iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Continuing posting on making comics accessible for blind/low vision readers, this part of our comic shows 6 possible ways of translating just a single panel, to really illustrate how one size doesn’t fit all needs. Accessibility is messy & an artistic act itself! spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/

A part of a comics page, it mostly shows a cube that represents six views of the same comics panel (we can only see three because this is flat paper, but can infer all six sides look the same) with a Batman like character swooping down on some villains. Emanating from it are voice captions that describe this panel in different styles - minimalist to radio drama and others.
See full description here https://spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/

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Lake Superior! Live! @lake-superior.live · 24/09/2026

Current* conditions near Isle Royale NP, MI:

From one of the highest Isle Royale peaks at 1,133 feet above sea level (roughly 530 feet above Lake Superior), webcam located at the peak of Mount Ojibway, captures a northern vantage point. // Image captured at (local time): 2026-09-24 06:11:48 EDT (about 7 min. prior to this post) // Image sourced from: nps.gov/isro/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm // Current Temp in Isle Royale NP: 45 F | 7 C // Precip: few clouds // Wind: S at 8 mph | 13 kph // Humidity: 94%

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Manlio De Domenico @manlius.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Picture reaching for something on a high shelf and coming up short. You don’t give up; instead, you find a stool, carry it over, and climb up. Something remarkable: You held the goal in your mind, identified what you needed, and executed a plan. No training required. www.science.org/content/arti...

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

In 2022 and 2023 I became somewhat obsessed with the warnings about surviving “radiation emergencies” that were posted around northern New Jersey. For this week’s DOOMSDAY MACHINES, I share my obsession with you, and analyze the motivations, messages, and methods of the campaign. 🐕

doomsdaymachines.net

“Do you know what to do in a radiation emergency?”

New Jersey’s strangely-decontextualized nuclear terrorism PSAs

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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

OMB's focus on NIH and NSF, which has confused a lot of folks, pretty much boils down to stopping money going to universities.

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Block Club Chicago @blockclubchi.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Chicago physicist Vincenzo Vitelli was selected for a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. buff.ly/TayUiNL

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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026

This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The obvious conclusion (to me): if you have proprietary research & you upload it into the Plagiarism Nexus, it's not YOUR proprietary research anymore. Behave accordingly.

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc

nyti.ms

Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)

An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.

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Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I've talked to a few journal editors who are concerned about similar problems re: anonymous reviewers. If a peer reviewer wants a little help & feeds your unpublished submission into an AI system, they've just shared your proprietary work & broken confidentiality. A nightmare to think about

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026

I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility

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Marine Chronobiology Network @marine-chronobio.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Let's start with a #StarterPack! Here are some folks working on #biological #rhythms ⏰ in #marine #life. 🌊 If you do so, too, please get in touch and we will add you! #chronobiology #circadian #tidal #lunar #annual #MarineEcology #MarineLife #clocks #moon #tides

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Lake Michigan! Live! @lake-michigan.live · 23/09/2026

Current* conditions near Chicago, IL:

Rotating view from the top of the Shedd Aquarium where Chicago meets Lake Michigan. // Image captured at (local time): 2026-09-22 20:36:04 CDT (about 1 min. prior to this post) // Image sourced from: fox32chicago.com // Current Temp in Chicago: 62 F | 17 C // Precip: broken clouds // Wind: ENE at 13 mph | 20 kph // Humidity: 70%

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Paul Halpern @phalpern.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

During World War I, Nobel laureate scientist Marie Skłodowska Curie had a Renault car converted into a medical radiology unit, which she would drive from hospital to hospital and treat wounded soldiers (Getty Images) #histSTM #science #physics

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Claire Zagorski, PhD, MSc, EMT-P @clairezagorski.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I made this design in 2019, and it’s been ripped off by countless creepy little Temu shops, as well as by Shein. Seeing it in an AI ad is ruining my day, ngl. If you like it, buy one from me - link in bio. I actually give money to queer mutual aid and medical care groups.

A shitty AI ad on Instagram showing my “you are safe with me” design being sold by a company that is not me.

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Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Applications for the 2027 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships are open! Marina Dubova just completed SFI’s Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowship, and she reflects on what the experience meant to her and her research. Deadline: September 30, 2026 Requirements & application: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

MIT has put out an "AI and Education" report summarizing what they've found at their own institution. Seems thoughtful. aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/

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Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven

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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...

mathandai.org

Declaration — Math and AI

Read the declaration and add your name.

