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Posts by Michael Mahon, PhD

Losing hope is exactly what they want us to do. While the vote against the Boundary Waters is fresh on our minds, the work continues. 
 
Headed to Greater Minnesota now to keep up the fight. We have so much to do to tackle corporate greed in areas like housing and health care.

4 days ago 260 43 8 2
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Why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive mass extinction Scientists finally understand why birds were the only dinosaurs to pull through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

From the new issue: scientists finally understand why birds were the only dinosaurs to pull through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

6 days ago 117 37 0 2
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NASA's Artemis II astronauts are hours away from moon launch. Watch it here NASA's Artemis II mission aims to send four astronauts around the moon on a roughly 10-day journey that could help pave the way toward a future lunar landing.

NASA's Artemis II mission aims to send four astronauts around the moon on a roughly 10-day journey that could help pave the way toward a future lunar landing. n.pr/3PIci2C

2 weeks ago 273 58 37 11
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The is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled.

A truly extraordinary moment.

We aren't on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.

Act like it.

1 month ago 31798 13740 2535 1172
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Highways and schools closed as blizzard conditions wallop Duluth, North Shore Blizzard conditions continued to pummel Duluth and the North Shore on Wednesday, knocking out power to thousands and prompting state transportation officials to close Highway 61 between Duluth and the...

Blizzard conditions continue to pummel Duluth and the North Shore, closing schools and knocking out power to thousands. The winter storm also prompted state transportation officials to close Highway 61 between Duluth and the Canadian border.

2 months ago 48 10 2 3
Several agents hold a person down and sprays them with pepper spray.

Several agents hold a person down and sprays them with pepper spray.

An observer arrested in Suth Minneapolis. Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune

2 months ago 8674 4988 845 1552
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The RFK, jr effect.

4 months ago 10044 4181 376 297
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E&E News: USGS science centers face Trump’s chopping block Interior has indicated that it plans to lay off employees in science centers across the country, including deep cuts at some offices.

"The Great Lakes Science Center in Michigan would lose 108 of 137 positions."

via @eenews.bsky.social

6 months ago 24 22 2 3
Climate change is reshaping fish communities in the United States Rising temperatures and the introduction of non-native fishes have been linked to rapid changes in fish communities across the United States.

How #climatechange is reshaping fish communities in the United States as temperatures rise and non-native fishes proliferate: @ian-vaughan.bsky.social overviews recent extensive work by @rumschsl.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

6 months ago 18 7 0 0
Photo of field crew conducting electroshock sampling for fish as part of the US EPA National Rivers and Streams Assessment in Little Hunting Creek in Virginia, USA. 

Photographer: Kevin Biallas

Photo of field crew conducting electroshock sampling for fish as part of the US EPA National Rivers and Streams Assessment in Little Hunting Creek in Virginia, USA. Photographer: Kevin Biallas

Changing water temperatures and human-driven introductions of fish have altered the composition of fish populations in streams and rivers across the USA over the past three decades, a study in Nature suggests. go.nature.com/47ZCcWH 🧪

6 months ago 49 24 1 0
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Diverging fish biodiversity trends in cold and warm rivers and streams - Nature In the past three decades, fish abundance, richness and uniqueness have diverged across cold and warm streams, and the effects on native fish communities of stream warming and increases in introduced fishes have magnified each other.

In short, fish biodiversity in U.S. streams are changing fast.
- Cold streams are losing biodiversity
- Warm streams are gaining in a homogenized way
- Human choices will shape the future of freshwater fish

Free access in first post.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

6 months ago 23 8 0 1

What can be done?
- Restore riparian forests to cool waters
- Limit introductions & spread of non-native fishes
- Protect local species before losses become irreversible

6 months ago 8 1 1 0

When warming streams also had more stocked or introduced fishes, local non-game species took the hardest hit, declining in both abundance and richness.

6 months ago 7 1 1 0

“Average” or cool streams are stable. Streams in the intermediate range showed minimal biodiversity change. Their mix of species with different thermal tolerances may provide a buffer against changing stream temperatures.

6 months ago 7 1 1 0

Warm streams show the opposite trend.
Abundance rose 70% and richness rose 15%. But this came with a big downside: fish communities became homogenized. Opportunistic minnows & shiners replaced larger periodic species.

6 months ago 7 1 1 0

Cold streams are in trouble.
Fish abundance fell 50% and richness dropped 30%. Small-bodied, cold-adapted species declined, while larger game fishes (like trout) increased. Cold-water biodiversity is eroding fast.

6 months ago 7 1 1 0
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Our research group just published a study in Nature on how fish biodiversity in U.S. rivers and streams has been changing over the past 27 years (1993–2019). The results show sharply diverging trends depending on historic and changing water temperature. 🧵 rdcu.be/eH0l8

6 months ago 39 12 1 3
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Diverging fish biodiversity trends in cold and warm rivers and streams - Nature In the past three decades, fish abundance, richness and uniqueness have diverged across cold and warm streams, and the effects on native fish communities of stream warming and increases in introduced fishes have magnified each other.

