iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

new article! why market based-conservation won’t save the bees 🐝

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Next, some politics. Integrated pest management has failed to curb pesticide use. To succeed, it needs to move beyond narrow technical advice to confront power in the food system. We can learn how to do that from the field of sustainability transitions doi.org/10.1002/ecs2...

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

First some science: we sequenced eDNA from 500+ lady beetles and found they eat a lot more than aphids, and their diets get more diverse in as landscapes do! doi.org/10.1002/eap....

Bipartite network diagram of lady beetle prey trophic relationships from DNA sequencing data

Predicted effects of landscape diversity within 250 m of collection sites on prey taxa richness in the sampled lady beetle community. Prey richness increases with landscape diversity

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Two new papers out this week in @esajournals.bsky.social about pest control, biodiversity, and agriculture. 🐞 what we found in ladybug guts doi.org/10.1002/eap.... 🧑‍🌾 why IPM needs a theory of change doi.org/10.1002/ecs2...

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Silvia Secchi @profsecchi.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Well it’s not biblical but it’s more relevant: US ag has always been based on an extractivist export model. I don’t think this crowd cares for sustainability, so good luck getting US consumers to eat even more CAFO pigs 🐖🐖🐖 and the like. I discuss origins here - DM me if interested in the paper.

journals.sagepub.com

Compounded extraction: An examination of early agro-extractivism in the US Heartland - Silvia Secchi, 2025

The concept of agro-extractivism was developed by scholars of Latin America to characterize socio-ecological processes of dispossession and the commodification ...

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Silvia Secchi @profsecchi.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Here's my open access paper "Who is an American farmer? Who counts in American agriculture?"! I show that using $1,000 sales value as the threshold to be considered a farmer in the Census of Agriculture + increasing the # of operators per farm results in vast overestimates of "farms" & "farmers" 1/

link.springer.com

Who is an American farmer? Who counts in American agriculture? - Agriculture and Human Values

Agriculture and Human Values - The most recent changes in the US Census of Agriculture (CoA) have caused substantial increases in the number of farmers. At the same time, by including lifestyle and...

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Raj Patel @rajpatel.org · 15/07/2025

Kudos to Ben Iuliano, Adam Calo, Maywa Montenegro de Wit and Adam Calo from the Agroecology Research-Action Collective for ending the Enduring Fantasy of “Feeding the World” in Spectre spectrejournal.com/the-enduring...

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Adam Calo @adamcalo.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

What drives the enduring myth of “feeding the world?” @tabledebates.bsky.social

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Really proud of this piece pushing back against renewed enthusiasm for “land sparing” (i.e. industrial ag boosterism), written with some brilliant colleagues. Check it out!

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

The solution proposed by generative AI boosters is to devote more and more class time to learning about their product, its uses, its limits (if any) — and less and less to the substance, the subject matter of the course. Solutions, problems — what’s the difference? None, as long as you’re using AI.

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Kevin Hall @kevinh-phd.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology.

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Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I will keep posting about this because I want people to know it continues, and it is a lot more than the individual cases we see in the news. >1000 students at 170+ universities across 43 states now. Thank you @insidehighered.com and @amowreader.com www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...

Map of international Student Visas Revoked.
As of April 14, over 170 colleges and universities have identified 1,000-plus international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed by the State Department. Source: Inside Higher Ed analysis, Ashley Mowreader/Inside Higher Ed. Some institutions have shared publicly that students have lost visas but have yet to disclose the number of students impacted. These are documented on the map, but the number is unknown.

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Adrien Rusch @arusch.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

📣 We are offering 2 PhD thesis projects @inrae-save.bsky.social with Gaëtane Le Provost, Brice Giffard & my self. 1/2# Impacts of land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services adum.fr/as/ed/voirpr...

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Kenny Torrella @kennytorrella.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Last week, Trump's USDA announced plans to significantly increase slaughter line speeds at pork and poultry plants. The meat industry celebrated the news. It was hardly covered, but has enormous implications for hundreds of thousands of workers.

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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I wrote about the free speech advocates who spent the last decade pearl clutching about the campus left while (intentionally or unintentionally) manufacturing consent for the right-wing assault on free expression.

stringinamaze.net

What Happens to the Free Speech Warriors?

