Flyer for the PhD defense of Mia Tuccillo at Northwestern University, defending a dissertation titled "Integrating Sedimentary Pigments and Genetic Signatures to Track Holocene to Modern Microbial Ecosytems and Implications for Water Quality in Warming Arctic Lakes." Contact Yarrow if you want the url to attend this event virtually.

Join us online Thurs to hear what Mia has learned about lake microbial ecosystems & climate change in Greenland & Arctic Canada. V cool methods & findings!
(Also, Mia is seeking postdoc opportunities. It's hard out there in U.S. science right now. Add a GREAT geochem/paleolimnologist to your group?)

Like, every single outro is perfect.

Testing finds toxic metals where Tesla discharges wastewater The drainage district that commissioned the testing has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company, which says it is in compliance with all requirements for its state wastewater discharge permit.

Meanwhile, Tesla's new lithium refinery in Corpus Christi just got a cease and desist letter for dumping toxic waste into the sewer system.

🔌💡🚗

www.texastribune.org/2026/04/21/t...

Tax freezes cost lives.

Renewed calls for traffic light in Fairview after fatal crash Partho Ghosh is one of many people in Vancouver's Fairview calling for a traffic light at the intersection of Oak Street and 6th Avenue.

Last week a pedestrian was killed at Oak & 6th. The city says: "A study was completed at Oak St & 6th Ave, and a full signal is already warranted. However, based on our priority list, this location is not ranked above other similar locations.”

They knew this spot was dangerous & did nothing...(1/2)

Because that’s the problem. . .

Rain, Rain, Rain YouTube video by Rheostatics - Topic

I’m pretty sure Whale Music is one of my favorite albums of all time.

Yeah, Odysseus had a long trip, but no one ever talks about the poor sap who had to drive the Trojan Horse home.

We had a mass longevity movement in the 20th century. It was called public health. It included vaccines, antibiotics, nutritional programmes, maternal support, cancer research.

How much did the police make?

This is something tech people don't grasp about nonfiction writing: the process of deep research, of deciding which little details are interesting or which obscure anecdotes have historical value, is all part of the creative work of writing. It's not grunt work. It can't just be automated.

Some other things that got put back in the bottle:

Dioxins got put back in the bottle.
PCBs got put back in the bottle.
Thalidomide got put back in the bottle.
The “blink” HTML tag got put back in the bottle.

Screenshot of a search in the new censorship database from ALA for my book BODY TALK. It's seen 12 attempts at censorship, including 9 in school libraries and 3 in public libraries.

The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom released a Censorship Search Portal with more than 30 years of data on book bans.

I have tracked the banning of my own books–all have been there–but this is higher than my count, even!

Here's the database: www.ala.org/bbooks/censo...

In unfortunate news, one of the missions I work on, NASA TRACERS, is on the chopping block in the budget proposed by Trump and Vought.

A functional pair of sats that would just outright be shut off because the current federal government is anti science and anti exploration.

Tomorrow!

The new report on FBI Director Kash Patel cites more than TWO DOZEN sources describing his leadership as a “management failure” and national security risk.

The White House and DOJ didn’t deny the allegations, but deflected.

Patel was the only one who issued a direct rebuttal.

That speaks volumes.

Photos of Cerina Wanzer, Barbara Deer, Davonta Curtis, Tomeka Kamwani, Tynice Friday, Trenelle Major Collins, Ashly Robinson, and Nancy Metayer and all of their favorite things to do

#BlackFemicide

A machine might solve problems in logic, since logic and mathematics are much the same thing. In fact some measures to that end are on foot in my university's depart- ment of philosophy. If the machine typewrites its answers, the cry may rise that it has learned to write, when in fact it would be doing no more than telegraphic systems do already. Nor must we overlook the limitations of the machines. They need very intelligent staffs to feed them with the right problems, and they will attempt the insoluble and continue at it until the current is switched off. Their great advan- tage is their speed compared with a human mind, and I have given reasons for that. But, it may be asked, is that so very much more marvellous than the crane that can lift so much more than can a man or than an automobile that can move so much quicker ?

> If the machine typewrites its answers, the cry may rise that it has learned to write, when in fact it would be doing no more than telegraphic systems do already. [I]s [their computing speed more impressive] than the crane that can lift [more than a human] or [a car] that can move so much quicker?

We keep hearing that the LLM Genie is out of the bottle, but so were CFCs, leaded gasoline, and so many issues we’ve pushed back on. There is no reason we need to accept things that harm us individually and collectively.

Push back.

TEN STEPS TO RESIST FASCISM YouTube video by Charlie Angus

My 10 steps for resisting fascism and standing up for Canadian sovereignty.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaxZ...

Advice for @erc.europa.eu :

Prohibit the use of LLMs for grant writing. Let applicants sign a declaration that they have not used such systems and that the text is written by them and them alone.

Fun architecture trivia: The sails of the Sydney Opera House are sections of a single sphere. Construction was controversial, costly and slow—14 years, 10,000 workers, political drama and engineering breakthroughs—but it rose from chaos (1959–73) to become an icon. Source: buff.ly/KddT3G1

A reminder that my Starter Pack of Simons is a great way to find new Simons, and connect with Simons you’ve known in the past:

go.bsky.app/82FJYYa

And be really confusing to explain on your CV.

The idea of taxes as a burden is a myth. We pay taxes, yes, but we’ve managed to ignore the fact that not paying taxes costs money too.

Community centers or private gyms? Road repairs or car maintenance? Public research into crop management or the corporate capture of agriculture?

It’s all a tax.

She Was Prepared for Breast Cancer Not for a Rare, Incurable Disease. At 30, Sherry Rouse expected one diagnosis. She got another—idiopathic PAH. Hear how shock turned into strength, advocacy, and hope. phaware® podcast ep 568 phawarepodcast.libsyn.com/site/episode-568-sherry-...

This needs to be taken seriously. Along with underfunding, Doug Ford is destroying the university system. And yes, this latest move is 100% in line with what we've seen happening by state-level MAGA-hats in the US.

Ma Yuan's studies of the properties of water, southern Song Dynasty China, ca. 1190 - 1225 CE
1

perplexity doing this also manages to erase human women computers yet again LMAO what fucking clowns

if you need to see what and why, see: olivia.science/ai/#pygmalion; full pdf here: doi.org/10.31235/osf...