Sign in

Aaron Clauset

@aaronclauset.bsky.social
6.4K followers 128 following 1.2K posts

NO KINGS. NO FASCISTS. FUND SCIENCE. Professor of Computer Science @ BioFrontiers Institute at University of Colorado, Boulder and External Faculty @ Santa Fe Institute orcid: orcid.org/0000-0002-3529-8746

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
worm @rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If you ever wondered why visible light is those particular wavelengths, it's because life evolved to see in the narrow range where water is transparent
Diagram of absorption of emf by water. There's a gap right that dips in the 500 nm range
8950991455
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 13h
The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...
The graph shows the cumulative number of awards made by month across this fiscal year, as compared to the last 6 fiscal years. The line for this year is total flat until June, but then finally gets up to 91 by October. In prior years the increase starts building earlier and ends on average in the 700-800 range (with variability, last year was only between 400-500).
8376253
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
OMB's focus on NIH and NSF, which has confused a lot of folks, pretty much boils down to stopping money going to universities.
1225139
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
evy kwong @evystadium.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Men shouldn’t require a daughter, wife, girlfriend or sister before sexual violence against women becomes important to them. Women are enough. And condemning sexual assault shouldn’t qualify anyone for a medal. The bar is on the floor. Step over it."
2349108
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"For many Black scholars, academia is a burning house. If we cannot extinguish that fire, Black scholars will always bear a greater risk of being burned–& therefore have to insulate themselves against the risk more than others." @cydneydupree.bsky.social www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/blac...
timeshighereducation.com
Black academics face extra scrutiny. Our research shows its consequences
Scholars of colour told us they engage in strategies to make it harder for them to be dismissed as biased or lacking rigour, says Cydney Hurston Dupree
3204111
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
IceLab @icelabumu.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
What influences which scientific papers make it through editorial and peer review? 15:00 CEST Oct 5, @aaronclauset.bsky.social joins IceLab online to discuss an analysis of 110,303 submissions to @science.org & Science Advances. Register for the zoom link: www.umu.se/en/events/ic...
umu.se
IceLab Seminar: Editorial and peer review with Aaron Clauset
0106
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Ideology over expertise.
051
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This is a jaw-dropping measurement difference. And, I’m sympathetic to the obvious conclusion. But, how much of the “uses AI” association here is actually driven by SES or other environmental variables? I suspect the story is more complicated
270
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Melinda Baldwin @mbaldwin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"In Referees We Trust" will be open access and available October 13 -- but for those who prefer physical books, Barnes and Noble is running its preorder deal again! Members can get 25% off all preorders with code PREORDER25 through September 11. www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-referee...
A graphic with white text on a green background, advertising a forthcoming book. Image text reads: "In Referees We Trust? How Peer Review Became a Mark of Scientific Legitimacy, by Melinda Baldwin." The book cover appears at the right of the image.
1114
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Michael S Roth @msroth.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My take: “Students approach college “with energetic curiosity. They always do. Why? Because they are [about] to discover who they are as readers, as conversation partners, as people. They are figuring out what kind of work they find fulfilling, what they love to do.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | This Is the Real Point of College (Gift Article)
It’s all about the practice of freedom.
210936
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Very good point here: A lot of university leaders will think, "the Trump administration just wants us to make some vague statements - we can live with that." They are not counting on the DOJ using those statements as the basis for legal investigations. Which this DOJ will be willing to do.
191104275
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
SFI is hiring a postdoctoral fellow to work with SFI Professor David Wolpert on the thermodynamic cost of distributed computation, from digital circuits to human brains. We are seeking a scholar with expertise in physics, computer science, or a related field. santafe.edu/about/jobs/p...
11714
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Want to see your LLM struggle? Ask it "Generate a sentence in which changing one single letter would radically change the meaning of the sentence." 🤖 (I gave this example to some middle schoolers to explain how point mutations *usually* don't change the meaning of a gene, but sometimes do.)
4114
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Chris Bail @chrisbail.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Applications to host a 2027 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science are now live! sicss.io/stories/2026...
sicss.io
Call for Applications: Host a SICSS Partner Location in 2027
021
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Dan Larremore @danlarremore.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
🎉 New paper (and data) on editorial & peer review at Science and Science Advances, two elite general science journals. With a wonderful team! @samzhang.bsky.social, @nicklaberge.bsky.social, Quinten and @aaronclauset.bsky.social. 1/ www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Screenshot of the title page: 

