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Aimee Cunningham

@thisisaimeec.bsky.social
2.6K followers 656 following 132 posts

I write about health and medicine for Science News www.sciencenews.org Standing in solidarity with Science News Media Guild she/her/hers

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Aimee Cunningham
Kate Hagen 🦂 𓋹 🦂 @thathagengrrl.bsky.social · 9h
"Meanwhile, Jane Doe dropped out of Cornell and was denied her request to get her tuition refunded so that she could transfer to a different college. She hence faced more severe consequences than most of the men who she alleges gang-raped her." www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
To put it another way, you can’t just tell your sons they need to take accountability—you need to hold them accountable. Start with small stuff. Don’t shield them for the consequences of their actions. Walk them through the process of doing the wrong thing and turning it into the right thing.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I’m seeing a lot of posts about talking to your sons in light of the Cornell article. And yes. Talk to your sons. Here are some things you should say, based on anti-violence research about what they need to hear:
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Aimee Loiselle @aimloiselle.bsky.social · 20h
Climate change is labor studies! Heat stress on workers. Workers losing jobs. Workers without a just transition to the new economy that must come. Workers hired to clean up and hide climate change impacts. #climatechange
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Nearly 40% of survivors who report to their schools are pushed out in one way or another—usually, at the urging of school staff who want them to leave. (In comparison, less than 1% of perpetrators are suspended or expelled.)
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Kat is right about all of this. One of the reasons that college sexual violence is uniquely devastating is because it changes the victim’s entire future.
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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 28/09/2026
The data also strongly suggests that campus rape is perpetrated by a small number of actors. Put differently, most men on campus don't rape, but the ones who do rape a lot of women. Getting rid of those guys would make campus way safer . psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-...
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Most people’s work lives are not that structured. And almost no normal person’s personal life can be that structured. The “gee whiz” of it all cant manufacture the market it needs.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Technology enthusiasts severely overestimate the average person’s desire or willingness or capacity to build and use AI agents. I understand some work roles that could mandate or encourage it but that is no way a tech revolution. Agents are best for structured, clearly delineated tasks.
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Greer Donley @greerdonley.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
If you are interested in reading the article, you can find it here (published in the Michigan Law Review in Dec. 2025): michiganlawreview.org/journal/from...
michiganlawreview.org
From Medical Exceptions to Reproductive Freedom - Michigan Law Review
Since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022, there has been a significant focus on pregnancy complications. This focus has created some risks. Highlighting medically indicated abortion stori...
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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 27/09/2026
NEW: A Texas woman died after being denied an abortion and her family sued the state and her doctors for violating her right to life. They say the ban should be struck down. It's one of several cases challenging abortion laws under state constitutional rights to life and liberty @autonomynews.co
autonomynews.co
New Lawsuits Argue That Pregnant People Also Have a Right to Life
Lawyers are fighting abortion bans in state court by establishing that pregnant people have a right to life and liberty—or at least self-defense.
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Melissa Johnson, PhD @ladyhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We should let people dream of something besides labor
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Melissa Johnson, PhD @ladyhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I am tired of having to pretend that the value of studying my discipline solely rests on the "marketable skills" we teach. Sometimes things are just worth knowing and doing because they make your life bigger and richer.
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NPR @npr.org · 28/09/2026
Authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor identify supremacists that have, despite ideological differences, converged around the conviction that they are part of an elite destined to survive an apocalypse. n.pr/4AC1wxU
n.pr
'End Times Fascism' looks at supremacist groups uniting around end-of-the-world ideas
Authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor identify supremacists that have, despite ideological differences, converged around the conviction that they are part of an elite destined to survive an apocalypse.
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Everyone say it with me: AI companies are ✨extraction machines at scale✨. They are DESIGNED to sift through a million stupid ideas per second to find the next golden egg they can monetize. And they are destroying our Earth, at scale, to do this.
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Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A woman was drugged, raped, and sexually trafficked to members of a fraternity. Two of the men involved were expelled. Five were given the opportunity to mitigate suspension by *writing an essay.* The dozens of other men who knew this was happening and said nothing? You already know the answer.
cornellsun.com
EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will
The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.
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Candice Norwood @candicenorwood.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I've written a few stories for @19thnews.org recently about currently or formerly incarcerated women who described the harms they faced in U.S. jails and prisons, and have fought for new laws, policies and resources to improve conditions for others. I want to share their stories with you 🧵
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Sophia, MPH @sophiacbess.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Yes! LLM output can (is designed to) sound and feel right even when it’s not. But as this thread illustrates, the externalities are SO HUGE as to be the main point. Use case aside, the main function of AI is to increase reliance on big tech and extract from patients and healthcare workers. 1/2
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I am going to leave it to the immigration and election officials to explain why it is a nightmare, but from a privacy and information design system: these information sharing agreements are unlawful. Many statutory regimes “silo” private information between agencies for a reason.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is a mess: an absolute mess of a decision.
