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Matt Gonnerman

@mattgonnerman.bsky.social
558 followers 1.7K following 126 posts

Applied Wildlife Ecologist. PhD UMaine, MS Auburn. Currently: Post-Doc UMaryland/EESC. Avian Influenza, tick-borne disease, spatial modeling, integrated approaches.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Matt Gonnerman
Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 8h
New from @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me: "It is high time for us to regulate usage of systems sold as “AI”, not because they are magical machines, but because they are error-prone products that shouldn’t be used in high stakes scenarios." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender
The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals
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Randolph Potts @rpotts-sawubona.blacksky.app · 19h
Timnit Gebru, 2026 Right Livelihood Laureate & pioneering AI researcher challenges the concentration of power in the tech industry, argues that behind "autonomous" AI systems are humans deciding whose data is used, what resources consumed, who owns the technology-and are responsible when harm occurs
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Politics and Health 🗳️ 🩺 @politicshealth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
So fuc*ing infuriating and sad. The CDC used to be the crown jewel of the world's scientific firmament. Other countries came to us for help fighting deadly diseases. Its disease detectives learned what caused illness and helped change practices to prevent them. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/h...
nytimes.com
‘Zombified’ C.D.C., Hobbled by Cuts, Struggles to Fulfill Scientific Mission (Gift Article)
The agency has lost its independence and nearly a third of its staff, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and associates have tightened control.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
On two fronts—WH press access and third-country removals—the administration appears to be ignoring court orders.
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
NYT has now independently corroborated all the major allegations against Susan Collins in the ProPublica report, including that investigators were prepared to move against her and then Trump intervened to shut it down. This put Trump in a position of exceptional and extortionate leverage over her.
nytimes.com
F.B.I. Shut Down Inquiry Into Top Ally of Senator Susan Collins
The inquiry was closed last year because senior bureau officials questioned the veracity of a campaign donor’s account, according to current and former officials.
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Michael McDonald @electproject.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
These allegations are a bombshell: the FBI informant claims Collins was in a pay-to-play scheme where donors to her Super-PAC were rewarded with government contracts. Trump stopped the investigation when he came into his office second term. As Collins would say, "concerning"
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
AI didn’t “go rogue.” People connected a computer system they know can mess with another computer system in unpredictable ways to less advanced computer system and it messed with that computer system in unpredicted ways. As @tressiemcphd.bsky.social argues, don’t lose sight that *people* did that.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Panic Won’t Fix the Looming A.I. Threat. Politics Will.
The threats from A.I. are real — and they’re ones we know how to deal with.
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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The rule they are overturning was predicted to give $120 billion in public health benefits by 2047, with projections that by 2035, it would would prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 360K asthma attacks, 48K school absence days and 57K lost workdays each year
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
New: a secretive DHS predictive policing unit is analyzing Americans' financial activity, feeding those names to police, then having cops pull them over. Not suspected of any particular crime We're revealing the unit name too: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team www.404media.co/a-secretive-...
404media.co
A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over
404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 04/09/2026
Trump continues to disperse disaster recovery funds based on how states vote, which for any other president or public official, in any other time, in any other country, in any other context would be a morally horrific scandal that would dominate headlines for months.
subscriber.politicopro.com
POLITICO Pro: Trump rejects disaster appeals by four Democratic governors
New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will have to pay the entire cost of recovery from a major February snowstorm.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
🚨 The NIH is moving to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in infectious-disease research projects to the DOD under a secret 10-year pact. Here’s what’s happening inside “Operation Prevailing Edge” 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH
An agreement paves the way for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects to be transferred from the NIH’s institute for infectious diseases to the Department of Defense.
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Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa @benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I don't think how bad things have gotten for higher-ed is as well-known as it should be for people not directly connected to a university. So much of it is hollowed out and teetering on the edge of collapse after years of austerity and the bodyblow of Covid. Something's gotta give.
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Stars and Stripes @starsandstripes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
A civilian geography professor was fired from West Point for pushing back after department officials barred faculty from teaching that humans contribute to climate change.
stripes.com
West Point professor fired after pushing back on limitations to teaching climate change, lawsuit says
Adam Kalkstein pushed back after department officials barred faculty from teaching that humans contribute to climate change, the lawsuit says.
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“In Arizona, many areas of the border will soon have two 30-foot walls right next to each other. This barrier is poised to cut off three of the four most important remaining wildlife corridors between Mexico and Arizona, threatening the jaguar’s re-expansion despite all the positive recent signs.”
nytimes.com
Jaguars Are Ready to Come Back. The Border Wall Might Stop Them.
