Reposted by Elaine AyersMayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 02/10/2026Calling all NYC artists — painters, filmmakers, poets, musicians and more! Did you know our city provides grants to support your work every year? And this year, we're DOUBLING the amount — from $5,000 up to $10,000 per artist! Deadlines are approaching fast — apply today at nyc.gov/artistgrants. 302167534953
Reposted by Elaine AyersJacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 03/10/2026In 1974, Cornell lecturer Lin Farley began recognizing a pattern in the experiences women shared in her Women and Work course: women were being pushed out of jobs by men’s sexual behavior. Farley coined the term, “sexual harassment.” 31302470
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 22hGuys I'm going to run the Voynich Manuscript (held at Yale) through AI. (Kidding.) www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...thetimes.comNapoleon’s centuries-old code cracked by AI in six hoursA secret intelligence briefing, made up of French numbers, letters and invented symbols, had remained unsolved for 217 years 281
Reposted by Elaine AyersKevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026When they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants. 20752441429
Reposted by Elaine AyersShannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Lookin' at ur department website, noticin' that 80% are men over 60, knowin' that you just denied tenure to four young non-white scholars. Meanwhile, you're *all* burning out your mid-career women. 39620
Reposted by Elaine AyersAlison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I wrote about those antediluvians in The End of Oak Street for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. Thanks to @sayanniething.bsky.social for letting me get a little weird with the Michigan of it all! Some general spoilers, but only one specific one re: fate of the dog. #FossilFriday tinyurl.com/dinostoriestinyurl.comWe Tell Ourselves Dinosaur Stories in Order to Live | Los Angeles Review of BooksWe live within a library of antediluvian narratives, with more accessioned every day. 12312
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026And my grad advisor, D. Graham Burnett, on what the ocean has to do with attention studies. "Sometimes our work is not diving. It is keeping watch." pioneerworks.org/broadcast/at...pioneerworks.orgOcean Reveries | BroadcastOn paying attention to the sea. 061
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Even more essays in this Ocean Reveries series have been released - Jessica Riskin, one of my all-time favs, excerpting from her new book on Lamarck: "Even the very simplest plants and animals—tiny, fragile, translucent algae and monads—contained the power of life." pioneerworks.org/broadcast/je...pioneerworks.orgThe Sea Before Us | BroadcastHow the inventor of "biology" located life's beginnings in the sea. 2209
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Students in this class are also required to work with primary sources held in special collections around campus for their assignments + to do creative work throughout the semester. We are resisting AI with everything in us. 📚🌿📚 1100
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Collections visits are SO much simpler for smaller seminars, but I want my lecture students (especially freshmen) to see beautiful and important things, too! None of this would be possible without incredible staff stepping up and taking time out of their days, including planning months in advance. 060
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026In 3 weeks of class, we went to the Medical Historical Library to work with rare books (herbals, midwifery manuals, + more) - thanks to @mazarine.bsky.social for her primer on working with illustrations - and to the Peabody to explore plant sexuality + herbarium specimens. This week: Yale Farm. 180
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026We’ve had to be creative + plan far in advance, but I love taking my big lecture class to collections so they can still do hands-on work, access Yale’s resources, see cool stuff + meet staff members even though it’s soo much harder to do with these numbers. 4202
Reposted by Elaine AyersIan Petrie @icpetrie.bsky.social · 23/09/2026JOB: TT Assistant Professor, History & Geography, Elon College 🚨 ALSO ART HISTORY 🚨 "we are particularly interested in applicants...focused on the visual & material culture of the Global South...or Native American and Indigenous Studies" jobs.elon.edu/jobs/assista... 053
Reposted by Elaine AyersPrisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 22/09/2026www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se...theguardian.comNearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable onlineExclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad 113563
Reposted by Elaine Ayers👻BOOryan BlessDeAd🎃 @bryb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This picture of the Pope at his 40th birthday party is everything to me.x 65249604
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 20/09/2026(Beatrice and I always have a blast swapping classes + teaching for each other once a year, and she's such a lovely writer, thinker, and scholar. Keep an eye out for her work!) 010
