iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Trash Panda @shaaznerd.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Check out this weird insect! It's a wingless female moth laying eggs on the post-pupation remnants of herself - genus Anestia. So cool!

Against a brick wall, a cage of sparse silk surrounds a shell of a caterpillar. A lumpy grey fuzzy insect deposits small white eggs on the silk.

010

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Shannon Rosa @shannonrosa.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Parents who refuse to listen to autistic people are like the American tourists who don’t bother to learn words in local languages, but think they can be better understood if they just talk louder—and then get upset when the situation doesn’t improve. #autism #neurodiversity #parenting

0198

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Crystal Fincher @finchfrii.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

This is why I pay for the World Wide Web. Because it delivers ART!

181620670

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 29/11/2025

…Oh. Oh no. Oh no nonono. …And yet: of course. "Gen AI" tells you the thing you are statistically most likely to accept so you keep using it— & research shows that most people who like "AI" like it *Because* it sycophantically tells them their ideas are great & should defs be implemented. So… Yeah.

18607203

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

David Pocock @davidpocock.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Save the CSIRO Our national science & research agency is now facing more job cuts than under Tony Abbott Call on the Albanese Govt to fund the scientists & research we need to tackle big issues we face from climate to food security and everything in between www.davidpocock.com.au/save_our_csiro

26459214

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Writing about Elon Musk’s pay package without leading with this is like profiling John Wayne Gacy’s booming party clown career.

3138861269

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 06/09/2025

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

11341512055

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Jon Bois @jonbois.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

i see you're doing something online that you have effortlessly done 100,000 times. would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? w

10494082611

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Political parties must shift immediately and dramatically to the left to avoid alienating these frustrated and abandoned young women. Am I doing this right?

5258741443

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

All you have to do is look at the first post of all of these accounts to see THEY ARE HERE TO TROLL. Don’t take the bait. bsky.app/profile/did:...

16583247

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 17/10/2025

We. Told. You. So. But also, that "May Rely" in the significance section ( 👇🏾 ) is *way* too… let's go with "generous;" lexical associations and statistical priors are what these systems are literally made of, and all that they do. Literally. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Screenshot of text reading:
Significance
Large Language Models (LLMs) are used in evaluative tasks across domains. Yet, what appears as alignment with human or expert judgments may conceal a deeper shift in how “judgment” itself is operationalized. Using news outlets as a controlled benchmark, we compare six LLMs to expert ratings and human evaluations under an identical, structured framework. While models often match expert outputs, our results suggest that they may rely on lexical associations and statistical priors rather than contextual reasoning or normative criteria. We term this divergence epistemia: the illusion of knowledge emerging when surface plausibility replaces verification. Our findings suggest not only performance asymmetries but also a shift in the heuristics underlying evaluative processes, raising fundamental questions about delegating judgment to LLMs.

1226279

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

BOGLUDDITE @brucemackay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Hi #PortfolioDay Im Bruce, an illustrator, creative director & printmaker based in Cape Town, RSA. Big fan of old goofy SFF covers & forced perspective and experimentation. Nice to meet you :) ILLO: www.instagram.com/bad_manifesto FA: www.instagram.com/oombruce

Digital illustration of an old village lane. Choppy shapes and overlapping oranges and blues.

Digital illustration of a guy in a "modern apartment full of art and plans. he's liking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the sunrise and eating cake off a plate. This was an old style test for MUTI. Choppy shapes of overlapping yellow, blue and pink.

Digital illustration of a hazy sepia toned kitchen with a silhouetted being sitting at the table next to some dead flowers. This was an old style test for MUTI.

Digital illustration of a The Lord OF The Rings cover. A Nazgûl sits astride its horse between 2 red trees that make a circle. Int he background is Weathertop, the Misty Mountains and Orodruin. Overlapping risk colours - red, teal and yellow. Some mushrooms in the foreground.