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Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Applications are open for SFI's 2027 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships. SFI is looking for recent Ph.D. graduates with strong quantitative and computational skills who want to pursue independent, transdisciplinary research. Deadline: September 30, 2026 Apply: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

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Grant @syncingsinking.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This is just to say I have solved the open questions that were in your paper and which you were probably saving for your phd students Forgive me they were delicious so incentive-laden and followed so readily once your postdoc's drafts mysteriously found their way into my training data

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 08/09/2026

Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn. nyti.ms/3SRqSGQ

A black-and-white portrait of Joan Birman, a 92-year-old mathematician, in her apartment. A headline reads: "The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice." Photo by Oliver Farshi for The New York Times

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Anna Nagurney @annanagurney.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

What a wonderful article about an inspiring collaboration of female mathematicians across the ages. Thanks to @nytimes.com for publishing it www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/s...

nytimes.com

The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice

Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn.

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Nigel Goldenfeld @nigelgoldenfeld.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

In our work agents develop the ability to trust differentially other agents based on the outcome of their decisions. A complex society and hierarchy can emerge. It is not mandatory. There is a phase diagram based on the interactions between agents. These can be tuned to avoid collectivism!! 🧪⚛️

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Nigel Goldenfeld @nigelgoldenfeld.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

🧪⚛️ I was especially interested because nearly 20 years ago, @ngutten.bsky.social and I predicted this could happen. Bored at an Institute BBQ we decided to figure out how politics and leadership can spontaneously emerge in identical agents. We built a model and calculated the phase diagram.

Screenshot of a Physical Review paper by Nicholas Gutenberg and Nigel Goldenfeld about the spontaneous emergence of political structure and leadership in initially identical agents.

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Rosemary Braun @rosemarybraun.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Ooooh. @rmartincole.bsky.social , does the Northwestern Transportation Library (❤️) have a collection of these?

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Rosemary Braun @rosemarybraun.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

A gorgeous example of metabolically costly fitness signalling!

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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Northwestern is hiring in quant methods (assistant level, tenure track) Please repost and share with those you think would be good candidates, thank you! polisci.northwestern.edu/about/facult... #psjobs #psjminfo #poliscijobs

Assistant Professor of Quantitative Political Methodology (Tenure-Track)
The Department of Political Science at Northwestern University invites applications for a full-time position in Quantitative Political Methodology at the rank of Assistant Professor, tenure-track, to begin Fall 2027. We emphasize methodology with a strongly applied perspective: successful candidates will maintain an active, independent research program that includes methodological contributions in their own right, while also teaching quantitative research methods courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and applying those methods to substantive questions in their area of expertise. We are especially interested in candidates whose work bridges data-driven/computational approaches with design-based inference, though we welcome applicants making cutting-edge contributions in either of these traditions or in other areas of political methodology. Successful candidates' substantive research agendas may be in any area of political science or may cross boundaries; as with all Northwestern faculty, successful candidates will be expected to provide service to the department, the university, and the profession.

Aerial photo of Northwestern's beautiful lakeside campus with political science's new building circled

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Rosemary Braun @rosemarybraun.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Hi @wamu.org, was expecting Hot Jazz Saturday night, but your livestream is playing All Things Considered. What happened? #HotJazzSaturdayNight

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NSF-Simons NITMB @nitmb.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Eight weeks' worth of research and hard work culminate in the 2026 Summer Undergraduate Research Program Symposium! Join us on Friday, August 14th, for a poster session and light refreshments with our summer students to learn about their exciting research projects

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Lake Michigan! Live! @lake-michigan.live · 05/08/2026

Current* conditions near Chicago, IL:

View of Chicago skyline from William E. Dever Crib in Lake Michigan east of North Avenue. // Image captured at: 2026-08-05 03:20:01 UTC (about 17 min. prior to this post) // Image sourced from: glerl.noaa.gov/metdata/chi/ // Current Temp in Chicago: 79 F | 26 C // Precip: scattered clouds // Wind: S at 2 mph | 3 kph // Humidity: 71%

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Sune Lehmann @sunelehmann.com · 30/07/2026

Too Lazy to Read the Paper just passed 10,000 downloads (17,873 if we count YouTube). Not bad for unedited, hour-long conversations with my favorite scientists. The whole story, including both season trailers – one features me on a ukulele: sunelehmann.com/blog/too-laz...

Computer generated image that advertises the blog post with random stats and vague science-y imagery

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Big Wonderful Wyoming @wydot.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Chugwater, 7/25/2026, 7:19:16 PM

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Chicago Tree @chicagotree.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Aaron Siskind discovered abstraction on the beaches of Chicago. Between 1953 & 1956, he photographed divers at Chicago’s Oak Street Beach. He called the series Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation.