Elite general science journals shape scientific discourse, public policy, and scientific careers. However, expectations of confidentiality in most editorial proceedings has limited efforts to understand and improve the review process. Here, we describe and release deidentified data on 110,303 manuscript submissions over 5 years at Science and Science Advances, two elite general science journals. Analyzing evaluation dynamics across the initial editorial review and subsequent peer review stages, we find strong selective effects associated with higher institutional prestige, larger team size, and certain topics and countries. Corresponding authors who are men exhibit a small but significant advantage at Science, while authors based in China have a significant disadvantage. These associations are generally stronger in editorial review than in peer review, even as final editorial decisions correlate strongly with reviewer advice. These patterns highlight the complexity of multistage evaluations at elite journals and the importance of open data to better understand them.
39439
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Hey folks, this hasn’t gotten much attention, but remember those proposed OMB rule changes we all commented on recently? There’s a new attempt to sneak them just for NSF. We have three days to comment. Please don’t sleep on this!
7756637
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Finally, this has gone a bit under the radar, so I want to highlight it: The social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate (SBE) has simply ceased to deliver grants to many of its subareas. Any topic not specifically OK'd by the Trump administration is receiving zero new awards.
All of the NSF’s directorates are awarding fewer new grants, but the hardest hit is the social, behavioural and economic sciences (SBE) directorate, which the White House proposed eliminating in its 2027 budget request to Congress. SBE has so far awarded 84 new grants this year, about 11% of its average, mainly in areas of artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience and decision-making. Much of its portfolio, such as sociology, archaeology, political science, economics and geography, has received zero new awards. “I don’t think they’ve realized yet that there’s no awards,” one NSF staff member says of researchers in those fields. “That’s going to be clear soon.”
6422226
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 13/08/2026
🔇 🔇 🔇 My book, Deep Unlearning, is now available for preorders! I don't know how people write so many books because this one took a lot out of me. It turns out, I had a lot to say 😂, with editors cutting out 50k of my words 🫣 ✴️ You can now preorder it at www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-U....
Cover of my new book, Deep Unlearning: The Rise of AI and The Radicalization of a Tech Idealist. 

There are two concentric circles in the book, the left being circuits in black an white, and the right being a bunch of dots with orange accents. The cover background is cream. And the words are written in black except for "Un" which is in orange.
762186766
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
595165447121
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
vincentholst.bsky.social @vincentholst.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵
The average CD_5 index per year for Web of Science. The original Park et al. decline (top curve) becomes essentially flat (bottom curve) when removing papers with CD_5=1. Those papers largely correspond to dataset artefacts.
9352173
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Updating my undergrad Biological Networks course. Added this AI statement to my syllabus. #footnotes I'll also poll students on day 1 about their attitudes on AI tool use, and I'm restructuring assessments to a more flipped classroom pattern. Fun to experiment! aaronclauset.github.io/courses/3352/
How to get the most out of this class, in the age of AI -- advice from an expert

Coding agents and foundational AI models are incredible tools now. In the hands of an expert, they can dramatically amplify your ability to collect, analyze, and understand biological network data. But, you are not yet an expert and these tools can make it harder for you to build that expertise.

In this class, my goals for you are to (i) develop the network intuition and knowledge of an expert, and (ii) develop the expert skill to solve real problems with biological network data. It's possible to complete all of the problem sets with zero effort, and even parts of the final project---AI coding agents are that good. However, you will learn much more and build greater expertise if you instead embrace the struggle of figuring things out on your own.

