iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 4h

The Cycle 6 JWST 🔭 Call for Proposals deadline has been extended to October 1, at 5 pm Eastern Time (US) due to APT server issues. For updates, please check: “Late Breaking News” at the Call for Proposals jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-opportu...

static.klipy.com

Me Using James Webb Telescope To Find Who Asked

ALT: Me Using James Webb Telescope To Find Who Asked

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 4h

“We strongly recommend that AI labs refrain from treating the release of mathematical results as marketing vehicles to promote their models, ignoring the substantial negative externalities that this practice inflicts on the mathematical community.”

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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 8h

“Biggest improvement in housing affordability for 40 years”

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 17h

Those arguing for mass-adoption of AI art always seem intent on proving the wrong thing; that AI tech will change beyond all recognition. They seem less inclined to prove their argument's much wilder claim; that human nature, and all previous modes of taste, emotion and investment, will change too.

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Patrick Stokes @patrickstokes.com · 20h

If nothing else AI is making clear that there are people all around us for whom writing, art, and music are not communion with another mind, but just - wallpaper. Just pleasant things to look at. They think AI is conscious because they have no actual grasp of what it is to encounter another mind.

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 20h

Probably an analogy to Tao on theorems here: it is probably easy to strip mine the space of melodies in a given genre. None of what would be produced would really be music if it was not engaged with aesthetically by a human mind. It’s crazy to want that!

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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 22h

Amazing how comments on how to think about AI resonate across fields. This is from drama/comedy but could equally be science: The barrier to access to doing astronomy isn’t technology or money (any more). It’s care. (& having the space to give that care and attention, of course) 🧪

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Senator David Shoebridge @davidshoebridge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Excited to be chosen as Leader of the @greens.org.au, together with @stephhodgins-may.bsky.social as Deputy Leader. Now is the time to build the Greens as the home for all who want climate action, a fair return on our resources, a secure home and income, and to not sell out to the US or the 1%.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 28/09/2026

i wish the astronomy community would go back to using "machine learning" to talk about machine learning instead of saying "AI" all the time to try and suck up to the feds

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Dr Blair Williams @blairwilliams26.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"But 70% of poll respondents said that, even if the government built enough homes and expanded public services to keep pace with population growth, they would still want immigration reduced." *ahem* racism

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

a public-facing chatbot with the government’s blessing is a recipe for disaster and basically cannot be made safe

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The tweet that immediately came to mind:

We're a modest company with modest goals:
1: sell a quality product at a fair price
2: drain the world's oceans so we can find and kill god
6:19 PM • Oct 21, 2014 • Twitter for iPhone
9.8K Retweets
32.7K Likes

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Micah Buuck @mbuuck.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"jail isnt real," i assure myself as i close my eyes and crash the nyse with my sandboxed ai

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Colin @colin-fraser.net · 29/09/2026

Another day working in AI Safety at a frontier lab. Everyone asks me if they can use the model without it hacking into the UN. Buddy, they won’t even let me use the model without it hacking into the UN.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 29/09/2026

"I believe that science derives its authority from something more than mastering the pipeline from data generation to publication. Rather, it comes from interactions within a community of people trained to interrogate evidence and answer for the conclusions they draw from it."

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

That doesn't mean that universities can or should ignore AI. That would be ridiculous. But universities are well set up to *study* AI, for researchers to develop and use aspects of AI, and we need to figure out how that all fits in with the academic mission.

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My feeling (that I express in the episode) is that universities are not institutions that are well-positioned to be "move fast and break things" labs. By their nature and structure, it is essentially impossible to completely pivot on a dime for something new even if everyone was on board.

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

pretty depressing that frontier models are now really good at code but the crappiest LLM is good enough to totally pollute the public sphere. We're never getting it back are we

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

every time I read "high agency" or "high decoupler" as a description of people in stem I think about Gould on Einstein and the "near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops”

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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

How can people skip core work and be overworked at the same time? For students it’s part time work outside of university. For academics it could be developing and running additional assessments to (ironically) mitigate the detrimental impact of AI - there’s a lot of talk about widespread oral exams.

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Adam Rogers @jetjocko.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The AI companies are blogging samples of scientific work in part as ads to induce scientists to become paying customers, but I can’t see that happening if they have even the whiff of a reputation for plagiarism.

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Once again, I gotta say: you cannot treat anything you’re feeding into an AI as anonymous. There are enormous ethics implications for, e.g. referees who are clearly uploading others’ unpublished papers without consent, let alone health care professionals or law enforcement

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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

On similar lines, if we’re not careful: A. Scientific journals will only accept submissions from established researchers working within institutions. B. Data we’ve spent ages making open will be hidden to avoid the expense of continued download by bots.

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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 27/09/2026

This is what "research" looks like for many paper-producing groups or individuals, in light of the recent advances in LLMs/AI systems. PSA: this may look tempting! But this is not good, this is not research, and, very much like when I tried to play Quake 3 back in the day, this will not end well.

Capture the Flag starting screen from a game of Quake 3 Arena

Screenshot (thumbnail) from https://youtu.be/cDq2LOQlAG4?si=iplz1qQELCdG_zIT

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Tim Lyons @picketer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Imagine describing 10 storey buildings at a railway station minutes from the core CBD of a giant city as a "mega project" and citing *but waddabout public housing* plus some weird Malthusian stuff.

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The messengers generally look down on most scientific inquiry unless it’s a very specific form of applied science. We can’t let these folks divide us; in the end, much of STEM has more in common with the humanities and social sciences than with, e.g., business.

