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Andrea

@akthom.bsky.social
340 followers 335 following 31 posts

associate professor, information science. knowledge infrastructures! natural history collections! curated scientific databases! digital curation!

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Reposted by Andrea
Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 12h
Lot going on here www.azcentral.com/story/news/p...
Kyrsten Sinema's ex-boyfriend and former bodyguard said he threw her paintings into her swimming pool in part because he felt disillusioned by her relationship with a major
U.S. Artificial Intelligence software developer as the war in Gaza drags on.
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Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Oh the faculty lounge? Where the aloof, lazy profs are planning how to spend their millions on indoctrinating your kid? Is that the same lounge where we've been collecting water in a trash can for months because they haven't fixed the pipe
The drop ceiling has a black
Garbage bag hanging down from it, with a hose leading to a yellow trash can
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Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
kudos to the times for randomly quoting a cartoonist in an article about the power grid, it's important to know what cartoonists think
Replacing all those aging devices won’t be easy. Robert Crumb, the underground comics artist, once described drawing the various transformers he saw while being driven around Sacramento. “You can’t make up this crap. It’s too complicated,” he told a documentary filmmaker. “This stuff is not created to be visually pleasing. It’s just an accumulation of the modern industrial world that people don’t even notice.”
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Rabih Alameddine @rabihalameddine.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Repost: Things you should know but didn't know you needed to know before knowing: A nasothek is a collection of the broken noses of statues and busts. Now you know.
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The Onion @theonion.com · 21/09/2026
New Study Shows That Bones Are Incredibly Cool
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Cristian Román-Palacios @cromanpa.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
When two clades evolve together, can the trees alone tell you how often they cospeciated, and how often the symbiont switched hosts? We think so! Our paper, led by @yichaozeng.bsky.social, shows that branch length differences in the cophylogeny are informative enough to estimate six rates at once
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ESIP - Earth Science Information Partners @esipfed.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
📚 What we're reading: "Who Will Keep Research Data Infrastructure Open and Running?" 🌐 To prevent costly setbacks to scientific progress and critical services, the community must urgently recognize these essential research infrastructure as public utilities and secure sustained operational funding.
issues.org
Who Will Keep Research Data Infrastructure Open and Running? | Real Numbers
The scientific community must consider the longevity of open research infrastructure—why it might fail and how to prevent it.
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Darth Vader spoke in favor of Flock cameras at a San Diego city council meeting yesterday
gizmodo.com
'The Emperor Is a Fan of Flock': Darth Vader Speaks at City Council Meeting
"This council was elected to serve the police, not the public," said Vader.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 29/07/2026
This is a well-produced segment. I encourage you to watch so you can hear the noise for yourself. The professor of environmental health science that they interviewed called it an “unprecedented new noise source.”
wxyz.com
Neighbors say noise from Michigan data center is 24/7 and upending their lives
One Michigan community has been experiencing the reality of a data center next door for a couple of years now, and they say the sound has changed their lives.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 25/07/2026
Admirable clarity @science.org
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
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Lady Froldmagen (she/her) @zinelib.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Be part of the gay cataloging agenda! 🏳️‍🌈 🦕 📚
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
A future of U.S. “science” without scientists.
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geoffrey @parsnip.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
mitch mcconnell died doing what he loved, keeping a federal office vacant for several months leading into an election
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Andrea @akthom.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
it's young earth creationism all the way down!
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Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Did you hear the one about the Smithsonian hiding the bones of Bible giants in the basement? No? Well, MO GOP Rep Eric Burlinson did, and he recently said he wants to develop a “strategy” to use Congress’s investigative power to get to the bottom of the mystery. “I do believe [giants] were real.”🤦‍♀️
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Rob Sheridan @rob-sheridan.com · 20/07/2026
MULDER [slapping down plane tix]: Hope you packed your rain coat, Scully. SCULLY: Seattle? Mulder it's the weekend, what- MULDER [handing her a file] Confirmed sightings, Scully. This is big SCULLY [eyes wide]: My God Mulder, what am I looking at here? MULDER: The locals are calling it.. JIMOTHY
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Andrea @akthom.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
nytimes.com
Opinion | My Son Was Killed by ICE. I Want Accountability. (Gift Article)
I deserve accountability and transparency, and so does the public.