That does not mean never using coding agents. It does mean waiting to use them until you're expert enough to know: when are they amplifying your own knowledge vs. substituting theirs for yours? It means accepting that sometimes you will feel lost, you'll get things wrong, you'll have to look things up manually, and you will need to study without AI tools. That's the price of becoming an expert yourself. For that, I am here to help. Attend lecture, ask questions, take notes, come to office hours, do the problem sets, form a study group, etc.
2285
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Very much agree with Pieris's argument: investing public funds exclusively in research 'applications' (believing that they have greater and more immediate economic value) will destroy the real driver of economic growth: basic science is the *only* economic engine arxiv.org/abs/2608.00172
Money quote from the preprint's conclusion : "The choice being presented to the scientific community — discovery or appli-cation, curiosity or impact — is a zero-sum illusion. The researchers who pursue fundamental questions are the same ones who end up transforming medicine, defence and industry — not because they planned to, but because transformative discoveries do not respect funding categories. Fundamental research is the foundation of the building. No one sees it while the skyscraper is standing, but remove it and everything above comes down."
0229
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Stanford AAUP @stanfordaaup.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Universities need to stop half-assing their response to the all-out assault on science (and higher education more broadly) if we are to have a hope of surviving. We should know that a concept of a plan is not going to work. Universities need to coordinate and take bold action or we're cooked.
science.org
University science in the US needs a coherent plan
The Trump administration continues to degrade America’s scientific establishment, causing widespread harm to the country’s broader interests and well-being. Last week, the Association of American Univ...
26034
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Angela Andersen @angelaandersen.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Kudos to @science.org for this self-analysis of the peer review process. These kind of data are never shared and don't have to be. Wildly refreshing to see it out in the open. Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals
Analyses of deidentified data reveal complex interactions that quantify success at elite general science journals.
29044
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Big assoc between evaluation and prestige & paper topic "...raises an important question: To what extent do the editors and reviewers at elite journals tend to overlook great scientific contributions that lack these advantageous author and manuscript characteristics?" www.science.org/doi/full/10....
science.org
Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals
Analyses of deidentified data reveal complex interactions that quantify success at elite general science journals.
22813
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
My inbox and text message app are full of messages to myself, for just this reason — stray thoughts, musings, ruminations while running, whatever, are raw material for writing. I’d add: photos of whiteboards filled with plans, diagrams, pithy phrases, and outlines. This. Is. Writing.
0173
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Competition to publish in elite journals is fierce, yet the confidentiality of the peer-review process — the gold standard for assessing whether a study meets the criteria for publication — has long made the process itself hard to study. A new paper in Science Advances offers a first look.
santafe.edu
New study examines publication trends at top journals
The small fraction of papers that make it to publication in the top scientific journals plays a powerful role in scientific discourse, shaping both public policy and scientific careers, yet the confid...
093
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
My boiling hot take on this is that, if tech companies are going to fund this kind of research (looking at Schmidt too), then the money needs to be given *no strings* to an independent arm's length research body, pooled with other funding, and treated as a donation not as direct funding.
36822
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b
7778522571
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
sorelle @friedler.net · 28/07/2026
My department is hiring tenure-track in computer science! Deadline: Oct 1, 2026. We care about and support both research and teaching. We're located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. It's a great place to work and live! I'm happy to answer any questions. www.haverford.edu/provost/news...
haverford.edu
Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Haverford College invites applications for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Computer Science to begin Fall 2027.
12716
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 24/07/2026
Also: We keep hearing that a number of Congressmembers think that everything at NIH has gone back to normal, and the Trump appointees are in fact on the side of saving NIH. That is false. Things at NIH are WORSE than last year. Please reach out to your senators and reps and tell them that.
28036
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 24/07/2026
I co-sign this great summary from @dereklowe.bsky.social . The goal is to destroy academic science, and these are the reasons. And all the “gold standard” and “needs reform” and “not high risk” stuff is transparent bullshit to hide the ball on what they are doing.
=
Science
science. But let me make something clear right up front. When I talk to people about this subject (and that includes some journalists as well) and say what I'm about to at the end of this paragaph I am sometimes met with disbelief. But I mean what I say and I am trying my best to say what I mean: The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands.
That's it. That's the story. They are naturally not putting it in those words, but instead talking about "gold standard science" and the
"reproducibility crisis" and funding "bold inquiry" for "transformational
breakthroughs". This is all bullshit, and it's important to realize that. Shameless hand-waving bullshit, delivered in a how-dare-vou-
8438196
