I'm a cognitive scientist with an interest in epistemic vigilance, and this essay that's been going around gave me pause.
I don't think it's straightforward to apply the concept of epistemic vigilance to interactions with LLMs, as this essay does.
🧵/
sbgeoaiphd.github.io/rotating_the...
Boromir from THE LORD OF THE RINGS, holding The One Ring. He thought he could use it for good, but everything done with the ring turns to evil. He was one of the mightiest warriors of middle earth, and he could not resist its powers. Others even mightier fell to the ring. Do you think you are stronger than them? The One Ring is generative AI.
Techbros seem to love Tolkien, so here's an analogy to help you understand what genAI is.
GenAI is The One Ring. You think your use is justified, b/c you don't have evil in your heart.
But it came from evil, it is intended for evil purpose, & anything you do with it will be twisted to that end.
“What I’ve been feeling most is just, like, how dare this country allow this to happen to someone like me twice?” Weissman told the New York Times.
Anyway, public service announcement for anyone going to AGU next week: if you see a Nebraska geoscientist, you're morally obligated to give them a hug, buy them a beignet, offer to mail an envelope of glitter to a UNL regent of their choice, or something like that.
“I just remember a bunch of people started screaming.” An 18-year-old who was shot in the leg at Brown University on Saturday afternoon described the moment that shots rang out in a classroom where students had gathered to prepare for an economics exam. nyti.ms/48FrxAo
A soft crocheted geode made of yarn and pink beads on the inside to imitate crystals
A soft crocheted geode made of yarn and pink beads on the inside to imitate crystals. It is shown from the side to show the outside “rock”
A soft crocheted geode made of yarn and pink beads on the inside to imitate crystals. It is sitting on a marble counter
Crocheted a geode, like you do 🧶 #crochet
The scientific process...
If you don't support Heated by @emorwee.bsky.social, you really should. She has a great piece today about the current heatwave, which climate change made many times more likely, and how to think about it in the context of the Big Beautiful Bill heated.world
US climate scientists need all the help they can get. Including from foul-mouthed comedians! 🤡😱😱
Watch Emmy Award-Winning David Cross team up with Prof Michael Oppenheimer in the US launch of the hit series "Climate Science Translated".
#climate #arresteddevelopment #climatescience
Big thanks to @mimilovesmilo.bsky.social for a great collab during her @daadworldwide.bsky.social RISE internship at @gfz.bsky.social!
And grateful to @diamondlightsource.bsky.social for beamtime at I20-scanning that allowed us to "look" inside the crystal structure of these minerals. 💡💠
If you’re an undergrad or recent graduate and think more support and advice can help you take the next step, this is for you. Please pass word on to folks in ecology, evolution, and organismal biology.
An amoeba movie I made: "hungry" #protistsonsky #amoeba
“Life is better when we leap together.” Kermit the Frog delivered a commencement speech at the University of Maryland on Thursday, the alma mater of his creator, Jim Henson. nyti.ms/4dwMuhQ
So -- What are Ralstonia and why are they goopy?
Ralstonia are bacterial pathogens of plants. They colonize and clog the water-transporting xylem vessels, causing rapid-onset wilt disease—they can fatally wilt plants within days.
This timelapse by Jonathan Jacobs shows a sped-up time-course.
All NSF GRFPs to students choosing to attend Harvard in the Fall were just terminated
The Women going to the Sepulchre, 1912, Robert Anning Bell Painting of women in blue garments walking leftward, one woman, and then five behind her, on a flat plain, hazy sky ....
Thanks to my friend Harriet for pointing out that the women went to Christ's tomb and saw he was not there, the angels showed up to describe what happened, & the women then told the apostles, who dismissed them. A Biblical account of women not being believed.
Hi Folks! Myself and the Barberan Lab at U of A are still looking for a PhD student to work on an NSF funded project exploring effects of fire and invasion on soil microbes. We are looking for someone to start in Fall! SOON! Email me if you are interested! PLS Repost!
@EsaSeeds
You want to see an octopus riding a shark.
🎥: University of Auckland
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/s...
🥁
We are happy to announce the release of a new version of curatedFoodMetagenomicData (cFMD)
🔗 Get it here: github.com/SegataLab/cFMD
🧵👇
1/5
Ok who wrote this headline.
WHO DID IT.
I would like to give them a prize. Also yell at them.
Country toads, take me home
To the place, they belooong
They took Australia, caused all the drama
Take me home, country toads.
“Many grad programs are pausing and reducing admissions in response to NIH funding pauses and pending EO’s on indirect cost reductions. These workforce reductions have the potential to imminently and irreversibly harm research labs & grad programs”
Why should the public care about the freeze on the NIH? Aside from the need for scientific pursuits to make our society better…
-For every dollar we invest in NIH research, there is a $2.5 return.
-Research dollars help fund universities that employ non-academics. (1/)
When I was 5, I loved science, which I took to be planets and magnets and chemicals and shit.
Soon I realized science was a collective human activity, and these were just the objects of its attention.
Anyway, whenever I read an OpEd on how science isn't political, I think "Are you 5 years old?"
"Even though I walk through the valley of humongous genomes, I will fear no evil, for PacBio HiFi is with me"
Above: hallmarks of well managed tabular data; Below, a negative examples. Contains examples how data should be presented in tables/dataframes to be fully reproducible and legible.
Tips for properly handling **tabular data**
MUST READ for 🧪+ 📊 & kind of which my past self would have had this 😢
Part of the "Simple Rules" in @plos.bsky.social computational biology:
PLoS Comput Biol 20(11): e1012604. doi.org/10.1371/jour... by Hertz MI, McNeill AS.
very funny to be worrying about trans women in the white house washrooms while rapists and pedophiles freely roam the halls
A tiny survival guide to avoiding burnout, including: protect your mornings, go outside, be active, cultivate relationships, nurture gratitude, detox (navigate addictions), spend time with animals, simplify, admire art, laugh, foster humility and extend grace, sleep and clarify intentions.
I first read this years ago when it was given to participants in an environmental leadership training, and it's been hugely helpful. They also offer this cheat sheet of evidence-based practices to help give our nervous systems a break and manage burn out.
I keep seeing the clip of a meteorologist breaking down when discussing Milton. As a glaciologist, I say:
Getting emotional about the effects of climate change is not unprofessional; it is a rational reaction based in scientific and cultural knowledge of the past, present, and future of the planet.
Prague, 23 November 1911 Highly esteemed Mrs. Curie, Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you!? that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. However, I am convinced that you consistently despise this rabble, whether it obsequiously lavishes respect on you or whether it attempts to satiate its lust for sensationalism! I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages among us as you, and Langevin(3) too, real people with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don't read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom i
einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter:
(1) your haters are trash
(2) you’re a baller, a true queen
(3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️
