Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.socialSasho Todorov @sashotodorov.bsky.social · 26/09/2026For context: Palantir isn't named that because he's a Tolkien fan. It's because he's a fan of the uber-reddit Russian fanfic "The Last Ringbearer" which recast Sauron as a progressive industrializing force. 1731686
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Paper: different cells are different and here's one important way they're different specifically. 001
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Headline: SeCReT nEW bRaIN DIsCoVErEd! 100
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Thanks, I always appreciate your writing as a fellow reformed molecular/developmental biologist! 110
Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.socialJohn Timmer @jtimmer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Ok, this "there are two separate brains" thing appears to be making the rounds, and I want to be absolutely clear: this is a press office overhyping some perfectly reasonable science that won't come as a surprise to most developmental biologists. 32755238
Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.socialC @spiffyscientist.bsky.social · 20/09/2026I won’t lie, it’s a bit overwhelming to see the work hyperbolized by many press outlets, including the university. We did not discover a new organ, or that you have two consciousnesses, etc! I’m excited for the general positive recognition, (especially the coverage from the Chronicle by Jack Lee)sfchronicle.comThe brain is a single organ. But it may not start that way, study suggestsA Stanford-led study challenges the idea that the brain develops from one common pool of early cells — and could help researchers model diseases such as ALS. 523477
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 18/09/202610! No wait, 8. 7. 7 again... That was a fun tour of all my childhood awkwardness. At least I got to end on the 5yo stuff that's mostly amusing or cute in retrospect. 000
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 18/09/2026(scare quotes added because effective altruism is a useful concept when used by sane people that aren't hallucinating about their machine god simulating masturbation until the heat death of the universe) 020
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Give the Taborites some CS degrees, a bit of modern philosophy, and a trillion fucking dollars of investments and you won't be too far from the current "EA" or "rationalist" cults 100
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Yeah the Taborites came to my mind when the first discussions of millenarian communal living sex cults came into The Discourse en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taborit...en.wikipedia.orgTaborites - Wikipedia 100
Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.social"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Basically, the United States is running short of key munitions because the insecure man-children running the country keep firing off expensive stand-off emotional support munitions as a desperate act of gender-affirming self-care. Alas, there are not enough TLAMs to make Trump or Hegseth into men. 538693
Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.socialJeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 01/09/2026For those in the mood for some seriously well-done gallows humor, I heartily recommend this... inpreparation.substack.com/p/nih-simpli...inpreparation.substack.comNIH Simplifies Grant Scoring To 👍 🤷♂️ 😂BETHESDA, MD—The National Institutes of Health announced Tuesday that it would replace its 50-year-old numerical scoring system with a streamlined three-emoji format, in which grant applications will ... 711440
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 29/08/2026But that's not universal, there are plenty of counterexamples too, and even the "moderately more egalitarian" examples are sometimes brutally oppressive by modern standards. 0150
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 29/08/2026From my limited reading on the topic: it's not entirely wrong, there are certainly examples of moderately more egalitarian and even matriarchal/matrilineal hunter gatherer societies. 1130
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Hah! I still think of the emeritus professor as basically the ideal retirement, getting to totter about to whatever seminars and committees seem interesting enough. But I completely noped out of the postdoc-adjunct-visiting-soft money-tenure track faculty gauntlet. 000
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Apparently not, he was asking for recommendations on Pratchett a little while ago after his kid read Wee Free Men for the first time. But at the rate they're apparently devouring books, maybe they've finished reading most of Discworld by now! 040
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 22/08/2026I just read Starter Villain and it was a hoot. I think it was reasonably tame? I remember a handful of sex jokes, and the dolphins cursed up a streak. 030
Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.socialProPublica @propublica.org · 29/07/2026Two physicists won the Nobel Prize for the 2012 discovery of the so-called “God particle.” Under a new rule proposed by the Trump administration, American scientists might be forced to watch similar discoveries from the sidelines.propublica.orgHow Trump’s “America First” Administration Could Shut U.S. Scientists Out of the Next Nobel-Worthy DiscoveryA proposed White House rule would give political appointees unprecedented control over scientific funding. One physicist, who helped discover the Higgs boson, explains how the rule would’ve stifled th... 18339161
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 19/07/2026But yeah examples like Shannon are almost extinct among the senior faculty. At that level there's much more selection for those that are successful playing the career and grantsmanship games, which tolerates much less eccentricity than it used to. 020
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 19/07/2026I'd say this subculture is still thriving in places where the tech money isn't so dominant, academia in particular. BAHfest is a prime example! 140
altoclefscience.bsky.social @altoclefscience.bsky.social · 07/07/2026Is it DRM free? I've had to pass on some Humble Book Bundles that had DRM that wasn't explicitly noted. I only learned about the DRM from other unhappy buyers. 200
Reposted by @altoclefscience.bsky.socialSholto David @sholtodavid.bsky.social · 22/05/2026Earlier this week I posted an example of a fake western blot provided by ThermoFisher to demonstrate the validity of a p53 antibody. I considered it an amusing curiosity. In fact Thermo Fisher Scientific has systematically manipulated antibody validation data! 713660