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Jeffrey Lin @jeffrlin.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Here's the video of my presentation of this paper at the NBER SI: www.youtube.com/live/405kSya...
youtube.com
Macroeconomics and Productivity, NBER Summer Institute
YouTube video by NBER
0145
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Knight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 20/07/2026
How can higher education better withstand political attacks? In a new essay, @bakerdphd.bsky.social argues that power must be shifted away from governing boards and governments, and toward faculty, staff, students, and accreditors.
knightcolumbia.org
Reducing the Concentration of Power
25625
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Everyone coming on my feed and explaining to me that all is lost, I note what I have noted before, that there are no Negro Spirituals entitled, “Welp, I Guess It All Sucks and I Am Giving Up.”
9356961235
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Out of curiosity I had Fable write a response to the article about the weaknesses of LLMs: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/o... It's uh, pretty good. claude.ai/code/artifac...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Unstoppable Force of A.I. Hype Is Meeting One Immovable Fact
Congratulations. You’re irreplaceable.
2214019
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Daniel Lakens @lakens.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
We are hiring an assistant professor in Metascience! Join our lovely department of Human-Technology Interaction, with a very active Metascience group, at Eindhoven University of Technology. Apply here before August 14, or share the vacancy in your network! www.tue.nl/en/working-a...
tue.nl
Assistant Professor in Metascience
Personal type: Scientific staff
06260
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
In fact, that's in the analysis too - tenure-stream faculty, for whom research is a major part of their contractual obligation and the foundation of the incentive structure for tenure and promotion, work more hours on average than NTT faculty:
What are faculty doing with their time when they aren’t teaching? FSSE data show that faculty report spending 40 to 57 percent of their time teaching. Although they teach less, tenured and tenure-track faculty members actually work around 15 percent longer hours compared to their nontenure-track peers and devote more time to both research and to service.
310726
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Just here to post this again like I do every year, not only because Douglass was one of the founding philosophers of American liberty but because I am so moved by the kids Frederick Douglass’ descendants deliver “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”
youtu.be
‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech | NPR
YouTube video by NPR
2124561163
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Today we celebrate the PDFing of "Declaration FINAL v3 USE THIS ONE - SIGNED.docx" (Jefferson's draft was heavily edited by the Committee, then again by Congress, and he was big mad about it.)
📂 Version 1.0 — June 20, 1776
File Name: Declaration_Draft_TJ_DO_NOT_EDIT.docx
Author: t_jefferson_33
Commit Message: "Initial copy-paste from my Mason_VA_Rights_Notes.txt and VA_Constitution_V2.docx scratchpads. Confine your review to grammar and typos, and do not redline, only leave comments."
Tracked Changes & Notes:
Line 14: "We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable..."
Comment from t_jefferson_33: "Certified banger."
📂 Version 1.1 — June 24, 1776
File Name: Declaration_Draft_TJ_comments_JA_BF.docx
Editors: b_franklin_GrittyOG and JA_redsoxfan (obo Committee, w/ Sherman and Livingston)
Commit Message: "First pass by the Committee of Five. Modest style changes."
Tracked Changes & Notes:
47 revisions (redlined), three full new paragraphs
Deleted: "sacred & undeniable" * Inserted: "self-evident"
Comment from b_franklin_GrittyOG: "250 years from now, people will think you wrote that banger. You’re welcome."
📂 Version 2.0 — June 28, 1776
File Name: Declaration_Committee_Review_FINAL.docx
Author: t_jefferson_33
Commit Message: "Incorporated Ben and John's very minor edits of my excellent first draft into a clean copy. Ready for the Continental Congress to approve verbatim."
📂 Version 2.1 to 2.8 — July 2 – July 4, 1776
File Name: Declaration_CONGRESS_REVISED2_redline_NEW_v4_approved..docx
Editors: Continental_Congress Group Chat (50+ active users)
Commit Message: "Line-by-line review by committee. Light trimming, a mere 20% of the original text. Optimizing for colonial unity."
Tracked Changes & Notes:
❌ CRITICAL DELETION: 300 word imprudent diatribe against KG III for transatlantic slave trade (“waging cruel war against human nature”).
Comment from dunkin_delegate: “Jefferson wrote that? He always struck me as a smug hypocrite. #IYKYK”
Comment from SC_delegation_delegate: "I thought we agreed this issue was off the table for now. It can be amicably settled later."
❌ DELETION: Large sections complaining about the ordinary British public being "deaf to the voice of justice."
Comment from NY_delegation_hub: "Guys, let's keep the finger pointed strictly at King George. If we trash the British citizens, we ruin any chance of future trade partnerships or alliances. Keep it professional."
➕ INSERTION: Added "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world" and "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence" to the closing paragraph.
Comment from Middlesex_Conservative: "Marketing requested more religious claptrap to ensure maximum buy-in from the zealots."
System Notification: User t_jefferson_33 reacted 👎(39 instances).
📂 Version 3.0 (Production) — July 4, 1776 (Late Morning)
File Name: Declaration_of_Independence_FINAL_v3_USE_THIS_ONE_SIGNED.docx
Editors: john_hancock_big_font
Commit Message: "Approved. Shipped to the printers. John Hancock didn't realize his zoom level was at 200% when he signed. Committee unable to find the one intern who can resize images, shipping anyway."
System Notification: User t_jefferson_33 has left the chat.
The draft of the Declaration was revised first by Adams and Franklin, and then by the full committee. A total of 47 alterations, including the insertion of three complete paragraphs, were made to the text before it was presented to Congress on June 28. After voting for independence on July 2, Congress continued to refine the document, making 39 additional revisions to the committee draft before its final adoption on the morning of July 4.

