Interior Department crafted talking points for public lands sell-off agenda - High Country News The agency’s leadership distanced itself from the controversial proposal even though staff helped research public-land sales.

www.hcn.org/articles/int...

Beautiful imagery from neeneecreative.com on this one.

Lord help me, I’m a few weeks away from having a 13yo.

That will surely get you a free bag of peanuts.

One of the accounts I miss from Twitter (Super 70s Sports):

Also, important obligatory update from Vermont: Today — April 14, 2026 — is @benandjerrys.bsky.social Free Cone Day, if you find yourself close to a scoop shop: www.benjerry.com/scoop-shops/...

Is AI the greatest art heist in history? New technologies of reproduction are plundering the art world – and getting away with it

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Sound quality is surprisingly decent.

The assembly history of NGC 1365 through chemical archaeology - Nature Astronomy Detailed oxygen maps of spiral galaxy NGC 1365 and cosmological simulations trace when its disk, bar and outer gas formed, showing that chemical fingerprints can reveal the merger and growth history of a galaxy.

My students brought this one in for scrutiny, WTF? "This work indicates that cosmological simulations and ultrahigh-spatial-resolution oxygen abundances can together provide an archaeological probe of the star-formation and merger histories of spiral galaxies." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

U.S. federal support for human origins research may be over The field is generating more new discoveries than ever, but significant setbacks for students and many researchers.

The National Science Foundation has proposed eliminating the directorate that includes most of the federal funding for fieldwork and research in human origins. It's a sudden acceleration of a decades-long trend. I comment on what this means.

www.johnhawks.net/p/us-federal...

New Mexico officials, tribal leaders vow to oppose slate of federal actions on public lands • Source New Mexico New Mexico officials and tribal leaders said they will resist a slew of proposals to mine and extract oil and gas on federal public lands.

“Acoma Gov. Charles Riley said that the pueblo submitted more than 400 public comments in opposition to ending an oil-and-gas drilling ban near Chaco Canyon, and young people went door-to-door to help older and more rural residents submit comments online.” 🥹❤️

And time to cue this up:

Wow, someone worked in Freddy Jones Band--didn't see that coming. Old school.

Godspeed you black emperor!

First sign of spring…finally.

This brings me back to a simpler time in a good way: weather.com/retro/

The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...

“The Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Budget proposes to eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and provides $38 million to conduct an orderly shutdown of the Agency.” — NEH.gov

The NEH has $207 million for FY2026. War in Iran? 1 billion per day. We go through 4.83 NEHs a day for what?

So over the top Texan, but I’m not opposed to it TBH:

Chaco protections in the crosshairs; USFS HQ to SLC Chaco comment period ends April 7

www.landdesk.org/p/chaco-prot...

ACTION ALERT⚠️ Dept. of Interior is trying to rush through a revocation of Biden’s public law protecting lands around Chaco Canyon from new oil/gas leases. They’ve given only 7 day for public comment, during Easter/Passover. Thread 🧵 below on why you should care, but here’s a link to comment! 🏺

Forest Service overhaul sows confusion, concern - High Country News In the Trump administration’s reorganization of the struggling agency, painful echoes of BLM’s past moves.

www.hcn.org/articles/for...

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done? Tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI, a Nature analysis suggests.

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Can AI learn to read ancient pottery the way an archaeologist does? | News & Events | Nagoya University Stay informed about research breakthroughs, university announcements, and opportunities to engage with Nagoya University's dynamic global community.

en.nagoya-u.ac.jp/news/article...

Humans Had Dogs Before They Had Farming, Ancient DNA Confirms

So nice to see @kjkillackey.bsky.social's work on this NYT writeup and not the usual AI trash. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/s...

Good timing, going straight into my Ruins course this semester.

Happy first day of spring, I guess.

Congress contemplates sweeping investigation of Native boarding schools - High Country News What the Truth and Healing Commission Bill would — and would not — do.

www.hcn.org/articles/con...

Great write up, this is how it’s done.

It's Wednesday so I have to hide my @effinbirds.com desk calendar for office hours.