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Seán O’Connell

@conaillale.bsky.social
353 followers 59 following 49 posts

Bacteria, birds, and beer.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Seán O’Connell
Your Local Epidemiologist @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
10/ So if you're a parent wondering, "What am I supposed to do right now?" here's my answer: nothing has changed about your ability to vaccinate your child today. You can still follow the existing schedule; your doctor can still provide those vaccines, and they remain free.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Another version:
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
A @nejm.org editorial today on the Office of White House Management and Budget (OMB) regarding their new funding proposal and politicization of science www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
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BacDive @bacdive.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
📢 The BacDive summer release is online! What is new: 🔹 Updated information on strains available in the Jena Microbial Resource Collection (JMRC) 🦠 and a new JMRC Special Collection 🔹Recalculated BacteriaNet genome-based predictions 🧬 🖥 🔹Links to Enterobase 🧫 👉 bacdive.dsmz.de/news/41
Screenshot of a strain header showing links to the new JMRC collection and to Enterobase
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
I mean what does it say about you when the Voting Rights Act is your enemy? It says everything, says a thousand things about democracy, and says one word: racists.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 28/04/2026
The National Science Foundation is the main source of funding for basic sciences in the US. For decades, they have supported a scientific R&D ecosystem in the US that has been an engine of economic growth and competitive advantage. Destroying the agency is no less than an act of sabotage.
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Ed BooOOooOOmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
It says a great deal about our modal elected official of the past few decades that this guy has generated so much positive attention for acting like he likes his job, likes the city he wanted to lead, and likes the people who live in it. Why did nobody think of this earlier.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Rachel Maddow called Bill a genius of exposition. Which rings true to me. Who else finds such clear, concise, vivid ways to sum up where we are and where we could and should be?
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Ann Elizabeth @diggysbaby.blacksky.app · 14/02/2026
North Carolina lawmakers have voted to remove all college campus voting sites. Specifically at the largest HBCU in the US NC A&T. They now have to walk 30 minutes to their nearest polling place. Students are protesting this - pls share and support. www.tiktok.com/t/ZThx29BJ9/
tiktok.com
Even without an on-campus voting site, NCAT students still marched to the polls. 💙💛 Students at North Carolina A&T showed that barriers won’t stop their voices. When access isn’t easy, they organize. ...
TikTok video by HBCU Student Action Alliance
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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 26/01/2026
Do what you can. ❤️‍🩹Take care of yourself. 🫂Take care of each other. ☎️Call 5calls.org 🧑‍💻Write democracy.io#!/thanks 🚫Boycott ICE: www.boycottcitizens.org/ice ✊Support MN: www.standwithminnesota.com
standwithminnesota.com
Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory
Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
International law won't constrain Trump's thirst for oil. But every solar panel that goes up makes crude reserves that much less valuable billmckibben.substack.com/p/just-possi...
billmckibben.substack.com
Just possibly it's the oil?
A solar panel is the new peace sign
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
I swear maybe once a decade in public, and this is the moment. This fucking racist and all the gibbering racists nodding along behind him are the ruination of our country. Our fucking job for the next fucking year is to fucking destroy them in the next election. Fuck them.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Patchwork quilts as distinct from whole-cloth quilts seem like a particularly American art form, and the United State is itself a patchwork of cultures, regional identities, ethnicities – this country's old motto e pluribus unum (out of many one) is a patchwork motto and one under attack...
meditationsinanemergency.com
Solidarity Stitches Us Together: Today, World AIDS Day, Is Also the 70th Anniversary of Rosa Parks's Historic Protest
I saw two radically different versions of what a quilt could be yesterday and yet they spoke to the same issues. I caught the show Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California ...
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Glenn Fleishman @glennf.com · 28/10/2025
This campaign closes on Thursday. Dan @tomtomorrow.bsky.social plans to print only a small number of extra copies. If you’d like this five-year collection printed on heavy stock via fine North American printing, act now!
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Brian McFadden @mcfadden.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Here's a thought. Fuck these guys.
(panel 1 - Title above Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries in tracksuits holding paddles.)
Democratic Defense
with Chuck Schumer & Hakeem Jeffries
paddles, "FECK" "LESS"
(panel 2 - Jeffries attempting to punch a ream of papers held by Schumer.)
Schumer, "Nothing can get through these reams of STERNLY WORDED LETTERS."
Jeffries, "Hope I don't get a paper cut!"
(panel 3 - Jeffries texting.)
Jeffries, "Memorize a few million numbers to text in an emergency."