Pundits and activists have targeted the campus left for years. Now we're reaping what they sowed.

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.”
• The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives.
• The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000.

Each point represents a federal agency:
• Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs.
• Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs.

Key Observations:
• Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates.
• Notable targeted agencies include:
• HHS (Health & Human Services)
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
• Dept. of Education
• USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies.
• A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size.

Takeaway:

The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology.

Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Where is this kind of response from our universities? @cuny.edu

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

I am begging the national media to start taking this seriously. Stop buying the claims that the framing of "temporary" or "pause." They are altering the review processes of federally funded scientific research from merit-based peer review processes to political screening by ideologues.

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Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

This is day one, and it's already exhausting. That's part of the gameplan, to make you so exhausted that you just give in. We as biologists need to fight this harmful nonsense. You don't need to have the energy every day, but when this comes up, our organizations must get into the fray.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/12/2024

when you have anti-DEI proponents openly going after black military officers for recruiting from HBCUs and suing schools for their black and Hispanic enrollment *even after the schools ended any racial preferences* then the only honest label for these people is "segregationist"

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

I’m teaching conservation bio & sustainable development for the first time in the spring - I’m super excited, but also feeling a little out of my depth/not up to date on all the literature. Anyone have any must-read articles or recommended resources as I refine the syllabus?

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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

+1 I recommend Kropotkin, along with Lewontin and Levins so often to my students. The Dialectical Biologist is a great antidote to The Selfish Gene, and Lewontin’s Biology as Ideology should also be required reading.

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

gonna be interesting to see how her pro-agribusiness bona fides square with Kennedy’s supposed FDA crackdown

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Sara Emery @saraemery.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Come join our department! 🌎 🧪 👩‍🔬 🦟 🪰🐛 We are hiring for a field crops entomologist. 60% research, 40% extension based in Ithaca. Be central to helping New York farmers comply with the Birds and the Bees Act. Applications due January 2, 2025. apps.hr.cornell.edu/recruiting/f...

apps.hr.cornell.edu

Academic Career Opportunities

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 06/11/2024

Thinking back to when I was a college student the day after the 2016 election, I’ve been asking myself what I would do now that I’m at the front of the room. It turns out the answers is add a bunch of stuff about mutual aid and Kropotkin quotes to the serendipitously scheduled mutualism lecture.

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 08/07/2024

Another chapter from my diss now published in @jappliedecology.bsky.social ! More seminatual habitat = more predation and more ladybugs 🐞

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Daniel Karp @dskarp.bsky.social · 08/07/2024

Thrilled to share this paper led by Elissa Olimpi just out in #LandscapeEcology. We show that, contrary to widespread perception, maintaining habitat around produce farms enhances bird biodiversity without compromising food safety. (a thread) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

link.springer.com

Ungrazed seminatural habitats around farms benefit bird conservation without enhancing foodborne pathogen risks - Landscape Ecology

Context Conservation in working landscapes is critical for halting biodiversity declines and ensuring farming system sustainability. However, concerns that wildlife may carry foodborne pathogens has c...

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 16/05/2024

Exclusive: A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post.

washingtonpost.com

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show

A WhatsApp chat started by some wealthy Americans after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack reveals their focus on New York Mayor Eric Adams and their work with Israeli officials to shape U.S. opinion of the Gaza...

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Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · 07/05/2024

I really hope this is the last thing I have to publish about all this, but: I wrote for the Nation about Columbia’s suppression of speech about Palestine and its violation of the work we do in the classroom www.thenation.com/article/soci...

thenation.com

A Year Under the Palestine Exception at Columbia University

Columbia has tossed aside the mission at the heart of undergraduate liberal arts education: preparing student to be citizens in a pluralistic democracy.

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Ben Iuliano @beniuliano.bsky.social · 05/04/2024

One thing I miss about twitter (and hope to find here) is all the cool papers! Here's one contribution, hot off the press: The closing chapter of my diss (and first single-author pub) takes a look at the political economy of landscape pest control doi.org/10.1007/s104...

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