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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
A Jean Stevenson @amandajean.bsky.social · 8h
I don’t like reading about rape but for some reason I read this and I’m glad I did. Educating boys and men about consent is good, but real change demands we teach boys the consequences of rape. They need to know.
thenation.com
My Rape, the Cornell Case—and Why We Need Better Approaches to Teaching How Consent Works
I tried to process the experience of being raped by disassociating. We have to show our kids a better way.
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Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH, SM @jennifernuzzo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
We need to be careful calling the situation in Siberia a "plague outbreak". "the woman was diagnosed with 'pneumonia of unknown etiology,' or origin, and...'extensive' testing found 'no microorganisms associated with the patient’s professional activities.'" apnews.com/article/russ...
apnews.com
Russia reports a worker at a Siberian plague institute got pneumonia from an unknown cause and died
Russian authorities say a staffer at a plague research institute in Siberia contracted pneumonia of an unknown cause, and local state TV reported the woman died last week.
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 19h
Generally, healthcare services use is lower among relatively healthy people, and it's also lower among people who face greater barriers to access. Without a nuanced understanding of access as a holistic process, it's easy to assume that the two can be conflated.
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 19h
I teach about this fallacy in HPM 756: Premised on a binary conception of "access" (i.e., entry into care / use of healthcare services), patients who face access barriers (e.g., unaffordable medical and non-medical costs, lack of transportation, etc) are assumed to NOT have unmet needs.
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 19h
"Brian Blase of the Paragon Health Institute, who helped spur these actions, has opined that the disenrollments cause little or no harm, since those terminated were “phantoms” who had no medical claims." www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore...
healthaffairs.org
The Troubling Termination Of 760,000 ACA Marketplace Members | Health Affairs Forefront
Health insurance is important, even for those who use care sparingly, because it protects against costly unexpected medical needs such as accidents, infections, heart attacks, or cancer. Depriving non...
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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 06/10/2026
An underappreciated part of the two abortion pill cases filed last week: they target not just mifepristone, but also *misoprostol.* That's the second drug in a typical regimen, but it's effective on its own. Louisiana says the cases would prevent mailing "back-up drugs" @autonomynews.co
autonomynews.co
Three States Try Express Lane to Supreme Court Over ‘Shield’ Laws: October 5 News Roundup
Complaints filed last week target access to both mifepristone and misoprostol, a back-up abortion pill method.
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Caroline Bartman @cbartman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
this weekend I got to meet Gritty thanks to Hockey Fights Cancer! Thanks to the NHL, Astrazeneca and the V Foundation for supporting my lab's cancer research!
a scientist meets a giant orange chaos monster
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Steve Mullis @stevemullis.net · 05/10/2026
[car dealership waiting room] Me: [chanting] knobs, knobs- Other car buyers: knobs, KNOBS Car salesman: [pounding desk] KNOBS, KNOBS, KNOBS!
forbes.com
Knobs Returning To Some Automakers’ Vehicles, To The Relief Of Many
Auto companies are listening to the complaints of consumers, who want their knobs and buttons back.
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UM Population Studies Center @um-psc.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
PSC alum Shoshana Shapiro: Black and Hispanic populations are shortchanged by the nonprofit safety net; for every nonprofit dollar spent per capita in predominantly white counties, just 38 cents is spent in majority Black communities. @fordschool.bsky.social Policy recs and more: myumi.ch/G7emq
myumi.ch
Study Finds Black and Hispanic Communities Shortchanged by Nonprofit Safety Net
Counties with larger Black and Hispanic populations see significantly less spending for critical nonprofit human services—including food banks, housing assistance, and homelessness shelters—than predo...
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Elizabeth Anne, PhD @lacksauthority.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
never the wrong time for this classic
Screenshot of a tweet by @RobbtKraft reading “scientist: "does everyone here know what Watson and Crick discovered?" 
me from back of room: "Rosalind Franklin's notes"”
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Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I talked with Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson about how our communities can defend the voting process this November. Some folks reached out and asked me if I could make an episode about this subject because they were tired of simply being told to vote harder and wanted to know what more we could do. ❤️
truthout.org
Activists Are Preparing to Defend Elections This November
“It’s about relational organizing,” says organizer Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson.
