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Andy McMillan

@mcawmcmillan.bsky.social
159 followers 431 following 187 posts

I teach college biochemistry, with a personal interest in evolution of enzyme activity and protein structure. Interested in other general nerdery especially TTRPG. He/him

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Reposted by Andy McMillan
Nobel Prize @nobelprize.org · 13h
BREAKING NEWS The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”
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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 01/10/2026
Huh. Today in "always look up the etymology because sometimes you're just repeating a myth but sometimes it's weirder and more incredible than you could have possibly imagined" www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/c...
Screenshot of Merriam Webster etymology note for cockamamie: 
By the look and sound of it, cockamamie (also spelled "cockamamy") could have something to do with a rooster and the outrageous sound it makes. But in fact, cockamamie is believed to be an altered form of the term decalcomania, which refers to the process, invented in the mid-19th century, of transferring pictures and designs from specially prepared paper to surfaces such as glass or porcelain. (The word referring to the picture or design itself, decal, is a shortening of decalcomania.) The word decalcomania comes from French, with décalcomanie combining the verb décalquer, meaning "to trace" or "to transfer by tracing," and -manie, meaning "-mania." Starting in the 1930s, painted strips of paper with images capable of being transferred to the skin were called decals or—in children's slang—cockamamies. Those familiar with today's temporary tattoos will understand quickly that these were regarded by many as silly novelties, lending the word cockamamie the necessary leeway for application to anything ridiculous.
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The Questionable Authority @questauthority.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The order in the 3d Cir case finding that AI training is not fair use, in the context of the use of headnotes/summaries of caselaw is out. While I get that a lot of people will like the outcome, it's a terrible decision that's likely to benefit big business. www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/252...
www2.ca3.uscourts.gov
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The craziest compound-impurity story I’ve ever heard:
science.org
Now That's An Impurity Story
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jadehawk "FREE ŁINK" @jadehawk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
quite sure that's actually also how you radicalize people, to begin with. i don't know why it works, but for some reason people will assess the conclusions of an argument critically, but not its premises. so you can get ppl to believe dire shit by putting it in the premises instead the conclusions
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CZEdwards @czedwards.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
So I want to talk about something that’s a side piece to the Roko’s Basilisk cult: This concept that “by putting them in proximity to women who like men and aren't scared of men“ If you really like men, then something you want is for them to realize that criticism is a form of care.
Jakeup • @myhandle
Sep 25
the purpose of SlutCon is to help men who are scared of women to start liking women, by putting them in proximity to women who like men and aren't scared of men
I'm not attending or involved in any way, but this is very aligned to my own mission and I'm rooting for their success
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Khealos's Gaming Table @khealos.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
#Babylon5
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Cheryl Rofer @cherylrofer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I'm reading this article now and am wondering why I haven't seen more about it. It's by Dexter Filkins, who is knowledgeable in the areas of Kushner's "diplomacy." I'll keep comments closed until I've finished the article.
share.google
Jared Kushner’s Dollar Diplomacy
Jared Kushner represents the kind of Washington figure for whom public office serves as a means to extraordinary wealth.
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
“these attempts to distance themselves from trans rights isn’t really winning anyone over, and might actually be hurting them, in some small way.” — @evanurquhart.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2154...
newrepublic.com
Transcript: How Purple-State Democrats Should Talk About Trans Issues
Journalist Evan Urquhart argues that swing-state Democratic candidates are going too far in distancing themselves from transgender rights.
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Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Dividing up AI users in 3 categories: Wizard: approaches AI academically & with appropriate guards & wards. Treats it like a tool. Warlock: Makes a pact for power with an alien entity without considering the costs. Is corrupted by the whispers. Cleric: worships their new machine god. Is insane.
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 16/09/2026
More than any higher ed development in recent memory, institutional subsidies for AI at R1 universities prove that austerity is a choice. It is not “too expensive” to invest in a humanities research infrastructure; rather, it is a choice that R1 universities make not to & subsidize AI instead.
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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 16/09/2026
the hardest thing for the politician-bureaucrats to understand -- but which NSF staff *absolutely do* understand and always have -- is that you actually make scientific progress by giving young people money and promising not to bother them
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Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Related: I think modern politicians have fallen into thinking of “persuasion” as always synonymous with “marketing” and I’m really not convinced that’s the case