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Aimee Cunningham @thisisaimeec.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"Roughly four out of every five pairs that nested in brackish waters along the Bay’s mainstem and its lower tributaries failed to fledge any young ... ospreys may be struggling to reproduce because there aren’t enough menhaden ... a nutrient-rich “keystone prey species” for many ospreys in the Bay."
marylandmatters.org
Osprey nesting woes in the Chesapeake Bay worsen, survey finds - Maryland Matters
Osprey breeding continues to falter around the Chesapeake Bay, a new survey has found, with the meager hatching and survival of chicks this year well below what is needed to maintain the population.
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Katie Bergh @katiebergh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
🚨New: With data added from more states, we now estimate that about 2 million fewer kids are receiving SNAP in the wake of deep cuts enacted in last year’s Republican reconciliation law. Overall, more than 5 million people have lost SNAP since July 2025. www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
cbpp.org
SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Is Implemented
SNAP participation nationwide fell by roughly 5 million people (12 percent) between the law’s July 2025 enactment and May 2026, based on the latest month of data.
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Orion Rummler @oriion.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
From a Texas prison, she built a menopause support network from scraps of paper. Please read the story of Kwaneta Harris and the women behind bars coming together to support each other, by the unparalleled @candicenorwood.bsky.social
19thnews.org
In a Texas prison, Kwaneta cultivated a menopause support network from scraps of paper
The incarcerated population is getting older, but correctional facilities lag in menopause care. Kwaneta Harris is working to fill the gaps in women's prisons.
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 25/09/2026
This week, we published the first paper in the U.S. Climate Collection titled, "Research Priorities for Robust Climate Assessments in the United States". The paper was led by Melissa Kenney, @bobkopp.net, & me, with 175 authors helping outline climate risks. cee.engineering.cmu.edu/news/2026/09...
cee.engineering.cmu.edu
CMU faculty helps lead new efforts on climate assessment research
CMU faculty helps lead new efforts on climate assessment research - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 25/09/2026
By destroying the Voting Rights Act and gutting the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Roberts Court is recycling legal arguments once advanced by Confederates and white supremacists to destroy Reconstruction, write @ariberman.bsky.social & @pemalevy.bsky.social.
motherjones.com
Jim Crow was on the ash heap of history. Then came the Roberts court.
The disaster the justices have unleashed has its roots in one of the darkest periods of our past.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"In 2020, there were only six programs in the U.S. that sent unarmed responders, such as mental health clinicians, to certain 911 calls instead of police officers. Now, these programs — sometimes called alternative or community response — are in nearly 100 cities." www.npr.org/2026/09/22/n...
npr.org
How unarmed 911 teams are reshaping public safety in nearly 100 cities
Alternative response programs, where mental health clinicians respond to 911 calls instead of police, have proliferated since George Floyd's murder. What does it take to do this work well?
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leon @leyawn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
ceo of burger king: our burgers have gone rogue again and infected people with e coli
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 24/09/2026
Our right to conversational privacy must include freedom from others using tech to document what we are saying without our clear opt-in consent. "Otherwise, people will self-censor, and conversation will lose its spontaneity and intimacy," EFF’s @adamdschwartz.bsky.social told @yahoofinance.com.
finance.yahoo.com
Welcome to the age of listening devices
Devices that can listen and record us are becoming more popular, raising privacy concerns.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Furthermore, AI detectors, even Pangram, frequently yield false positives. They are getting better, but any intervention, especially if it's disciplinary action, puts both student & instructor in jeopardy. And there are higher rates of false positives for students of color, international students...
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Okay, so I think AI detection is a bad strategy in education for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that it's a tool that breaks solidarity between students & teachers. It aligns professors with for-profit tech companies against naughty students. I don't like that dynamic. 1/4
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/09/2026
Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I promise, no matter what they say they are doing, Meta is using this to scrape everything they can find on your devices and recording everything you do or say. It is what they’ve done with every product they’ve ever released. Nothing of yours is safe if you use this, no matter how careful you are.
inc.com
Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To
Permission isn't the same and what a user actually expects your AI product will do with their personal information.
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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 24/09/2026
amid NYC Climate Week and the UN General Assembly (and months of climate catastrophe from Nepal to California), climate organizers from across the US protested at the offices of OpenAI, Google, and Amazon — arguing that AI doomsdaying is a convenient distraction from climate collapse and fascism
theguardian.com
Climate protesters say tech companies, not AI, are the real ‘danger to humankind’ – and the planet
Activists gathered outside the OpenAI offices on Monday during climate week in New York City
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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
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David Blanchflower BSc @davidbflower.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Elephants use medicinal plants to treat themselves, researchers find. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Elephants treat themselves with medicinal plants, witnesses say
African elephants use dozens of different medicinal plants to treat themselves and their families when they are sick, research reveals.
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KFF Health News @kffhealthnews.org · 23/09/2026
The number of nursing homes has fallen by nearly 900 in the last decade. Low Medicaid reimbursements and staff pay challenge their survival amid the growth of alternatives. kffhealthnews.org/aging/new-old-age…
kffhealthnews.org
Nursing Home Beds Are Becoming More Scarce - KFF Health News
As the oldest baby boomers turn 80, researchers worry there won't be enough room in nursing facilities for a rapidly graying nation.