text, "HELP! We're in a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS! Click here to DONATE."
(panel 4 - Schumer shaking his head.)
Schumer, "Subtly shake your head in disapproval while providing UNANIMOUS CONSENT to the latest atrocity."
(panel 5 - Jeffries bowing while a foot kicks his butt.)
Jeffries, "while they're kicking your ass, show deference to your opponent with a BIPARTISAN BOW."
(panel 6 - Schumer cowering.)
Schumer, "When CONSTITUENTS demand you start acting like a real OPPOSITION PARTY, use the COWARD's COWER. Please don't primary me!"
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Definitely the coolest Sun Day video yet! Please watch and share (I promise you'll like it) www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoDn...
youtube.com
Why Grass Grows Better Under Trampolines
YouTube video by MinuteEarth
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Ludicrous though it is, we need to tell the EPA that carbon dioxide is in fact dangerous. Please join @thirdactorg.bsky.social in filing public comments--for the historic record if nothing else thirdact.org/act/urgent-t...
thirdact.org
URGENT: Tell the EPA: Don’t Gut the Climate Rule that Protects Our Health and Safety – Third Act
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 21/07/2025
You can support NASA workers by adding your name to their letter @standupforscience.bsky.social
standupforscience.net
Support the NASA Voyager Declaration Now! — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
Your solidarity with the NASA heroes helps their fight to preserve NASA's vital missions.
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altNOAA 🇺🇸 @altnoaa.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Let’s talk about weather balloons—a.k.a. radiosondes—and why recent cuts to NWS staffing and balloon launch schedules are putting the public at risk (eg., Deaths in Texas). No satellite or model can replace what these humble balloons do. Here's why. 🧵
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Sun Day @sundayofaction.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
The only reason we have thousands of gigawatts of clean energy across the world is because people like us have worked for it. When politicians attack clean power, our movement will keep shining on. 👇🧵
Graphic which reads 'They tried to kill solar. But we're just getting started - Sun Day, 9.21.25'
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Sun Day @sundayofaction.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
We need Sun Day now more than ever. Here's a reminder of why we're celebrating the power of clean energy and how you can join the movement 👇☀️
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Saturday couldn’t be more important. Make sure you’re signed up! thirdact.org/act/no-kings...
thirdact.org
No Kings! June 14 National Day of Action – Third Act
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Prof. Carl LeVan @democracyprofdc.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
I recently co-authored a study about where and how mistrust in science spread in US. So happy to join more than 10,000 scholars and scientists on this petition demanding #SaveNIH, organized by @standupforscience.bsky.social. Read "The Bethesda Declaration" www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...
standupforscience.net
Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
Support NIH Staff Now!
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AltSpaceForce 🚀🇺🇲 @altspaceforce.altgov.info · 03/06/2025
Earlier, I made a post about the effects of federal cuts to NOAA/NWS & took a lot of heat for it. Out of an abundance of caution, I deleted the post. And yet here we are - watching this meteorologist confirming what I said:
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/05/2025
I helped draft this open letter about last Friday’s gold standard science executive order. Take a look and consider signing if you agree.
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is Project 2025 in legislative form. Here’s how it quietly turns a far-right wishlist into federal law: - Sec. 10008 - Expands work requirements for SNAP - Project 2025: Pushes “moral reform” to make low-income people work more for food assistance.
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RogueFEMA @roguefema.altgov.info · 10/05/2025
While going about your Saturday routine, please take a minute to stop and think about this. #Altgov exists because regular employees of the federal government must FIGHT this administration to simply be allowed to do the work we were hired and funded to do for the American people. THIS IS INSANE.
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Alt NIH Bluesky 🧪 @altnih4science.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
All right, scientists. 🧪 The Trump administration is trying to break scientific expertise in the civil service. This will affect #NIH program staff. Red 🚨. It's your job to submit comments by 5/23 saying that's a terrible idea! This group has info: www.friendsofbls.org/comment-temp...
Comment Template
COMMENT SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: All submissions must include the agency name and docket number or RIN for this rulemaking. Please arrange and identify your comments on the regulatory text by subpart and section number; if your comments relate to the supplementary information, please refer to the heading and page number. All comments received will be posted publicly without change, including any personal information provided. To ensure that your comments will be considered, you must submit them on or prior to May 23, 2025 at online to the Federal Register. Before finalizing this rule, OPM will consider all comments within the scope of the regulations received on or before the closing date for comments. OPM may make changes to the final rule after considering the comments received. 