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Bugs, Yaoist @bugsmaytrix.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
i need people to start responding to questions about trans women in sports with "what the hell is wrong with you?? why do you care about this all of a sudden? why do you want to impose insane, invasive rules just to stop some 8th grader from hanging out with her friends after school" at the minimum
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Andy McMillan @mcawmcmillan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
For the overlap of #ChemSky and #music - one of the people in my department pointed me to this paper laying out the similarities of molecular vibrations and music onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Michelle Rapp ➡️ MagicCon Atlanta @kilnfiendpotter.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Catholicism has a lot to answer for, but it has NEVER been anti-science or anti-vaccine. I can feel the Vatican from here trying their damndest to not mutter: "What the everloving fuck?' www.reddit.com/r/atheism/s/...
reddit.com
From the atheism community on Reddit: Supreme Court declines Catholic mother’s bid for son’s vaccine exemption in N.Y. | The justices tackled the issue of religious rights versus public health mandate...
Explore this post and more from the atheism community
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tunes to make you run away @whippoorwont.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"people are anthropomorphizing LLMs because they are so astonishingly good at processing human thought and language" people will anthropomorphize a chair if you put the stitches in the right place.
chair with a "face"
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W. Brian Lane (he/him), PhD @wbrianlane.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In order for prior knowledge to be useful, it must be activated, appropriate, accurate, and sufficient. Recall Knowledge, five degrees of proficiency (counting untrained), and learning how to learn (adding level if trained) makes Pathfinder2e amazingly accurate to the psychology of learning.
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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This is so important. Voters don’t want policy triangulation to hit just the right level of this or that. They aren’t principled moderates. Voters want to take part in a narrative. They want it so badly that they’re trying out hating Canada. How can liberals channel the hunger for narrative?
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
like some of it documents history that archaeologists and anthropologists can at least partially verify, but some of it is poetry or song, and then there's a bunch of letters, and then John gets high at the end and starts yelling about dragons. you've gotta let the metaphors just wash over you, man
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
you do not under any circumstances gotta hand it to Life Teen but I'll tell you, "the Bible is not a book, it's a library" is one of the most useful things I've ever heard a Catholic theologian say
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
okay! Kendra asked for some suggestions here, and I'm going to offer something like a Litany of the Saints for all your "dear God, please let It™️ happen soon" prayer intentions there's no one immediate obvious candidate, but an "Avengers, assemble" approach to these folks might be worth trying:
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Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 27/08/2026
The real American 🇺🇸 “brain drain” isn’t that a few established scholars might get new jobs outside the US, it’s the enormous number of grad students - particularly international grad students - who can’t or won’t study in the US now or in years to come. That’s the body blow.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/08/2026
I suspect this is a common sentiment (this is also how I feel)
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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 25/08/2026
And this performance of “In the Pines” with her family—she emphasized music as a communal experience, and an expression of your culture—the place you grew up and the people you grew up with, the people who are still with you; the songs you heard, the songs you still sing. youtu.be/cIf4QGwnfLg?...
youtu.be
Dolly Parton with her seven sibling and parent INTHE PINES
YouTube video by KayxY_CTv
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CZEdwards @czedwards.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Polis, you fucking schmuck. We TOLD you. And you know what it didn’t get you? Any emergency disaster relief, any back down on NCAR, anything at all. You got rolled by the biggest jackass in the GOP.
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
New Redwall miniseries looks dope but I wish they'd gone for a less realistic style
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Martin Lersch @khymos.org · 08/08/2026
What makes a batter a waffle batter?🔎🧇 If you've made a few, you know one when you see it. But try to write down the rule and you'll struggle. I spent some time thinking about that question. Here's what came out of it 🧵
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
They're just coming right out and saying it. When body camera footage makes them look bad, no one sees it. When it serves a proagandistic purpose, everyone sees it.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
It is funny that this person thinks “immigrants defended the union while native born whites sought to destroy it in the name of slavery” is an argument against immigrants being Americans. This is precisely the point, nothing about being born here makes you better bsky.app/profile/aphc...
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Lux 🌸 Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 01/08/2026
Love to wind people up by pointing out that technically Alfred is the batman not Bruce
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bocchi minh @kinseijoshi.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
yuri doesn't just make you human, it makes you very good at math apparently
Gengen Kusano (G.K.): I've been thinking, differentials really are yuri, aren't they.