The draft shows the multiplicity of corrections, additions and deletions that were made at each step. Although most of the alterations are in Jefferson's handwriting (Jefferson later indicated which changes he believed were made by Adams and Franklin), he felt slighted by the way Congress rewrote the manuscript. In a consoling letter of July 21, 1776, the state's senior delegate, Richard Henry Lee, wrote to Jefferson that he wished that "the manuscript had not been mangled as it is." In an 1823 letter to Madison, Jefferson wrote that, at the time, "during the debate, I was sitting by Dr. Franklin and he observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms" of Congress. In fact, as Congress neared completion of the document by altering nearly all of his last paragraph, Jefferson could only write in the margin "a different phraseology inserted." Jefferson remained bitter about the changes made to the Declaration of Independence right up to his death. His autobiography was a major effort to set the record straight on its writing.
291825452
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Jessica Hullman @jessicahullman.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Fascinating talk on the history of peer review from Melinda Baldwin at @icssi.org, with some parallels to current crises. Also I hadn't realized peer review was such an American thing.
05917
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Today is my first day as our department's Associate Chair for Faculty Affairs. We have close to 80 faculty. Although I'm not religious, it seems apropos to invoke the Serenity Prayer: give me serenity, courage, and wisdom.
0160
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Slides from my invited lecture "Escalation dynamics and the severity of wars" at the Norwegian Nobel Institute @nobelpeacecenter.bsky.social: it's within-conflict dynamics of escalation in fighting that cause wars to become large, with broad implications. aaronclauset.github.io/slides/Claus...
0154
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
NIH grants have been under political scrutiny since early 2025. But what does the screening process actually look like? What is being flagged? I spent a month digging into leaked docs and emails. We've published the 235-word list that are being flagged by an internal AI tool. And so much more. 🧵
nature.com
Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants
Mandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms have left hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.
9541384
Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Slides from my invited lecture "Escalation dynamics and the severity of wars" at the Norwegian Nobel Institute @nobelpeacecenter.bsky.social: it's within-conflict dynamics of escalation in fighting that cause wars to become large, with broad implications. aaronclauset.github.io/slides/Claus...
0154
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Kate Barnes @k-barnes.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
7\ In the computer science coauthorship network, we observe disparities in coauthorship centrality by gender, race, academic parent status, and most prominantly by institutional prestige 📈
Bar chart showing that women are less centrally located than men, minority races less central than majority races, those at low prestige institutions less central than those at high prestige institutions and those whose parents held academia jobs are less central than those with academic parents.
125
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Kate Barnes @k-barnes.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
6\ Key finding: computer scientists from top institutions are located more centrally in the coauthorship network. The network is built from all DBLP-indexed publications, and also exhibits significant racial but not gender-based homophily.
Figure shows a strong linear correlation between the institutional prestige scores and coauthorhsip centrality of U.S. computer scientists. Bar chart displays homophilic collaboration rates significantly higher than expected for White, East Asian, Indian and Middle Eastern scholars, as well as generally for scholars from majority and minority racial groups.
142
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Kate Barnes @k-barnes.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
1\ New paper out in FAccT 2026 @facct.bsky.social #FAccT2026 ! 🥳 Grateful to have worked with this team, and had the opportunity to combine my interests in fairness and the science of science. Link: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/....
Screenshot of the first page of our FAccT publication. Title: "Edge interventions can mitigate demographic and prestige disparities in the computer science coauthorship network." Authors: Kate Barnes, Mia Ellis-Einhorn, Carolina Chavez, Nayera Hasan, Mohammad Fanous, Blair D. Sullivan, Sorelle A. Friedler and Aaron Clauset. Affiliations: University of Colorado Boulder, Haverford College and University of Utah.
1136
Reposted by Aaron Clauset
Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
"Ultimately, the survival of democracy depends on institutional courage... The lessons of history and contemporary experience converge on a single point: institutions must choose between being bulwarks of democracy or bridges to authoritarianism." 👏👏👏
1144