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 20/09/2026And my friend Beatrice Steinert, on how studying developmental bio became deeply personal during her pregnancy. "I wanted to set in motion the process of becoming I hoped my body was capable of, to develop something within me while I developed into something new." pioneerworks.org/broadcast/be...pioneerworks.orgOn Metamorphosis | BroadcastWhat can pregnancy and sea urchins teach us about becoming? 141
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 20/09/2026New articles out from two of my favs: first, @brad.bolman.com writing stunningly, and sadly, about water in his new(ish) home of New Orleans. "If land here has always been the site of a pyrrhic struggle to dry an insatiably wet place, it is clear now that the waters are winning—have won..." 160
Reposted by Elaine AyersDevyn Gwynne @devyngwynne.bsky.social · 18/09/2026How I feel strolling up to lecture/ How my students see me lecturing 0247
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Literally the least original take ever, but as someone who loves and watches a ton of TV, I finally watched Hacks and LOVED it. I've seen some good TV this year, and this was top three. 030
Reposted by Elaine AyersMichael Clemens @mclem.org · 12/09/2026The US President's new proposal to tax international students has been approved by the White House for release this week. It's an unprecedented $100,000 tax on int'l grads who stay to work after graduation on Optional Practical Training (most grads do), a crucial bridge to remaining by any channel. 21433715
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 13/09/2026"The hidden sound of ice raises questions about absence. What does it mean to listen to something that is disappearing? Can sound preserve aspects of a landscape that may no longer exist in the future?" pioneerworks.org/broadcast/hi...pioneerworks.orgThe Hidden Sound of Ice | BroadcastWhat can we hear in a disappearing landscape? 1197
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 08/09/2026This number of emails and meetings simply can...not be what it's going to be like this semester. I legitimately don't even know where to put people in my schedule. But three cheers for the biggest history of botany lecture class to date! The people want plants! 🎉🌿🎉 0120
Reposted by Elaine Ayersbig bleat from badsville @djepelgesh.bsky.social · 06/09/2026thank you The New York Post for what may be the funniest image of all time 216167604235
Reposted by Elaine AyersSarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Attention Philadelphia! We're hosting a rally to demand that Drexel University maintain The Academy of Natural Sciences Museum open to the public. Join us on Tuesday morning at 10am in front of the academy. Please spread the word, we need all hands on deck! RSVP here: luma.com/1qwnrqz2 171411894
Reposted by Elaine AyersClaire E. Aubin @ceaubin.com · 04/09/2026Almost every young woman academic I know (including myself) has been targeted and belittled, sexually or otherwise, at some point by a higher-ranking man. After the state of the job market, it’s probably the number two thing I warn prospective grad students about. 16575166
Reposted by Elaine AyersCarole King @carolekingofficial.bsky.social · 03/09/2026As we elders, our daughters, and our granddaughters continue the fight for power, equality, and respect, we hold you in our hearts with love and gratitude. Rest in peace and power, Gloria Steinem. 🤍nytimes.comGloria Steinem, Personification of the Women’s Movement, Dies at 92 (Gift Article)She challenged sexist assumptions, helping women develop a sense of self-worth and gain a measure of equality at work, at home and in society at large. 368182064370
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Selfish plug: you can read more about this in the forthcoming special journal issue on Death, Decay & Loss in Colonial Botany that @arnoldke.bsky.social and I are editing. There's also an issue of BJHS on "How Collections End" that's well worth checking out, and this will also feature in my book. 050
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/09/2026It's good that this is staying local, and this will now be the 3rd largest university herbarium in the US. The number of herbaria I've seen closed, destroyed, and cannibalized in the last decade is deeply sad, and I'm also wishing the very best for this merger. uncnews.unc.edu/2026/08/31/u...uncnews.unc.eduUNC-Chapel Hill, Duke to combine herbaria, creating the third-largest university plant collection in the United States - UNC NewsUNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University will unite their herbaria under the management of the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. Herbaria are collections of preserved plant specimens that ser... 031
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/09/2026For those of you who have been paying attention to the Duke Herbarium over the past ~2 years, here's more news: it's going to UNC Chapel Hill. Happy to see it's not closing entirely, but this is also part of a larger pattern of cuts + losses from multiple angles. dukechronicle.com/article/duke...dukechronicle.comAfter near closure, Duke Herbarium to take up new roots in Chapel HillDespite previous concerns of a closure amid plans to relocate, the biodiversity hotspot will combine with UNC’s collection to become the largest herbarium in the Southeast. The move has provided resea... 2186