328676

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Shannon Rosa @shannonrosa.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

I went on CNN's One Thing podcast last week, talking about how absurd & ass-backwards last week's White House Big Autism Announcement was. But as not everyone listens to podcasts, here's a thread of the conversation: www.cnn.com/audio/podcas... #autism #TylenolDoesNotCauseAutism #neurodiversity 1/

cnn.com

Are You a Bad Mom for Taking Tylenol? - CNN One Thing - Podcast on CNN Podcasts

Major medical groups are speaking out against claims made by President Donald Trump linking Tylenol use to autism. So where should pregnant people and parents of autistic children turn for guidance? W...

16838

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Scarleteen @scarleteen.com · 01/10/2025

Adam England is back to talk about bi erasure, what it looks like outside of the celebrity world, and how to cope with it in your own life if you're someone who identifies as bi. www.scarleteen.com/read/ident...

Text: "It's another installment of Adam England's series for bisexual guys! Hi, Bi Guy: Dealing with Bi Erasure at Scarleteen," with a number 2 pencil eraser's debris atop the text.

04019

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Diana 📚🦦🇨🇦🇲🇽 @bookishdi.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

anyway, reminder that Brando Sando is a mormon in good standing aka he tithes 10% of his income to a church that just announced they filed a brief saying that protecting trans rights infringes on their religious freedom ✌️

151014548

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Saimi Hanma ⚔️ サイミ @saimihanma.northsky.social · 28/09/2025

We have one writer unable to participate in this, is there a writer out there who would like to take their place and partner with an artist to create something for our InverteFest invertebrate anthology? Please reply here if you're interested. Details below.

#InverteFest is a periodic event where we invite you to celebrate the overlooked invertebrate fauna around you and share the joys of discovery online.

Enter your details to be paired with an artist or writer to work on a collaborative piece for the InverteFest Anthology. Each partner group will have one artist and one writer.

It's up to each pair to decide what to create

We need one artwork and one written piece no longer than 3,000 words

The art and writing can complement each other, or be combined, like in a comic for example

The finished work can be fiction, nonfiction, poetry and any type of visual art that can be reproduced in a PDF ebook

Invertebrates can be fictional

Once everyone has a partner, you'll have 3 months to submit your collaboration (probably by the end of 2025)

22116

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Aled Thompson @aledthompson.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Praying Mantis

131347288

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

franz @franzanth.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

We present: The Art of #InverteFest - August 2025 Edition A digital art book showcasing the work of 100 artists from around the world, in celebration of overlooked invertebrate fauna. Thank you to the artists who contributed to our book! Download here drive.google.com/file/d/19wfG... #Art #SciArt

a promo image showing various pages from the book, each page showcasing different animals like an orchid mantis, opabinia, a butterfly. the art featured shows a range of different medium, including digital, plushie, papercraft, 3D render, comic, and so on.

15241130

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Spoontaneous @spoontaneous.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Repost... 'Roundabout' ~ Wooden spoon carved in Sapele wood. My intent was to have 'swirls' that would alternate around each circle but I wasn't clever enough to figure out how... so this came about instead. #spoon #spoontaneous #art #craft #woodworking #wood #carving #woodenspoon #design 🥄

1313

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Happy weekend! Here’s a 3,500 year-old Minoan clay flask decorated with a spectacular wide-eyed octopus! 🐙😍 From Palaikastro, a Bronze Age settlement site on the island of Crete. Heraklion Archaeological Museum. 📷 by me #Archaeology

My photo shows the front of a warm-yellow coloured Minoan clay flask, hand painted in black with a frontally depicted octopus. The flask is 27 cm in height (about 10.5 inches). There’s a spout at the top with a small handle at either side. The octopus is swimming diagonally with writhing tentacles covering the whole surface of the flask. It stares out at the viewer with wide, almost cartoon-like eyes. Each of the eight writhing arms are lined with suckers. Between the tentacles are motifs representing the seabed, such as sea urchins, tritons and small rocks with seaweed. Minoan decoration depicting sea motifs is known by scholars as the ‘Marine Style’. The flask was excavated in 1903 at a Bronze Age settlement site at Palaikastro. The Palaikastro excavations, carried out between 1902 and 1906, were run by R. Bosanquet and R.M. Dawkins from the British School of Athens. The flask is dated c. 1500-1450 BC, the Late Minoan IB ceramic period. On display at Heraklion Archaeological Museum. NB it is currently out on loan.