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Mongabay @mongabay.com · 05/10/2026
During a 2022 Red Sea heat wave, beneficial bacteria treatments successfully protected wild corals from bleaching. A study shows both live probiotics and heat-killed "postbiotics" preserved coral health, offering a tool to help reefs survive rising sea temperatures. Allessandra DiCorato reports.
mongabay.cc
Probiotics prevented coral bleaching during a Red Sea heat wave: Study
As a heat wave settled on the Red Sea in 2022, a patch of corals in a reef 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) off the coast of Saudi Arabia reacted differently than other corals. They’d been treated with…
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Adam Christopher @adamchristopher.me · 05/10/2026
Mac users on mac OS 27 - we can get our disk space back and remove Apple AI! Somebody has made a tool: www.macrumors.com/2026/10/05/a...
macrumors.com
Mac Users Reclaim Storage With New Apple Intelligence Removal Tool
A new open-source tool is making waves in the Mac community by helping users reclaim valuable storage space taken up by Apple's AI models. Called "RemoveMacAI," the tool disables Apple Intelligence on...
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
we are watching a massive transfer of wealth during an era of massive wealth creation (however much it might be just paper money it’s powerful) — reinscribing gender during this moment is a choice about who will be a citizen for the next three hundred years.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In light of all the horrible sexual assault in the news, this from my conversation with Kate Manne in February at Princeton still sums up my thoughts. Power =\= Good Men(tm). Power = Power.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The liberty interest of emancipation was, in essence, to take that reproductive choice out of the state purview.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Michele Goodwin explores the liberty interests associated with reproductive freedom here: legal-forum.uchicago.edu/print-archiv....
legal-forum.uchicago.edu
Involuntary Reproductive Servitude: Forced Pregnancy, Abortion, and the Thirteenth Amendment | The University of Chicago Legal Forum
The balance of this Essay describes and analyzes originalism from a different point of view, centering the experiences of Black women and girls. It then argues that the Court's selective canvassing of...
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Again: for Black Women, in particular, the ability to chose, a time and place to reproduce is a function of liberty. The most fundamental fact of enslavement was the Black Women had no control over their reproduction; in fact, their ability to reproduce was a key source of other’s wealth.
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I really like how this normalizes too that it's OK to be afraid of getting shots, and still get them.
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"I'm supposed to be a tough guy," Curtis confided. "I can hold your hand," the mayor offered "What happens if I faint?" Sliwa asked. "I've got you," Mamdani assured him, grabbing his hand as Sliwa received his flu shot. abc7ny.com/post/nyc-may...
abc7ny.com
Mayor Mamdani holds hands with one-time rival Curtis Sliwa to get flu shot
An apparent bromance has continued to blossom for the one-time political rivals.
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Nicole is a leading expert on the issue of campus sexual violence. I am floored that USA Today would do this to her. I find this kind of journalistic behavior unethical and morally reprehensible, twisting an interview with a renowned advocate for survivors into a hit piece against a survivor.
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Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
This is jaw-droppingly unethical
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Claire Connelly @claireconnelly.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
What journalist or editor worth their salt would allow anyone to use their interviews and recordings full stop? This is hack stuff
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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
my inner voice telling me not to go to sleep just yet there is one more thing to ponder
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
i’m so glad they fixed it but just to be clear, this policy is literally not a thing in journalism. it’s such a violation and deeply unethical, regardless of subject matter. i’m sorry you had to go through this.
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Jared @jaredmcclain.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A federal district court just held that police use of Flock cameras without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
constitutionally collect this information about one car-and its driver-by
following that vehicle on public roadways over a month. But this leaves the
question of why is it the government's business where everyone goes all the
time? The government cannot go snooping through our personal lives and
business without an adequate basis to do so. That is what the Supreme Court
has said since its decision in Katz through its decision in Chatrie this year,
nearly sixty years later. It is not too much to draw the line at indiscriminate
mass surveillance.