COMMENT STARTER: The example below is meant to get you started with your own comment. Feel free to use it with only minimal changes, to go a different direction, or anything in between. Because OPM has to consider each comment, unique comments add value to the process but all comments relevant to the proposed rule and grounded in thoughtful analysis or real experience are helpful.

[DATE]

RE: Public Comment in Response to Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service [Docket No. OPM–2025–0004]

I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the effort to reclassify specific fe
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 28/04/2025
Deaths from heart disease down 75%, that’s NIH. Deaths from stroke down 75%, that’s NIH. HIV/AIDS no longer a death sentence, that’s NIH. 99% of FDA approved drugs in the last decade, that’s NIH. Please show this video to anyone who doesn’t understand why the NIH is so important.
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Truly proud of universities and colleges standing together--Harvard shoulder to shoulder with Framingham State. No institution is perfect, but colleges come pretty close: smart people organized to pass on knowledge. And now presidents are learning to protest! www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
At last, college presidents are standing up to Trump
A letter signed by more than 400 university heads offers a sharp rebuke to the bully-in-chief.
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Republicans are having their pictures taken in front of a building that houses thieves, rapists, pedophiles, and murderers. Then they are leaving the White House lawn and flying to El Salvador to pose in front of a prison.
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Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
“Appeasement right now is a disastrous policy… What’s at stake here is freedom. If you give up your freedoms to someone who wants more power, they’re going to take more of your freedom.” -Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
It's critical for everyone to remember what an Executive Order is. It is the President communicating orders to members of the executive branch. Policies to pursue, actions to take, etc. They are not laws. They are not close to being laws. They are formalized memos to employees. That's all.
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
"The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped
I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky
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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
NEW: Family of Mahmoud Khalil just released footage of his arrest “Stop resisting” “He’s not resisting” Agents seen continuing to ignore Mahmoud’s wife as she asks basic questions
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
We need to salute courage wherever it appears. The official snow reporter at Vermont's Sugarbush, where JD Vance came on a skiing vacation this weekend, pointed out in her snow report this a.m. that the Trump team is ignoring climate change. Her report was pulled down kottke.org/25/03/jd-van...
kottke.org
Good Trouble: JD Vance Chastised by Vermont Snow Reporter
JD Vance, fresh off of helping his boss ambush & insult a foreign leader in the White House yesterday afternoon, is on vacation in
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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
If I had a band or a label, I would do a punk cover of "No More Kings" from Schoolhouse Rock. And then I would gather a bunch of people to write a whole album of next-generation Schoolhouse Rock songs, with songs about Social Security and Medicaid and NOAA. I am not kidding in the least.
youtube.com
SchoolHouse Rock - No More Kings
YouTube video by tennesseejed93
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Tom the Dancing Bug, by Ruben Bolling @rubenbolling.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
👇 www.standupforscience2025.org
standupforscience2025.org
STAND UP FOR SCIENCE 2025
Join us in Washington, DC or your state capitol on March 7th, 2025 to stand up for science!
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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.
Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children.

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.
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Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 31/01/2025
My apologies if we aren't a major news org, but my colleague @ericboodman.bsky.social just wrote about this @statnews.com If there's an angle we missed, feel free to reach out www.statnews.com/2025/01/30/t...
statnews.com
National Science Foundation suspends salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills
An NSF online payment system remained down after the federal funding freeze was lifted, leaving early-career scientists scrambling to pay bills
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 28/01/2025
Another site for finding out how federal funds are being used in your community: www.faseb.org/science-poli...
faseb.org
Federal Research Funding Data
We advance health and well-being by promoting research and education in biological and biomedical sciences through collaborative advocacy and service to our societies and their members.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 28/01/2025
If you’re in the US and you’d like to know what projects and vital services federal grants currently fund in your state, you can search here: www.usaspending.gov And you can find the contact information for your elected representatives here: www.usa.gov/elected-offi... They need to hear from you.
usaspending.gov
USAspending.gov
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Chris Cooper @chriscooperwcu.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Who are the 60,000 voters being challenged by Justice Griffin in NC's state supreme court race? I did a brief analysis to find out. Available at the link below. #ncpol www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fxt46...
dropbox.com
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Stephen Wolf @stephenwolf.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Find out here if you are among the 60,000+ voters whom North Carolina Republicans are trying to disenfranchise so they can overturn their loss in the Supreme Court election:
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Thank you Mike: "Malibu, meanwhile, is the wildfire capital of North America and, possibly, the world. The rugged 22-mile-long coastline is scourged, on the average, by a large fire (one thousand acres plus) every two and a half years" longreads.com/2018/12/04/t...
longreads.com
The Case for Letting Malibu Burn - Longreads
Many of California's native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt?
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Senator Bernie Sanders @sanders.senate.gov · 21/12/2024
The precedent set today should upset every American who believes in our democratic form of government. It appears that from now on no major legislation can be passed without the approval of the wealthiest person in this country. That’s not democracy, that’s oligarchy.
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Wyoming Wormboy @wyomingwormboy.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-f... This is unquestionably the gold standard for faculty self evaluations. I will be taking a page from this book!
mcsweeneys.net
A Faculty Member’s Self-Evaluation at the End of the Semester
Dear Committee Members, As part of the faculty review process, I am pleased to report to you on my work. In this letter, I will offer information ...
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Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
it's like a monty python bit
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