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/09/2026In this case, we are losing the oldest natural history museum in the United States. I am wishing the best to the staff members who will likely be laid off, and look forward to doing research in their collections in the future. Pay attention to how your local museums are doing. 280
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Among multiple shakeups + closures this week: it's disappointing to hear this news about ANS, but at least their collections are remaining intact. My understanding is that among other issues, they were also hit by NEH/other gov't grant cuts. There are consequences to cuts. whyy.org/articles/aca...whyy.orgThe Academy of Natural Sciences museum in Philly is closingThe Academy will continue scientific research and public education, but its museum will go the way of the dinosaur. 160
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/09/2026I am gathering my thoughts on the Academy of Natural Sciences closing. It does not come as a surprise, unfortunately, and I’m very sad. 070
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 01/09/2026I'm about 1.5 years of job security away from finally teaching my Werner Herzog history class. 2111
Reposted by Elaine AyersShannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 30/08/2026"Restoring the native plant profile of the prairie was not a small job... The team collected native plants from private landholders to grow a seed library at ND State Uni. “I spent days wandering the prairie with a bag + ✂️ looking really closely for specific plants that are going in to seed..."bloomberg.comTo Build the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library, Landscape Architects Restored a PrairieThe new museum devoted the the 26th president celebrates the dramatic Badlands of North Dakota. 1345
Reposted by Elaine AyersGillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 31/08/2026NEW FROM ME: On a hellish third-country removal flight last month, passengers say ICE-contracted guards got drunk, teased and beat them, tied them up, refused to let them use the lavatory. One says he witnessed an ICE agent admit to illegal chain refoulement. prospect.org/2026/08/31/w...prospect.org‘What America Did to Me Is Wrong’: Inside One of the Largest Third-Country Removal Flights So Far - The American ProspectOn July 31, an estimated 71 detainees were expelled to various countries on a hellish flight to Africa. Many were then illegally returned to their home countries. 2220001176
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/08/2026🌿📚🌿 And the loveliest trip to the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - not my first trip there, but so fun to go with other historians of botany 🌿📚🌿 090
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/08/2026🐡🐍🐡 Wet collections from the National Museum’s off-site storage (this was such a fun trip) 🐡🐍🐡 010
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/08/2026🪲🪰🪲 Some belated photos from Scotland to close out the summer: insect collections at the off-site storage at the National Museum 🪲🪰🪲 2182
Reposted by Elaine AyersGregg Mitman @greggmitman.bsky.social · 27/08/2026We’re thrilled to share that OVERBURDEN has been chosen to be part of the Wildscreen Official Selection Program 2026! It’s an honor to be recognized alongside so many incredible storytellers and filmmakers celebrating the natural world. overburdenfilm.com #envhumanities #envhist 0173
Reposted by Elaine AyersWilliam Orchard @billeo.bsky.social · 27/08/2026www.cuny.edu/news/cuny-co...cuny.eduCUNY Completes First-Ever Survey of Extensive Archival Collections Across 26 Campuses – The City University of New YorkThe City University of New York today announced that it completed the first full-scale survey of its extensive archival collections. Overseen by the CUNY Office of Library Services, the Cultivating Ar... 063
Reposted by Elaine AyersEmily Mullin @emilymullin.bsky.social · 26/08/2026I'm a staff writer at @wired.com and I'm looking to speak with parents of immunocompromised kids, especially those in areas with measles outbreaks, and how you're dealing with back to school with rising cases. emily_mullin@wired.com 25904619
Reposted by Elaine AyersAlisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Postdoc in Integrated History & Philosophy of Modern Science at my alma mater #HPS program at Notre Dame. $75K +$15K research funds Deadline Dec 1st. #PhilJobs #philsci #philsky #histSTM #histmod philjobs.org/job/show/31869philjobs.org Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Notre Dame - PhilJobs:JFP Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Notre Dame An international database of jobs for philosophers 13225
Reposted by Elaine Ayersj m gabriel, a circus of faults and vices @jmgabriel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026damn its been a long semester, thank God its almost - uh wait 021
Reposted by Elaine AyersMolly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Are we ever going to find out what happened to mitch McConnell 2434256365144
Reposted by Elaine AyersJonathan @jsench.bsky.social · 26/08/2026If you would like to see me much more frequently you should get this job:jobs.wisc.eduHead of Special Collections - Madison, Wisconsin, United StatesCurrent Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process.Job Category:Academic StaffEmployment Type... 0236