No doubt, ALPR technology comes with remarkable benefits that the
Court cannot ignore. But the Fourth Amendment requires courts to draw a line when the cost is too great. Alaniz's search in just the ALPR system
provided him with more than 50 individual records of Kyle's whereabouts
across the country for an entire month. The Court finds that because the
ALPR systems Alaniz used to search Kyle's historical location information
intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical
movements, it was a search under the Fourth Amendment. Based on the
information in the record, the only reason Alaniz conducted that search was
because he saw her license plate was from California. That search was not
supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant in violation
of Kyle's Fourth Amendment rights. That search also has a nexus to the
remainder of the traffic stop because Alaniz began following Kyle's car while
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
After I posted this thread, I got an email from an editor indicating the story had been updated. They removed my quote and added new text about the developments in the case. I don't know if they ever would have done that without pressure, but it's something.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The primary objective of journalism is supposed to be telling the truth. It is a DECISION on the part of USA Today to know that new details have emerged about this case and to refuse to update an old story that is still circulating and still shaming Jane Doe.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I'm not linking the piece because I'd like for as few people to read it as possible. I'm writing about it here because: - I want to be clear about what happened to anyone who saw that article and felt betrayed to see me associated with it. - These are bad decisions that deserve public shame.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Earlier this week, I agreed to interviews with two USA Today journalists. They wrote fantastic articles about the Cornell case that I'm proud to have been a part of. What I did not know is that their employer considers interviews to proprietary and opens up recordings to be used by any journalist.
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Joan Alker @joanalker1.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The # of kids covered by Medicaid/CHIP since Jan 2025 continues to decline As of August 2026, the ⬇️ was 2.575 million 2026 is a more rapid ⬇️ than the already large ⬇️ in 2025 This is very worrying bcuz drops in child Medicaid enrollment usually means kid uninsured rate is ⬆️
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"The current level of political animosity is exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s citizens." There are not enough exclamation points to convey how I felt reading this paragraph
Screenshot of article which reads: From this perspective, the “both sides” frame falls apart. The prob-
lem is not that the parties are divided. The problem is the existential 
threat that a reempowered ethnonationalist strain poses to pluralistic 
U.S. democracy writ large. The current level of political animosity is 
exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted 
to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s 
citizens. The only way to re-oppress most of a country is to use anti-
democratic and authoritarian tactics. And the only way to oppose those 
tactics is to push back as a population and clearly reject them. This is 
the argument happening in the United States, and its pathology is not 
anger—it is the movement to undermine a generation of rights.
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
You have to accurately assess the problem to create proper solutions
Screenshot of article which reads: Partisan polarization is not the greatest threat to American democracy. 
It is a vivid and identifiable symptom of the real threat. And it is a popu-
lar frame because it blames no one. But because political polarization is 
a symptom, and not the root of the problem that ails us, “fixing” polar-
ization will not restore American democratic health.
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Writing something where I will be liberally citing @lilymasonphd.bsky.social's latest and realizing that I can't cite every single thing I would like to because then I'm just reprinting her work. So, I've gotta thread about it instead. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Screenshot of the article website. Title is: Polarization Is Not the Problem. Author is Lilliana Mason. Journal is the Journal of Democracy, Volume 37, Number 4, October 2026. From Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Liz Climo @lizclimo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Bear is making traffic cones into jack o lanterns, says to rabbit “look at these pointy pumpkins I got today!” Rabbit asks “where did you find those?” Bear replies “on the street outside the pumpkin patch”
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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I reviewed SUPREMACY for the Los Angeles Review of Books! @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/supr...
lareviewofbooks.org
Who Is Supreme, the People or the Court? | Los Angeles Review of Books
Nikolas Bowie and Daphna Renan’s new book challenges the supremacy of judicial review over democracy itself.