A lone male roves the Arizona mountains, and a female has been spotted just across the border in Mexico. The sightings raise hopes for the species, despite serious threats.
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RoseMarie @rosesbloom24.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Two Black mayors took cities that the country loves to write off and made them measurably safer. That’s not a fluke. That’s a blueprint. Chicago and Baltimore just posted numbers that should be front-page news. They’re not. We need to talk about why. 🧵 www.theroot.com/opinion-blac...
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 10/08/2026
If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of our future innovation capacity, prosperity, and national security crumbling. Shattering our university research system and international student pipeline will harm all Conservative & Liberal Americans. From the American Institute of Physics—>
aip.org
Physics PhDs Are Leaving the US at a Record-high Rate
The exodus of non-US citizens has “certainly” been influenced by science funding and visa policy changes under Trump, a new AIP report says.
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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
My goodness please *listen* to this extremely wholesome story
npr.org
We asked a first grader to interview his hero: A bird scientist
NPR asked an aspiring scientist in Philadelphia to interview an adult who is living his dream about his career in conservation science.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
The Senate is important, but state legislatures are just as big and, as the post notes, these races are a lot more effective use of your dollar.
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
can we sometimes be asking "what qualifies this guy to speak on this subject?" or has that ship sailed
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Update: Google just sent me a statement saying it is “rolling back” this AI feature that let anyone make completely bullshit satellite images. Comes after our demos of the tool and those from OSINT researchers. One of the worst AI tools I’ve ever seen bsky.app/profile/jose...
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
This is a massive scandal. Not "should be," but "is."
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Wow! ICE’s airport arrests of people seemingly waiting in government immigration backlogs caught up a Fulbright scholar and public health researcher working at Johns Hopkins in their public health department. Not exactly the “worst of the worst”! Yet they threw her in detention anyway.
Baltimore Banner header.

A Johns Hopkins University public health researcher and former Fulbright scholar was detained this week by immigration agents while boarding a domestic flight as the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement efforts at airports.
In an email Thursday night, the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security confirmed that agents with its
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency arrested Fatima Ameaka on July 28 at Baltimore-Washington
International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 31/07/2026
Kinda wild that @jamellebouie.net is the only person saying this clearly in a high-profile media outlet, but I'm so glad he is.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary?
Why does the owner of X get a pass for what he says and does there?
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
‘Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.’
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Upwards of 200,00 people may have lost their jobs today; or will in the upcoming days. There is a palpable sense of fear among the Haitian community right now. They need your support.
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is a 1938-level story from Nazi Germany
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 27/07/2026
NEW: A proposed White House rule would give political appointees unprecedented control over scientific funding. One physicist, who helped discover the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle,” explains how the move would’ve stifled that breakthrough:
propublica.org
How Trump’s “America First” Administration Could Shut U.S. Scientists Out of the Next Nobel-Worthy Discovery
A 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...
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Reposted by Matt Gonnerman
Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
forest service plans $10m worth of work to create fire breaks in superior national forest in minnesota. trump allows his top donor -- a self-proclaimed expert on everything -- to ixnay that funding because... reasons! superior national forest now on fire. www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026...
washingtonpost.com
‘We were shovel-ready’: A Minnesota forest hit by DOGE cuts is now ablaze
Officials said losing out on the ability to do vital prevention work at a perilous time for the region hindered them from being as prepared as they could have been.
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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 26/07/2026
Americans have more confidence in higher education than in big tech companies, and the gap is growing rather than shrinking. The higher ed-doomsday pundits need to get on board with the real vibe shift in public trust that is happening right now.
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Matt Gonnerman @mattgonnerman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Excited to share a huge collaborative effort exploring differences in wild bird hosts of Avian Influenza, and where we need to go from here to better understand transmission and spillover. doi.org/10.1002/wmon...
doi.org
TWS Journals
We describe the host response continuum for highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV), including the continuum of host responses to HPAIV infection and exposure based on the primary axis of h...