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 13/07/2026
Holy COW. Text analysis of comments on the OMB rule: overwhelming opposition, overwhelmingly not form letters. (But 9 in 10 comments supporting the rule ARE form responses, LOL) Whatever happens next, folks have stepped up.
Screenshot text: Between May 29 and July 9, roughly 51,000 comments were posted to regulations.gov (and over 200,000 more had been received but not yet published). The verdict on public sentiment is clear and lopsided: about 94 percent oppose the proposed rule and only 6 percent support it, with fewer than one percent marked as unclear. The opposition is overwhelmingly grassroots rather than orchestrated. Form letters make up only about 16 percent of all comments (roughly 8,400 comments across 210 distinct campaigns), and only about one in eight opposing comments came from a form-letter campaign. Support for the rule, by contrast, was almost entirely organized: nearly nine in ten supportive comments (about 2,500) came from a single form-letter campaign. Opponents mostly wrote their own comments; supporters mostly signed the same form-letter.
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Gary R. Bunt @garyrbunt.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
I'm re-re-posting this significant article: "The open-source archive now contains more than 500,000 digitized photographs, identification papers, diaries, maps, films, and letters, many of which were collected directly from Palestinian families and might otherwise have been lost forever."
wired.com
How Palestinians Are Building a Digital Archive That Can’t Be Erased
Distributed backups, cyber resilience, and a half-million records are preserving Palestinian history beyond any single building or border.
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Invest in Open Infrastructure @investinopen.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
"Rescued data has to be collected, and then it has to go somewhere; it has to be validated, described, made findable, & kept accessible." The systems that do that work are assumed to exist… or invisible in the funding picture entirely. investinopen.org/blog/data-re...
investinopen.org
The Data Resilience Funding Landscape: A Preliminary Analysis
Mapping where the money is (and isn't) going in the data rescue movement.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
There is no plan or budget model w/o foreign students There is no plan or budget model w/o NSF/NIH/Title VI/FLAS/etc. federal funding There is no plan or budget model with further state budget cuts There is no plan or budget model with further state government caps on tuition There is no plan
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Sara Satolli @sarasatolli.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
So long and thanks for all the cores
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Ambrose @ambrosia-engine.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
This review really goes for the jugular.
"Any serious moral accounting of the Weather Underground might consider how they would be remembered had they stormed a federal facility and indiscriminately fired 2,000 rounds of live ammunition, murdering 43 people in under 20 minutes (a crime actually committed by the New York State Police and correctional officers when they retook Attica in 1971). How might we judge them had they opened fire on unarmed protestors, injuring 28 and killing three by shooting them in the back (a crime actually committed by state police and highway patrol officers in the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre)? How might we remember the Weather Underground had it been J. Edgar Hoover and not Fred Hampton who lay in a drugged haze as armed men stormed into his home and shot him in his sleep?"
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Dems have to run on this hard. Do not let the RFK types try to spin what his own party just signed off on here. Actual Monsanto, the comic book villain of Adbusters days, was shielded from liability over poisoning Americans. I don't care if it's slopulism: this Supreme Court wants you dead.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 23/06/2026
i think it is great that conservative students functionally work as a volunteer stasi for republican politicians and conservative media
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Diane Zorich @dzorich.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
"...the future of the world’s largest open-access digital library for biodiversity literature is under threat. ... we only have funding, we estimate, until the end of 2027,” .... “It would be just horrendous – devastating, really – to lose it after coming so far and unlocking so much.”
theguardian.com
A bonanza for fans of the natural world: the digital library sharing 64m pages of scientific knowledge with everyone
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is an invaluable online archive of historic texts on species living and lost supplied by the world’s leading museums and universities. Now its future is in doubt
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Emily Bruce @brucelab.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
My friend's NSF CAREER received the highest possible score (Excellent, Excellent, Excellent: High Priority) and it was rejected today. This would have been my friend's first extramural award, 5 years after starting their lab, exactly when grant $ is make or break for an Assistant Professor's career.
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Andrea @akthom.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
[screams/sobs/contemplates other career paths]
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Chris ßrinton @cjbrinton.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
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Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
The Spurs still have a chance if Mike Pence does what’s right
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Gerry Doyle @mgerrydoyle.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
hey quick question, am I having a stroke
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Wonderful news! Journal of Research on Research is launched. "if you are a researcher who researches any aspect of research, then this is the journal and community for you." Worth reading the whole editorial for a transparent and thoughtful account of this amazing community-driven effort.