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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 01/10/2026
it's really crazy because survivors doing story-sharing was meant as an organizing and community building tactic but in the digital era it's just grist for the media and/or harassment mill
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Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Yesterday was Orange Shirt Day, in which we reflect on the Boarding schools that Native kids were forced to attend. That includes Alaska Native kids, some of which were sent as far away as Pennsylvania. archives.alaska.gov/education/bo... #OrangeShirtDay
archives.alaska.gov
Boarding Schools | Alaska State Archives
Primary source materials focused on the history of boarding schools in the state of Alaska. Links to digitized resources and descriptions provided by the Alaska State Archives.
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Whitney Curry Wimbish @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
An incredible piece of reporting by @naomibethune.bsky.social and @jamesjbaratta.bsky.social in @prospect.org today about a struggle in Alabama against yet another excruciating data center.
prospect.org
‘I Know I Couldn’t Live Here’: Standing Up to a Data Center in Alabama’s Black Belt - The American Prospect
Faced with little transparency about a mammoth facility, Lowndes County fights back.
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Socially and in the legal system, our understanding of responses to sexual violence is purposefully uninformed and therefore limited to only “perfect” victims (who don’t really exist), so that we don’t have to actually combat sexual violence or believe victims or hold perpetrators accountable.
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Katie Bergh @katiebergh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
More than 5 million people, including about 2 million kids, have already lost SNAP since the reconciliation law was enacted. Even more eligible low-income families will lose SNAP unless Congress meaningfully delays this cost shift for all states. www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
cbpp.org
New Data Underscore SNAP Cost Shift’s Harm to Low-Income Families and State Budgets
The harmful Republican reconciliation law enacted last July made unprecedented cuts to food assistance through SNAP, including a provision slashing federal funding for SNAP benefits and imposing...
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Katie Bergh @katiebergh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Today, we're also one year away from an even larger SNAP cut taking effect. Starting October 1, 2027, most states will be required to pay a portion of SNAP benefit costs for the first time. These costs are so great that they could drive some states to end SNAP altogether.
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Katie Bergh @katiebergh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
SNAP update: Another cut from the Republican reconciliation law takes effect today, cutting the federal match for SNAP administrative costs from 50% to 25%. Every state now gets half as many federal dollars to ensure SNAP gets to eligible families on time & in the right amount.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
New from @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me: "It is high time for us to regulate usage of systems sold as “AI”, not because they are magical machines, but because they are error-prone products that shouldn’t be used in high stakes scenarios." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender
The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals
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Rob Waterhouse @rmwaterhouse.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The ubiquity of insect-vertebrate interactions makes clear that widespread #insect #declines are likely to seriously affect many vertebrate populations www.nature.com/articles/s44... #biodiversity #ecology #InsectDecline
nature.com
The importance of insect biodiversity for vertebrates - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Changes in insect diversity and abundance can affect vertebrates but understanding these consequences relies on having rich information about vertebrate–insect interactions. This Review summarizes the...
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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 30/09/2026
To recap: three GOP-led states that wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in order to "send abortion back to the states" are now asking the Court to strike down abortion protections in blue states
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Capital B @capitalb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Black students are demanding accountability from University of North Carolina administrators after a man threatened and yelled racial slurs at students during a watch party. bit.ly/46P96HR
capitalbnews.org
Black UNC Students Say the University Failed Them After a Racist Attack
A recent incident during a TV watch party illustrates the racial tensions reported on some college campuses.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is a free PDF to my article about trauma-informed, survivor-centered teaching. It's all about how to talk about sexual violence with the assumption your class is full of survivors who are eager to have that conversation--as long as you can do it without victim-blame or rape myths.
nicolebedera.com
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Niko Bowie @nikobowie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I'm grateful to Radcliffe and the Schlesinger Library for ensuring that my mom's work will be accessible to her many students, past and future
hls.harvard.edu
Lani Guinier’s legacy, in her own words - Harvard Law School
Schlesinger Library collection offers scholars a closer look at Lani Guinier's work on voting rights, race, education, and equality.
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NLIHC @nlihc.org · 30/09/2026
#FactOfTheWeek: The Lowest-Income Renters Face the Most Acute Shortage of Affordable and Available Rental Homes ow.ly/8Ikk50ZSWJL
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