221175268

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

𝔅𝔲𝔱𝔱𝔬𝔫𝔰 𝔒'𝔊𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔦𝔥𝔞𝔫 @johnxuandou.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

461222318467

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

You should never follow any of these color charts. They are all stupid. I'll show you why. 🧵

Someone on Twitter posted a color chart for how to combine different shirts and pants.

875529723

Dr Trash Panda @shaaznerd.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

My father worked in the research arm of the EPA his whole scientific career. He taught me that the world is a beautiful place and the importance of public service. All of this... just...

041

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 10/07/2025

What if the moon turned into a black hole? Watch the latest What If? video collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social! www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQgw...

youtube.com

What if the moon turned into a black hole?

YouTube video by xkcd's What If?

371347184

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Institut Pasteur | 130 years of biomedical research @pasteur.fr · 21/06/2025

🎶 Straight from the Lab to the Mic: when a Pasteur scientist turns her thesis into a rap 🎶 #FeteDeLaMusique

58229

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Saimi Hanma ⚔️ サイミ @saimihanma.northsky.social · 18/06/2025

The US is spectacularly failing virtually every single one of the 30 basic human rights. And we're not the only country. Not familiar with them? Let's review. 1. All human beings are free and equal 2. No discrimination 3. Right to life 4. No slavery thehaguepeace.org/site/what-ar...

thehaguepeace.org

What are the 30 Human Rights? | The Hague Peace Projects

15619

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 09/06/2025

LAPD fired rubber bullets at Australian journalist @laurentomasi.bsky.social

24163422516328

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Wayne Maddison @waynemaddison.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Mesquite 4.beta2 released! Much faster reading of files with thousands of matrices. New features since 4.beta include Trace All Changes (known from MacClade) and Import GenBank Numbers. www.mesquiteproject.org & discuss at groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p... ‪@bembidion.bsky.social ‬🧪 #evolbio

Two icons of the Mesquite program, with leaves of the mesquite tree against a black background (first icon) and against the blue sky and sun (second icon).

15317

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Micah @rincewind.run · 30/05/2025

the first sentence of Elon's obituary should be that he was one of the greatest mass murderers in the history of humanity this is his legacy

342234608

Dr Trash Panda @shaaznerd.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Great thread on concrete steps we can take to make our spaces comfortable for our autistic friends and family ♡ I love the centering of autistic voices!

051

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Ridley @rid-ley.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Guys, I love all of you, but the answer to RFK, Jr. is not that autistic adults hold jobs, pay taxes, and get laid, it's that everyone deserves to live even if they can't work, pay taxes, or get laid.

150249936730

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Ghouly Hoye 👻🇨🇦 @hollyhoye.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Sometimes there’s too much going on in the world and you need to look at a large ridiculous bird for a minute. shoebill (Balaeniceps rex)

111916686

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Just finished this commissioned Roly Poly Pill Bug this morning. Now to package it up & off it goes to the UK. I had started one with discontinued Noro Kureyon sock yarn but in the end decided to keep it for myself since I can never get that yarn again. This one with Knit Picks Chroma. 🧶🐡🌱 #inverts

A knitted pill bug in shades of green and a little brown, rolled up into a ball and lying in various leaves of groundcover plants. #gardening

The pill bug posed so that the button and short Icord loop used to keep the shell closed is visible.

The pill bug opened out so that the 14 legs, face, eye, and antennae can be seen, and also the grading of one color to the next on the shell.

87911

Dr Trash Panda @shaaznerd.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

My Ghanaian student wanted to visit the US after a conference in Canada and I strongly recommended against it. It is horrible.

010

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

But Andrew Hickey Died Ten Years Ago This Very Night @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 09/04/2025

Incidentally, a useful tool on here is the labeller from @pronouns.diy . If you subscribe to that labeller and like the posts with your pronouns on, you will be able to see the pronouns of anyone else subscribed to it, and they'll see yours, under your username, like this.

A screenshot of part of a post by me from thirty minutes ago, showing my username and the labels "he/him" and "Bluesky Elder".

