to dip in to share some thoughts sometimes :)

I've had these thoughts rattling around for a while now and I finally got them onto the page thanks to the node's writing challenge (always handy to have deadline)

@the-node.bsky.social

I wrote something on developmental biology and disability and put it up on the node last night:

thenode.biologists.com/developmenta...

I've been nervous to share because some of it veers a bit personal but they are thoughts that won't stay quiet. Would love to know what people think about it!

This, from the Quakers, is a pretty good example of how to resist pressure from bigot lobbying groups. Effectively “we legally can allow trans people to use the loo, we morally should, and we tried it and nothing bad happened”

I am one of the 14 authors who chose to leave the Polari Prize, and I find myself frustrated and saddened at the way this entire story has been represented. 1/

And in particular I was struck by how it is the ability to 'do' a field - or at least *feel* like you are 'doing' a field - *in plain language* which invites this kind of response.

What LLMs have done to physics and many other STEM fields is brought the fake-doing-of-them into plain language. 3/

But because there's no giant 'history formula,' no tables of strange symbols (well, amusingly, there *are* but you don't work with them until you are much deeper in the field), folks assume that history is easy, does not require special skills and so contemptible. 12/

There’s a thing in games where people want skill to matter in a very specific way - they want it to be possible for them to beat better player, but impossible for a less good player to beat them.

I feel like the same folks can only imagine a past where they are as well or better off than they are.