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

As someone in a STEM discipline, I really abhor the kind of messaging that Mark describes. The messengers aren’t people who actually care about STEM. It’s really a shorthand for “do something practical, focus on your relation to the labor market”.

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Peter Coles 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇮🇪 @telescoper.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The Open Journal of Astrophysics is a Q1 Journal If the only reason you were not submitting papers to OJAp was that it wasn't a Q1 journal then you can start submitting them now!

telescoper.blog

The Open Journal of Astrophysics is a Q1 Journal

If the only reason you were not submitting papers to OJAp was that it wasn't a Q1 journal then you can start submitting them now!

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Pretty sure I was the only Lions supporter in the pub just then but what a finish

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 26/09/2026

dream a little bigger, you fucks! Go work on biotech, solar, batteries, fusion, robotics, manufacturing, rare earth metals, desalination, agriculture. You think that God has reached down from heaven and granted you unlimited software generation, and you're spending it on... a note-taking app???

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

That's because the anti-intellectualism of the populists and Far Right is in direct contradiction to the basic foundations of any civilisation

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

the government is busy trashing the university sector but these for profit management colleges somehow still exist

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Incentives already exist for academics to game their article citation metrics and online mentions. What gaming might happen to get *AI* to cite and mention academic papers more too, now that this can also be quantified? www.amicitedby.ai

amicitedby.ai

Am I Cited by AI?

See how often AI tools read and cite your research.

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Rocketpilot 🇵🇸 @rocketpilot.xyz · 24/09/2026

I saw someone call this press statement a step in the right direction but uhh usually governments hold press conferences about vast criminal enterprises AFTER they've started breaking them up don't they

abc.net.au

OpenAI agent hacked Medicare portal, PM says

Anthony Albanese says he has spoken to the Open AI chief executive to express his concern about the incident and the length of time it took the tech company to inform the government of the breach.

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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

low key it's one of the most damming things about the whole incident tbh. how do you not have a govt affairs team for Australia? that's got to be a major market.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/09/2026

Come work in our department! Lots of cool research projects across many fields (optical, radio, instruments, quantum, stats, etc.) and our campus is *really nice*!

Four tile image of trees which have turned brown and golden in autumn

Looking out across several bushes and trees on a fire of grass and some buildings in the distance.

Two tile image. On the left is a set of stairs which have the progress pride flag painted on them. On the right are flag poles at the University campus showing progress pride flags.

Lookimg up a pathway that is lined with large towering trees. The sun is shining through them casing interesting shadows

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Watched the ABC Back Roads on the Cocos Islands out of curiosity and… a *very* soft focus history and interview with old mate Clunies Ross there

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Australian/NZ students - the call is open for applications to do a fully-funded MRes and/or PhD at Macquarie next year! We have an awesome department, campus, and cool projects. Submit an Expression of Interest here for projects across astro/physics/maths/stats: mq-maps-domestic-eoi.netlify.app

mq-maps-domestic-eoi.netlify.app

Domestic research EOI · Macquarie University

Express your interest in a Master of Research or PhD at Macquarie University's School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Domestic scholarship round, Session 1 2027.

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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

We're running the second edition of @astro-on-tap.sydney this October 13 at the Crows Nest Hotel - join us for drinks and astronomy talks with Devika Kamath (Macquarie) and Geraint Lewis (Sydney)! Book your free tickets here: events.humanitix.com/astronomy-on...

events.humanitix.com

Astronomy on Tap - Sydney Round 2

Fun talks about astronomy at the Crows Nest Hotel! Learn about how stars are born and die, and drink beer while you do it!

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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Thousands of university jobs lost too, and barely a peep either.

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Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 21/09/2026

The “jaw-dropping” El Niño currently heating up the planet has burst through the highest temperature ever recorded for the phenomenon, several months before its expected peak.

A line chart showing temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region of the Pacific Ocean, compared to a 30-year rolling base period since 1982.

A gold line shows temperatures in 1997, a teal line in 2025, and a red line in 2026. The red line surpasses all others reaching 3.07ºC, and at an earlier point (September) than the previous El Niño that reached a comparable range in November 2015.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 21/09/2026

As Alex notes in this thread, AI doesn't "democratize" science. Rather, it compels scientists to rely on anti-egalitarian means of directing their attention.

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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A lot of good stuff, but this is the one that feels most striking:

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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Why do white men become white nationalists? Interesting new empirical results in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

ere we show with three national surveys of non-Hispanic white adults (conducted from 2021 to 2025) that support for white nationalism is (1) higher among white people encountering personal hardship and local social distress, consistent with strain theories3,16; (2) unrelated to local racial composition or recent demographic change, complicating status threat accounts4,17,18; and (3) elevated among white people with close friendships primarily online, consistent with theories of extremism driven by online mobilization7,10,19.

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Lucien Heurtier @lucienheurtier.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Excellent article about the crisis faced by physics research in the UK: Brian Cox: "I have no idea who mandated this shift or why they think it’s a good idea, but from my perspective it’s a disaster. I urge the new Burnham government to step in..." 🧪🔭 www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

thetimes.com

Brian Cox: Physics in Britain is facing a crisis

The celebrity physicist has joined officials in condemning the UK’s decision to withdraw £45 million in funding from the Large Hadron Collider

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Will Tullett @willtullett.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This is not good. No doubt partly due to the closing down, or increasing competitiveness, of other funding routes and the ever more difficult job market.

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