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Rob Scott

@saskchemprof.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.1K following 746 posts

Prof @USask. Research includes nanochemistry, catalysis, and staring at X-rays. Dad of two teenagers and 1 cat, avid reader, and movie buff. Social introvert and lover of bad dad jokes.

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Reposted by Rob Scott
Lupus Londonwolf @lupuslondonwolf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I was making potato and leek soup and the recipe asked for five potatoes cubed. Even for potato soup, 125 potatoes seems a little excessive.
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
5 potatoes cubed is still 5 potatoes because potatoes are root vegetables
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Today's winning Biology All email--in fact this is a contender for best this year
Hi all,

We received a package with no name to GSB 2144 with 80 sheep brains in it. If you are expecting this package, please reach out and we can coordinate the pickup!

Best wishes,
Jenna
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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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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I'll save you the click-through: A lab at University of Copenhagen had been feeding draft manuscripts & data into "Claude Science" & then Anthropic announces a discovery that this lab made a year ago but hasn't published yet. It's plausible that Claude found the same signatures independently...
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I keep coming back to this clip against the background of AI companies infesting higher education. And I feel like I need to show this in class to students, for them to understand why not to trust these bastards
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Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 24/12/2023
I posted these stories on the bad place, thought i'd post them here for your entertainment (no gifs here unfortunately, use your imagination). Story 2: "My Worst Faculty Job Interview Ever"
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Tod Maffin 🇨🇦 @todmaffin.com · 25/09/2026
Thinking of visiting the US? Consider it carefully, as they’re going to seize your phone and look at everything you have on it.
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Rob Scott @saskchemprof.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Walking around Alberta Legislature today. Depending on how you view it, Alberta is either proudly part of Canada or it isn’t…
Alberta Legislature proudly flying Canada flag from river side.Just the Alberta flag visible on downtown side of Legislature
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Chemjobber @chemjobber.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This Stanislav Petrov obit was particularly good: web.archive.org/web/20170928... ht @lizneeley.bsky.social
web.archive.org
Stanislav Petrov was declared to have died on September 18th
“The man who saved the world” was 77
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Andre the Chemist @andrechemist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The details in this piece only add to the evilness that the headline introduces
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Matt Thrower @mattthr.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Be the change you want to see in the world
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Alejandro Montenegro @aemonten.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This makes me irrationally mad
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Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
If I won the Nobel I'd demand from my Uni a Universal Parking Pass. I can park ANYWHERE. On the grass. On the sidewalk. In the Dean's office. Anywhere.
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Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“could” “risks” include… reduced critical thinking
reuters.com
Ex-Google safety chief warns AI could harm children more than social media did
The founder of the trust and safety team at Alphabet’s Google ​this week called for a slowdown in AI development, warning that the tech industry was repeating the same mistakes from the social media e...
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Rob Scott @saskchemprof.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
But it’s the Bespoke AI line! Bespoke!
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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com · 23/09/2026
EIon Musk’s Wealth 2009: $.6B 2026: $984B Jeff Bezos’s Wealth 2009: $6B 2026: $370B Mark Zuckerberg’s Wealth 2009: $.6B 2026: $256B Federal Minimum Wage 2009: $7.25 2023: $7.25 Billionaire tax rate: 8.2% Worker tax rate: 13% Pay workers. Tax & Abolish Billionaires. Save our economy & country.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 12/12/2023
I fixed the headline. And I honestly don't understand how any journalist could write this story without mentioning the study author's own "extreme productivity".
Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns extremely productive scientist who published 324 papers during the three year study period.

Some researchers publish a new paper every five days, on average, claims study author who published a new paper every 3.4 days, on average.
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Rob Scott @saskchemprof.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Huzzah!
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Rob Scott @saskchemprof.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Decay Away Francium! Dilithium’s proper place as the 87th Element in the Periodic Table.
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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
i've always wanted to visit iceland sure wish i hadn't been holding that monkey's paw when i said it
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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
lol my flight got diverted because of a medical emergency and they landed us in reykjavik in the middle of the night and deplaned us and sent us through passport control and then the crew vanished and then british airways sent us links to book an overnight hotel room but for a hotel at heathrow
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Rob Scott @saskchemprof.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New Directions in Dynamic Carbonite Coatings: An In Situ Investigation
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Steve Gale @stevewg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Colley Hill, Surrey: coffee break from birding the steep scrub. Love the plaque on the bench I’m sitting on
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Dave Palmer @davepalmerusask.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Hey, that’s us! Cinnamaldehyde is a $5B/ year commodity, and derivatives with varying flavours & aromas can now be generated from benzaldehydes using #biocatalysis. Thanks and congratulations to my @usask.ca students for putting this idea into practice.
pubs.acs.org
ACS Publications
ACS Publications
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jeremy, yarn yoshi stan @cycl0pentadiene.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
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Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Because of some attempts at phishing scams impersonating faculty, our provost has asked us to announce to our classes that we would never email them to ask for money or gift cards.
static.klipy.com
Kombucha Girl
Alt: Kombucha Girl
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Whoa. The brain is actually two separate organisms that evolved independently www.thetimes.com/article/09fc...
thetimes.com
Brain made up of two distinct organs evolving independently
Scientists have discovered the brain is made of separate systems, solving a longstanding riddle and aiding research into diseases like ALS
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Mike Noble @mikenoble.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Ultimate Man shook my hand and then told me exactly how I was going to die.
WSJ EXCLUSIVE
Belgian Scientists create “Ultimate Man" AI sex bot that they believe will replace real men entirely by 2035
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Thread. The close personal details of how this government is pulling the plug on a generation of scientific progress.
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 18/09/2026
Brent Hecht, Microsoft’s director of applied science, called the training of AI models the “largest theft of labor in human history,” according to a legal brief.
washingtonpost.com
Microsoft exec called AI the ‘largest theft of labor’ in history, court records show
The quote headlined an unsealed document in the New York Times’s copyright case against Microsoft and OpenAI.
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Chemjobber @chemjobber.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is the coolest #facultychemjobs positions I've seen in a long, long time: "Canada Impact+ Emerging Leader in the Chemistry of Wildfires", UBC-Okanagan, Kelowna, BC research.ubc.ca/media/file/i... Best wishes to those interested #chemjobscanada #chemsky
research.ubc.ca
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Dave Palmer @davepalmerusask.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
#ChemjobsCanada Great opportunity for an atmospheric chemist. (Assuming the Okanagan hasn’t completely burned to ash in the very near future)
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Museum of Twitter @museum-of-twitter.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
@MohanadElshieky