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Reposted by Matt Gonnerman
Paul Bleicher @pbleic.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Astonishing. RFK Jr. adds 8 members to a 6 member FDA advisory panel. 6 of them were sellers of peptides, and the 7th a compounding pharmacist. In an 8-6 vote with all 8 votes coming from these new panel members, the panel approved 4 peptides against the objections of FDA scientists.
nytimes.com
FDA Panel Supports Lifting Restrictions on Four Peptides (Gift Article)
In an all-day hearing, the agency’s scientists argued against allowing broad access to unproven drugs that the agency had banned three years ago.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
This is a blunt assessment of what the Trump regime is proposing for US science: they plan to take all the funding, essentially collapsing university-based research, in order to give that money to themselves, and they are lying about it.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The US built the greatest talent magnet ever, attracting the smart, skilled, and striving. They’d come to study, then stay and build things here, or leave with positive impressions and fruitful connections. Helped make the US wealthy and powerful. Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Every time they make it harder for foreign students to study here, they're just jacking up the tuition costs for American students and robbing America of incredible new talent too.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 18/07/2026
Trump / Miller are now limiting student visas to 4 years. PhD programs typically run 5-6 years in many disciplines.
bbc.com
Trump administration tightens visa rules for foreign students
Students will need federal permission to stay longer than four years in the US and universities will lose the power to extend visas.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
When journalists asked me "where we will see the effects of DOGE on outcomes?" one of my responses was "during crises...as long as media connect the dots." Well, dots connected: www.wired.com/story/cdc-cy...
wired.com
The CDC Has a Cyclospora Lab. DOGE Downsized It Last Year
“Based on simple math, these outbreak responses—which require rapid, timely responses—are going to be greatly diminished,” the former CDC lab director tells WIRED.
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NPR @npr.org · 18/07/2026
The revelations came out in a federal court case brought by Democratic states challenging ICE's access to Medicaid data to aid in deportation efforts. n.pr/4f9OdMn
n.pr
ICE shared Medicaid data it wasn't supposed to have with Palantir
The revelations came out in a federal court case brought by Democratic states challenging ICE's access to Medicaid data to aid in deportation efforts.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16/07/2026
Oyer: "2 days after Blanche was confirmed as deputy AG, he fired me from my position as DOJ's career pardon attorney. I declined to rubber stamp a favor for a friend of the president, and it cost me my job. Mr Blanche's office had asked me to restore the gun rights of a convicted domestic abuser..."
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 16/07/2026
Ninety percent of the 71 detainees contacted in the concentration camp on Fort Bliss say they were beaten by guards are witnessed beatings, in addition to inedible meals and lack of access to medication or lawyers.
apnews.com
Report: Detainees at ICE facility in Texas report frequent beatings and other human rights abuses
A new report from human rights advocates says 90% of detainees interviewed at a sprawling ICE facility in Texas say they were either beaten by guards or witnessed others being beaten.
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
if i were a man who was, you know, normal, well i'd be mad as hell every time some guy got on a microphone to talk about what a big stupid lunkheaded alcoholic rapist i am
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Rebecca Nagle @rebeccanagle.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Trump just shrunk Bears Ears by 91% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 90%. Bears Ears was the first national monument co-managed by tribes. Five tribes spent years building that partnership. It's been walked back. 100,000+ archeological sites now exposed to mining and drilling.
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Lisa Fazio @lkfazio.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
"NSF employees are now concerned that the $1 billion of withheld funds will not be released. If they are not, the combination of withheld funds and clawbacks would result in funding cuts of more than 30% for most directorates compared with their planned spending for 2025"
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Maxine Joselow @maxinejoselow.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
The Trump admin just changed the definition of "harm" to animals under the Endangered Species Act, in what environmentalists called the biggest erosion of protections for wildlife in 50 years. @nytimes.com gift link to the story w/ @catrineinhorn.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Cuts Habitat Protections for Endangered Species (Gift Article)
The rule change ends a safeguard that had been in place for 50 years and could hasten the demise of imperiled animals.
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Between this and the national guard in Memphis it’s kind of disturbing me (yes I know I’m a member of the media) the degree to which these killings aren’t really breaking thru rn
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
UPDATE: CNBC responds, says it only includes the disclosure of their financial relationship with Kalshi when it is "directly relevant to the story" These are examples of stories where CNBC determined it wasn't "relevant" to disclose that the company invests in Kalshi and gets paid for new customers
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
people need to go to jail over this, its the only thing the democratic party should be saying right now. all of them, in unison, no matter the question or topic, needs to be saying “insider trading is against the law”
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Horatio Pornviewer @stuntbirdarmy.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I gotta be honest, setting reasonable limits on the technology for my kids is really easy and I would like the democrats to help with literally any other aspect of having children instead of
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
this is news new york times reporters had months ago, but they suppressed it and kept it out of the paper so they could goose book sales. this should be a scandal but its how modern journalism is conducted now.
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