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 03/06/2026
Striking to me how little reporting there is on this rule proposal, which is maybe the biggest change to American governance in almost a century. And this reporting is … weak. www.npr.org/2026/06/03/n...
npr.org
President Trump seeks control of science funding
The White House Office of Management and Budget is moving to take more control of billions of dollars in federal grants. Critics say the proposed change would jeopardize the integrity of U.S. science.
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Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
I swear to god this is real.
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AGU Science Policy @aguscipolicy.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
🚨 Speak up for science🚨 Proposed House cuts: 20% to NSF, 17% to NASA Science—putting research, STEM education, and critical data at risk. 🌎 ✉️ Tell your Senators to reject these cuts 📢 Share & act now👇 agu.quorum.us/campaign/162...
agu.quorum.us
Protect and preserve federal scientific research and workforce
Advocate for strong FY27 science funding today!
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 02/06/2026
another day, another story about the administration's war on knowledge itself, all in service of allow its corporate patrons free rein to rob us blind and poison our world www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Her post also includes detailed and exceptionally helpful suggestions about how to craft the most effective comment, with some detailed examples for scientists or those who support science. 🧪
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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
A higher ed attorney presented to our college council and said don’t think cuz it backed down a bit in some ways that this administration isn’t building a more aggressive, stealth agenda against higher ed. Including accreditation and ramping up staff and resources to bring cases against schools.
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
"It is not enough to… celebrate the benefits of innovation, if they are built on a chain of exploitation that remains deliberately hidden. If technology promises emancipation, yet produces new forms of global subordination, it stands in contradiction to the fundamental principle of human dignity."
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leon @leyawn.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
congratulations, graduates. i'm honored to speak at your commencement. this is a proud moment for you, your family, and your friends. the future is in your hands. and the most important task of the future is to feed the Gaping Maw (students start booing, one student yells "fuck the gaping maw")
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End Citizens United @endcitizensunited.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
BREAKING: SB 2471 has been signed into law! It’s the first of its kind in the nation and renders the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision irrelevant in Hawaii. This is a win for the movement to get big money, especially dark money, out of politics.
apnews.com
New Hawaii law targets corporate influence in politics after Citizens United ruling
Hawaii's Democratic governor has signed a bill to curb corporate and "dark money" influence in politics. This move comes after the 2010 U.S.
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 14/05/2026
Ha! I promised my students I’d try to get their comments on the record and I’m so pleased we succeeded. Thanks to Emmy Martin for what I think is a very good article on the Canvas hack. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
chronicle.com
The Canvas Hack Confirmed Some Professors’ Fears. It Likely Won’t Change Anything.
Last week’s widespread Canvas outage validated years of faculty anxiety about higher ed’s dependence on private tech vendors. Most say the likely response is a new vendor, not a new approach.
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Emily Yoshida @emilyyoshida.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
This was on the bulletin board at my local ace hardware and I’m going to show it to anyone who ever asks me if Iowa City can really measure up to Hollywood in terms of opportunity

Casting Call:
1 female 17-27 y/o $200 1-hour shoot
1 camera person. $75 - 1-hour shoot
Venue: lowa City cemetery, Flexible schedule: May 6-23
Send demo reel, or YouTube link, or FB..
STORY: A heart transplant donor hanged himself after his young wife left him for a man her age. The recipient falls for the donor's widow, with the very heart she once broke.
The 1-minute video will be used in a novella landing
page.
RECIPIENT: John, I am deeply grateful for the gift of your heart.
WIDOW: W-what did you just say? Oh my God. What is going on?
RECIPIENT: His heart. It was donated to me.
She staggered back, pressing her hands to her head, eyes squeezed shut.
WIDOW: I'm. I'm with the man who carries John's heart. John hanged himself because of me. I know that as he turns to dust, my guilt will go away. But now his heart lives on in you, and my guilt multiplies a hundredfold. I hate you, I hate him, I hate all of it! She breaks down
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Will Wiles @willwiles.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
(I make a "mouth" with the side of my hand and draw little eyes above it) Richard Dawkins: hmmmm (I put lipstick around the "mouth") Richard Dawkins, suavely: well hello
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Andrea @akthom.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
this fuckin guy
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Blue sky nice ghost @rajandelman.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
It's like 10,000 spoons When all you need is a knife It's like meeting the man of your dreams Then meeting his miniature wife
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