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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Honored to be part of this work, with huge thanks to @bobkopp.net, @costasamaras.com and Melissa Kenney for their leadership. One day, there will again be a rigorous, collaborative National Climate Assessment - this effort could help inform it, and in the meantime serve assessments at other scales.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
In Maryland, just fifty miles from DC, a sheriff has targeted and attacked local immigrants for over twenty years. The harm to those communities is breathtaking. a NEW must-read, just weeks from his latest reelection race... (in a county that Harris won over Trump).
boltsmag.org
“We're Afraid on a Daily Basis”: How a Maryland Sheriff Targeted Immigrants Long Before ICE Raids Spiked - Bolts
Frederick County’s sheriff turned his office into a force multiplier for ICE before such collaboration became commonplace. As he again faces voters this year, the harm to immigrant communities is impo...
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Center on Budget and Policy Priorities @centeronbudget.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A House 2027 funding bill would leave about 471,000 fewer people receiving housing vouchers that help families afford rent and avoid housing instability. See our new state-by-state analysis of who would be affected: www.cbpp.org/blog/congres...
cbpp.org
Congress Should Reject House Cuts That Would Leave Nearly Half a Million More People Without Stable Homes
Final 2027 funding must prevent a loss of rental assistance and advance other important housing priorities.
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National Weather Service @nws.noaa.gov · 22/09/2026
Today’s Fall Equinox at 8:05 pm ET marks the start of astronomical fall in the N. Hemisphere and is when the Sun is directly over Earth’s equator. Now through the Winter Solstice, the Northern Hemisphere will receive less ad less direct sunlight as Earth continues along its tilted orbit.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
From @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me on what we should take from the 2026 summer of AI hype: www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...
technologyreview.com
Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype
Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.
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Chloe N East (she/her) @chloeneast.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New from me @jasonbcook.bsky.social & @elizabethacox.bsky.social with CBPP on SNAP Administrative burdens can lead to procedural denials, where applicants are rejected not due to ineligibility, but because they are unable to navigate the complex processes www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
cbpp.org
Administrative Burden and Procedural Denials in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
The effectiveness of the SNAP program is hampered by complex administrative processes that create significant barriers for potential participants.
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MPR News @mprnews.org · 22/09/2026
Schools across the state started offering free breakfasts and lunches to all students in the fall of 2023. The number of students eating school lunch went up 15 percent the first year. The number of kids eating breakfast at school went up 40 percent.
mprnews.org
Fewer skipped meals, less stigma: New data on the impact of Minnesota’s universal school meals
A trio of new studies shows Minnesota’s universal school meals program is providing a sense of relief to Minnesota families and students who are no longer skipping lunch and worrying less about family...
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States Newsroom @statesnewsroom.com · 21/09/2026
A grassroots organization has successfully raised enough money to spare 29 acres of trees on state forestland in the Northern Olympic Peninsula from being cut down, employing a new conservation method that also replaces timber revenue.
bit.ly
Trees in coastal temperate rainforest spared from the chopping block
A grassroots organization has successfully raised enough money to spare 29 acres of trees on state forestland in the Northern Olympic Peninsula from being cut down, employing a new conservation method that also replaces timber revenue.
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Aimee Cunningham @thisisaimeec.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"Roughly four out of every five pairs that nested in brackish waters along the Bay’s mainstem and its lower tributaries failed to fledge any young ... ospreys may be struggling to reproduce because there aren’t enough menhaden ... a nutrient-rich “keystone prey species” for many ospreys in the Bay."
marylandmatters.org
Osprey nesting woes in the Chesapeake Bay worsen, survey finds - Maryland Matters
Osprey breeding continues to falter around the Chesapeake Bay, a new survey has found, with the meager hatching and survival of chicks this year well below what is needed to maintain the population.
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Climate and Community Institute @cplusc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
NEW: If you live in the US, your electricity might cost an additional $376/year by 2030. Why? Utilities are passing on $1.4 trillion in costs—largely to deal with AI expansion and climate disasters—to customers over the next five years. stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/the-bl...
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Andrew Thrasher @tituslegaldesign.com · 21/09/2026
Bet you didn't know hundreds of thousands of immigrants are forced to file FOIA requests with DHS every year just to get access to documents they need to maintain/apply for legal status.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
When the powerful playact powerlessness it is always a ploy to avoid accountability.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 19/09/2026
“our ai broke out and hacked some organisations” = "we failed to set up appropriate safeguards, failed to continuously monitor our experiments, and ignored a basic principle of reinforcement learning: if hacking gets rewarded, the system learns to hack"
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
i'm tired of seeing “escalating ai capabilities” reported as if it is a fact. let's be clear this claim does not rest on transparent, well-defined, independently validated metrics, but is inferred from model behaviours elicited by humans and measured through opaque, poorly designed evaluations
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