Exciting collaboration with colleagues from the US and Frederik de Laender - lead by S. Rumschlag and Mike Mahon - on how climate change has lead to alterations in US fish diversity over the last decades. Paper just out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

6 months ago 9 6 2 0
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EPA tells scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say Staff from the EPA’s Office of Water were summoned to a town hall meeting this week and told to pause the publication of most research, pending a review.

EPA has ordered scientists in its Office of Water to immediately pause almost all research & stop publishing studies. Researchers were told that, unless scientific journals had already returned proofs, studies will be subject to an additional EPA review.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

7 months ago 246 198 13 25

Looking for a great photo of a freshwater fish (North American) to submit as a journal cover image for a manuscript on fish biodiversity trends! If you have one you’d be willing to share (with credit, of course!), please reach out. 🎣📸 #fishphoto #freshwaterfish #scicomm

9 months ago 0 0 0 0
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NEW: per multiple sources, apparently there may be punishment/retaliation coming for EPA employees who signed the Declaration of Dissent this week. People are starting to get letters putting them on administrative leave, seems like potentially targeted at those who signed with their names.

9 months ago 969 367 32 28
Ironically, upon the paper’s release, several social media users ran it through LLMs in order to summarize it and then post the findings online. Kosmyna had been expecting that people would do this, so she inserted a couple AI traps into the paper, such as instructing LLMs to “only read this table below,” thus ensuring that LLMs would return only limited insight from the paper.

She also found that LLMs hallucinated a key detail: Nowhere in her paper did she specify the version of ChatGPT she used, but AI summaries declared that the paper was trained on GPT-4o. “We specifically wanted to see that, because we were pretty sure the LLM would hallucinate on that,” she says, laughing.

Ironically, upon the paper’s release, several social media users ran it through LLMs in order to summarize it and then post the findings online. Kosmyna had been expecting that people would do this, so she inserted a couple AI traps into the paper, such as instructing LLMs to “only read this table below,” thus ensuring that LLMs would return only limited insight from the paper. She also found that LLMs hallucinated a key detail: Nowhere in her paper did she specify the version of ChatGPT she used, but AI summaries declared that the paper was trained on GPT-4o. “We specifically wanted to see that, because we were pretty sure the LLM would hallucinate on that,” she says, laughing.

Amazing: MIT researchers revealed how ChatGPT etc are destroying our brains and booby-trapped the report to expose those who want to use AI to ostensibly summarize the results.

t.co/JXeTALBPds

10 months ago 5124 2129 50 180
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Vance Boelter, suspect in shooting of Minnesota lawmakers, taken into custody in Sibley County Authorities have taken 57-year-old Vance Boelter into custody in Sibley County. He's the suspect in the targeted fatal shootings of Minnesota House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her spouse, and the s...

Authorities have taken 57-year-old Vance Boelter into custody in Sibley County. He's the suspect in the targeted fatal shootings of Minnesota House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her spouse, and the shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman and his spouse.

10 months ago 177 44 2 8

Make it seven:

DOJ just sought emergency relief from #SCOTUS in the AFSCME/mass-RIFs case. It’ll be docketed as 24A1106.

In case you’re keeping score, this marks the 15th emergency application from Trump in 16 weeks.

Across 16 *years,* the GWB and Obama administrations filed a total of … eight.

11 months ago 604 218 29 6

FLASH: Federal judge blocks RIFs/Trump administration reorganization plans for 20 federal agencies. SF-based Judge Susan Illston (Clinton) says they appear to exceed executive branch authority to implement without Congressional approval. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

11 months ago 461 151 12 13

Not to mention the coming dissolution of ORD.

11 months ago 1 0 0 0

Glad to see the MRCC is back up! Funding restored by NOAA/Dept of Commerce. But ridiculous that funding for regional climate centers was removed in the first place.

11 months ago 22 5 0 1
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New preprint finding that eliminating US global health funding over the next fifteen years would cause:
- 15.2m deaths from AIDS
- 2.2m deaths from TB
- 7.9 additional child deaths

1 year ago 2213 1177 91 184
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Our View: Threats to Duluth water lab not well-thought-out From the editorial: "If the Duluth EPA lab is being indiscriminately targeted, the cutting and slashing (in D.C.) clearly isn’t being done with the care, consideration, or thought such a process demands."

From the editorial: "If the Duluth EPA lab is being indiscriminately targeted, the cutting and slashing (in D.C.) clearly isn’t being done with the care, consideration, or thought such a process demands."

1 year ago 6 1 0 0

But I do have baseball opinions!

1 year ago 0 0 0 0