413879

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Auke-Florian 🪹 @aukeflorian.nl · 09/04/2025

NEW PAPER, JUST OUT! 👀 Insects from the '70s and '80s were already collecting microplastic, decades before the term microplastic even existed. 🤯 A thread on the surprising history of this pollutant and the incredible insect larvae that helped us uncover it. 🐛 Let's dive in! 🧵👇 1/x

Lead author Auke-Florian Hiemstra holds the oldest known caddisfly casing containing microplastic, dating to 1971. Photo: Liselotte Rambonnet.

A caddisfly casing with pieces of blue microplastic, dating 1986. Photo: Auke-Florian Hiemstra

361576744

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Adam Morton @adammorton.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Guardian Australia has launched a series about nature and threatened species. It's called Last Chance: The extinction crisis the Australian federal election is ignoring. Includes videos, news and comment pieces. Here's a preview of what it's about: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4kQ...

youtube.com

Last chance: the extinction crisis this election is ignoring

YouTube video by Guardian Australia

210254

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Happy birthday to French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Marie-Sophie Germain (1776 – 1831), known as Sophie. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🧮🎢 #histsci She taught herself mathematics using books in her father’s library & by corresponding with leading mathematicians of her day, including Lagrange, Legendre & Gauss, 🧵

Linocut of Sophie Germain (a young woman in with a collar with bow, under a dark dress, with a ribbon tied around her neck, long hair with centre part, half tied up with a ribbon in her hair). She is printed in dark blue with her own words about Fermat's Last Theorem in her own script carved into her hair and dress). Behind her in lavender is a grid of Chladni figures.

311616

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

DrDinD.bsky.social @drdind.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

On Trans Day of Visibility, these transgender scientists ask for help and support, and note that bringing diverse perspectives can identify biases and improve science. www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

‘We’re hurting.’ Trans scientists call for recognition and support from research community

“Rigorous science demands” it, authors write in landmark commentary

319187

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 22/03/2025

Tenure didn’t protect anyone at Columbia. Let this be a lesson in the need for labor solidarity across all ranks in higher ed.

11850207

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Happy birthday to Canadian medical researcher & #biochemist Maud Menten (1879-1960). 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histscj Not only was she an author of Michaelis-Menten equation for enzyme kinetics, she invented the azo-dye coupling for alkaline phosphatase, 1st example of enzyme histochemistry, still used in imaging of 🧵

Linocut portrait of biochemist and medical researcher Maud Menten (1879-1960) with the Michalis-Menten equation in blue and a histology image in pinks and purples in the background.

317970

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 17/03/2025

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

95118471302

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Thinking Person's Guide to Autism @thinkingautism.com · 14/03/2025

For anxious autistic people, punishments only feed their anxiety & stress as they are already anxious, which is why they are behaving the way they are. "Giving a choice, even “illusive” choice, is better than making demands." By @autsciperson.bsky.social: autisticscienceperson.com/2018/11/11/a...

autisticscienceperson.com

Anxiety Looks Like Anger

[Disclaimer: This post is targeted towards parents, as I have been seeing a lot of parents recently ask about what to do about their child’s behaviors (trying to figure out what is best for t…

615450

Dr Trash Panda @shaaznerd.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

The brutal reality of Australia's housing market means I will be working for my landlord forever

000

Dr Trash Panda @shaaznerd.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

The death toll is appalling. Aid programs also target PREVENTABLE and TREATABLE diseases that cause chronic, irreversible disabilities including blindness, epilepsy, elephantiasis, social ostracization, stunted growth... Everyone deserves a fair go whether born rich or poor.

000

Reposted by Dr Trash Panda

Thinking Person's Guide to Autism @thinkingautism.com · 25/02/2025

"I am a 15-year-old non-speaking Autistic with ADHD, Apraxia, Developmental Coordination Disorder, Scoliosis & Pectus Carinatum. My life is hard, but it could be easier if my policy idea was adopted for me & other Autistics." -Patrick Saunders, to Parliament: www.thestoryspeller.com/post/teen-pa...

thestoryspeller.com

Teen Parliament Speech: SA Parliament House

On Friday I presented a speech at Parliament House. My speech was about creating an Autism and Neurodiversity Academy of Excellence to train teachers. I felt nervous and excited. I am so proud of myse...

09923