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Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Larry laid his mouse in front of the press to be photographed. Lest you ask, this is a real photograph via the Press Association.

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Eric Allix Rogers @ericallixrogers.com · 23/07/2026

🎆🎆🎆🎡

Night time photo. Looking across a reflective foreground towards a distant horizon where some low buildings and a green illuminated ferris wheel are visible and then above them a lot of fireworks exploding in the sky.

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 21/07/2026

the most realistic scene in Jurassic Park is when two scientists make a questionable decision — traveling to an undisclosed location with a strange man — on the promise of three years of modest funding

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Laurie! Live! @laurie-merrell.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

since people are talking about lead pipes in Chicago, a reminder of this project from WBEZ that can help you check if your home has a lead service line www.wbez.org/environment/...

wbez.org

Does my home have lead pipes? Check our map

Enter your address to find out whether any part of your water service line needs replacing and how your neighborhood compares to others.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Twice a year, Hawai'i experiences a strange moment where the sun appears to be exactly overhead & anything that is completely vertical casts no shadow. Let's learn about Lāhainā Noon, subsolar points & 'Kau ka lā i ka lolo', meaning "the sun rests on the brains."

From a Reddit forum, a photo of a can of coconut milk with a blue label, papyrus text and a flip-top, on a sidewalk. It seems to hover because there's no visible shadow. The pavement is sort of unevenly colored, with bright spots, and the grass along it is green and lush.

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Chicago Tree @chicagotree.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Sunrise

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I just learned Peter Schuster passed away. A great colleague from @sfiscience.bsky.social , one of the smartest people I ever met. He made fundamental contributions to the maths of evolution and origins of life. A great inspiration for all. @josepsardanyes.bsky.social www.santafe.edu/people/profi...

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

...the teeth developed not as mouse-like, but as conical reptilian teeth: the developmental program still latent in birds from their dinosaur ancestors tens of millions of years ago. 🤯

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Been thinking a lot about the students in this class (presumably, but not certainly) using AI on a take-home midterm and then bombing the in-class final. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... But I think the real story here is not *that* students use AI, it's (part of) *why* students use AI. 🧵

insidehighered.com

Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat

Brown University leaders’ response to the alleged cheating incident has been “meek,” the professor said.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

The first copy of my new @princetonupress.bsky.social book has just arrived at the office. It explores death in all its forms, from cells to minds, machines, languages and information. A complexity/evolutionary perspective, from Frankenstein to neuroscience. Soon out: www.amazon.com/Endless-Endi...

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

In 1925, archaeologist Leonard Woolley was excavating the temple complex at the ancient city of Ur. That's the ziggurat in the background. As the excavation proceeded, he found something quite surprising: artifacts hundreds of years older than Ur itself. Let's talk about the oldest known museum.

Ruins in the Town of Ur, Southern Iraq

M.Lubinski from Iraq,USA

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Finally finished @philipcball.bsky.social's wonderful "How Life Works"! When I hit the part on the 2nd Law felt compelled to share my comic on Entropy from a few years back, bits of which I'm expanding on in the new work (& one reason I read this brilliant book!) spinweaveandcut.com/sketching-en...

a single page comic about entropy - how everything tends towards disorder, and those brief moments when things go against that downward flow - specifically life. Opens with linear rod of small rectangular panels on how things get more disordered.

The rest of the page has a much less regimented structure. In the background is a river in black that flows from upper left to lower right end of page. Over it is a spiraling panel structure that has the primary narrative. This begins with a trio of narrow rectangular small vertical panels arranged in descending order. Within them a sequence where a ball falls down stairs. A white arrow stems from the panels and points into the Y of the word yet In large black letters. This moves reading flow across the page to the right side where there are three mirroring vertical panels to the left side except these are arranged in ascending order left to right. Inside them are images of swirls - perhaps a cyclone viewed from space. And then, on the right edge, the panels align with the arm of a spiral of panels. And now we see a sequence depicting swirl of gases to birth of a star, a diagram of new elements forged in its core to star and planet (earth) orbiting. Then swirls of clouds on earth, lightning, rain, water, volcanoes and spiraling to the center: circular panel with caption “swirls keep forming”. Now spiral path reverses from the center to show organic molecules, then dna. Outside the panel path a maple “helicopter” spirals into the panels, to sprout and grow into a tree

This second spiral arm comes out of the center and returns to standard reading order. A river has flowed behind the whole page and in the last panel, a person is seen putting a finger in creating swirls in the water - as life and stars are swirls drawing from entropy's downward stream...

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