Please stop saying the vaccine doesn't have severe side effects. I took my shots and now I'm alive and have to keep working
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Tabatha Southey🇨🇦 @tabathasouthey.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Oh no, Canada has disappointed Susan Collins.
cbc.ca
Republican senator warns Carney: Closer ties to EU hurts chance of trade deal with U.S. | CBC News
A long-serving Republican senator from a border state is warning Prime Minister Mark Carney against strengthening Canada's economic and political ties to the European Union.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 16/09/2026
Scientist here: It is widely known inside science that this—top-down imposition of a research agenda—leads to mostly rote, boring, non-innovative work. Building an institute to do discovery science is hard: you hire young people, put them together, hope synergies arise and ideas fall out.
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Chemjobber @chemjobber.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
From 2022 to spring 2025, American PhD-granting universities posted an average of 289 openings in departments of chemistry and biochemistry. Starting in the fall of 2025, that number fell to 185 openings.
a graph of the normal growth rate of the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List, showing two deviations, the year during COVID (fall 2020-spring 2021) and the first year of the second Trump Administration (fall 25-spring 26)
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Tim Carvell @timcarvell.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Rough week to tell people that your application to join the FBI finally went through.
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PZ Myers @pzmyers.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Q: What's the large muscular organ in a woman's chest called? A: The heart? Q: I'm sorry, Bob. It's the SPLEEN. The spleen. freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2...
Hideously bad AI illustration
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
wtf kind of pets they got in there
SMOKING
BARE FOOT
PETS
PROHIBITED IN BUILDING
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Sergey Ovchinnikov @sokrypton.org · 14/09/2026
Finally a more intuitaive way to learn pLDDT/pAE? 😎 sokrypton.github.io/protein_figh... (Character idea from @hannes-stark.bsky.social & Alex Waldherr)
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ℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
pains me to celebrate a vile Boston Red Sock but an immaculate inning on 9 straight full-effort grunting fastballs is a Dudes Rock moment
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Nobel Prize @nobelprize.org · 13/09/2026
"I've benefitted in my own lab from having a diverse lab of coworkers." Nobel Prize laureates Andrea Ghez and Carolyn Bertozzi speak about the importance of diversity.
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Glennyrodge @glennyrodge.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Oh, there they are.
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Janet D. Stemwedel @docfreeride.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
It used to be common knowledge that 38% of statistical claims are made up on the spot.
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Dr. Liz Kirby @thekirbylab.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
🎯
By prompting students to turn to AI instead of to their fellow students, TAs, or professors, these technologies offer the illusion that human interaction is inconsequential. But learning with and from other people simultaneously supports learning and builds the human skills that make the world go ’round.
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Dr Keith Wilson 💭 @keithwilson.eu · 13/09/2026
Pay tax.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
In Beijing, a think tank at Renmin University recently published an assessment titled
"Thank Trump," which wryly hailed his efforts to hasten the "twilight of an empire," by undermining America's alliances, civil service, scientific institutions, and democratic credibility. In the past two years, the international approval rating of the U.S. has dropped nearly forty points, according to a worldwide survey by the Alliance of Democracies; in multiple polls, China now rates higher than the U.S.
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Aaron Wherry @aaronwherry.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
For those who didn't catch Jean Chrétien's remarks to the Gander 9/11 commemoration... www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Jean Chrétien says ‘we bow to no one’ in stirring 9/11 speech in Gander, N.L. | CBC News
Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien drew thunderous applause on Friday during a fiery and patriotic speech in Gander, N.L, where many had gathered at a sports arena to commemorate the 25th an...
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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
If you're making cheesy chips, for the love of god please layer the chips and cheese. Those substrata chips are not going to cheese themselves.
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