Rikimaru Mizoguchi (R.M.): Differentials.

G.K.: Differentials, mathematical ones. Let's say we have a function. Like "X = 2Y". If you define one of the values, it defines the other one as well, right? In other words, one of them depends on the other. That's yuri, isn't it. A function is a pairing. You get it, right?G.K.: A differential represents how f(x) changes with respect to changes of X. When one of the women is going through a change, how does that change her partner — to answer that you need to calculate the derivative of the function.

Iori Miyazawa (I.M.): Yuri can be represented with formulas, you're saying.G.K.: You can model yuri with a differential equation. What do the function represent — for starters, mental state. Happiness, anger, there is a multitude of dimensions. X and Y, a function of the feelings of them both. A function that expresses what one of them feels when the other one experiences something. Or you can also represent various situations with functions. For example, how does one of them react when the other one calls her. What does one of them do if the other one gives her chocolate on Valentine's Day. Or maybe a probability space. If one were to become a writer, what would happen to the other one — describing such counterfactual space with functions. In "Weak Yuri" these functions would define the theoretical parameters of the characters. The theoretical model of one of the characters contains mental states, possibilities, and situations that can be expressed with functions, as well as different functions regarding the other character's theoretical model. The relationships between these functions give birth to new functions. That is functional yuri, from my "Weak Yuri" standpoint. In "Strong Yuri", these functions all exist in reality.
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 24/07/2026
Calibration Nobel xkcd.com/3275/
Comic. [Person 1 with short hair on stage behind podium reading off paper while addressing audience. People are shown sitting in chairs while Person 2 with ponytail and Person 3 waving are walking toward stage.] PERSON 1: This year’s Nobel Prize in “calibrating your equipment carefully and not embarrassing yourself by publishing spurious results” goes to Dr. Adams and Dr. Smith, who did *not* announce the discovery of microbes on Titan. PERSON 3: Thank you, thank you.
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Andy McMillan @mcawmcmillan.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
a lot of issues with the study described here that’s getting me thinking about things i need to add discussion when I’m teaching about crispr
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Jess McLaughlin, PhD (they/them) @jfmclaughlin92.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"Hey Jess, why do you spend so much of the classroom time of your genetics course talking about ethics?"
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DEI Speedwagon @myrrlyn.net · 17/07/2026
you stupid mother fucker (markwayne not eugene) we tricked the entire world into sending their smartest hardest working people here and then tricked those same people into staying permanently instead of going back to their home country you are BLOWING UP OUR SPOT
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Health Nerd @gidmk.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
My new piece in Slate takes a look at the concept of "ultra" processed foods and why the whole thing is so bizarrely unscientific slate.com/technology/2...
slate.com
One of the Biggest Boogeymen on Our Grocery Shelves Needs a Better Name
It’s all about the vibes.
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Gwen Snyder is uncivil @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I don't think these times have been a solvent for decency at all. This has been a precipitation process. It has made decent people coalesce & show themselves. We're also seeing how many people had just been superficially feigning decency, because that used to be a social/professional expectation.
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Pierre-Edouard Danjou @pe-danjou.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
After several years of work and testing, I'm delighted to share that our paper on teaching mass spectrometry instrumentation is now available on ChemRxiv! chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.... #ChemEd #MassSpec #SciComm #ULCO #UCBL
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Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
In Project 2025, Republicans' first proposal was to save the family by protecting children from diversity. In Project 2029, Democrats' first proposal is to save the family by protecting children from diversity.
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
One prominent group has been totally silent about the Trump administration’s latest attempt to grab control of all federal science funding. That’s the biopharma companies, and their suddenly shy, quiet CEOs. Here’s the calculation they’re making:
science.org
Speaking Up: Who Is, and Who Isn't
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Andy McMillan @mcawmcmillan.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Every city's got an ominous megastructure. while most people might point to Blucifer for denver we also have the Articulated Wall
A tower made of thin yellow blocks offset in a stack to make a spiral-like shape
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 25/06/2026
The most important question is: What is a story? How does it differ from just talking about stuff? The key point is the emotional reaction. The goal in telling a story is to evoke an emotional reaction in your audience. No emotional reaction, no story. 3/
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 25/06/2026
People always say "tell a story" but then don't explain how to do so! How is that helping? If we knew how to tell a story we wouldn't need the advice in the first place. 1/
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Andy McMillan @mcawmcmillan.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
For some perspective, my dad who had been republican as long as I I’ve known his politics is now planning to vote in the dem primary mostly to vote against hickenlooper and Bennett since finds they’ve been useless as senators and seems open to the more progressive Weiser and Gonzales.
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Olivia Just Wants Tech To Be Fun Again @kingdomfantasy6.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Cackling because asking Seattle to cancel Pride and perhaps tone it down is absolutely guaranteeing this will be the Pridest Pride Celebration to ever Pride.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
I have been working on societal impacts of language technology since late 2016, and my nightmare example since pretty early on has been using automatic transcription in emergency services systems. And today I learn it's happening *in my own city* www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news... Short 🧵>>
seattletimes.com
Seattle uses AI to help triage, divert 911 medical calls
The Seattle Fire Department started using AI technology during live 911 calls in 2023. There hasn't been any public review process.
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T. Greg Doucette @gregdoucette.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
This. 1000 times this. There have been *literal decades of research* on the deadweight economic loss that comes from corruption. It's both widely known and widely studied since before Hakeem Jeffries was born
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Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 03/06/2026
It is tasteless for Marcia McNutt, the president of the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics, to JOKE about the exploitation of students. Students who are watching their hope of a scientific career burning up in front of their eyes.
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Josh Mayfield @bean525.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
I'd REALLY appreciate it if anyone who sees this would try out my text generators so I can iron out any remaining bugs. Please, and thank you! trek.epicrandomness.com
trek.epicrandomness.com
Star Trek Title Card Generator
Make your own era-accurate Star Trek episode title cards in seconds. Boldly go!
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