Sign in

Tom Morrell

@tmorrell.bsky.social
384 followers 787 following 55 posts

Research Data, Software, Repositories, and E-bikes.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Dr Grace S Peng @gspeng.bsky.social · 19h
Context: in 2014, LA Council member Gil Cedillo cancelled a planned bike lane on this dangerous section of road. This is the 5th cyclist fatality there since 2014. The victim was run over from behind by a driver, the most common type of car-bike collision. Protected bike lanes largely prevent this
23912
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Dr Grace S Peng @gspeng.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Alt text: picture of woman riding a cargo ebike with two children behind her
072
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Meredith Glaser @cyclingprofessor.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
BREAKING 📣 For several days, a peaceful protest took place in the morning, after a young child was killed by a car driver. The child was riding his bike to school, the father with him. The grieving community came together with hundreds of people, cyclist or not, creating a 3km long human bike lane.
5339112
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Stieber Lab @stieberlab.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Check out our second crystallography children’s book available for pre-order to be shipped Oct. 31: meitneriumpress.com This story features diamonds, hiking, geology, and high pressure crystallography! #chemsky #chemchat
Cover page of children’s book „X-ray 
Crystallography Adventures! The Diamond Crystal Mystery.“ black and white composition notebook style with drawing of three characters Elephant, Cat and Mouse looking at rocks on the ground. Written by S. Chantal E. Stieber and Illustrated by Justine Wong
184
Reposted by Tom Morrell
The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 19/09/2026
A cancer vaccine succeeded in a clinical trial in preventing the recurrence of melanoma, a result experts say is a breakthrough for mRNA-based treatments. Trials for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases' vaccines are also underway.
washingtonpost.com
A melanoma vaccine was hailed as a breakthrough. Which cancers are next?
Trials investigating mRNA vaccines for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases are already underway.
151114383
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Dick Zoutman @dickzoutman.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
VERY important paper! This study detected SARS-CoV-2 in the air of common areas of 4 big US airports. SARS-CoV-2 detected in 98% of samples through the year. Influenza A was found during flu season. That’s why you want to wear an N95 respirator in an airport! And all indoor public spaces all year!
journals.plos.org
Multimodal genomic surveillance for respiratory pathogens at four U.S. international airports: A comparison of air, wastewater, clinical, and national surveillance data
Early detection of outbreaks and emerging pathogens is critical for public health and global biosecurity. Airports, as major international travel hubs with dense, enclosed populations, are high-risk s...
9227125
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
4253582335
Reposted by Tom Morrell
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026
They stole the British Library, whose postmortem on the attack is one of the clearest, most informative cybersecurity documents ever written: cdn.sanity.io/files/v5dwki...
cdn.sanity.io
217918
Reposted by Tom Morrell
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026
If you showed up at Defcon and gave talk about how your autonomous malware did something unexpected and damaged someone else's computers, the first question from the audience would be "Why are you so shit at making secure sandboxes?" It wouldn't be "How are you so awesome at making hacking tools?"
4520142
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Warren Wells, AICP @warrenjwells.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
40k deaths in the US and 1.2m globally from car crashes? Invisible. 40% of California GHG emissions, 2/3rds in many cities, caused by private cars? Invisible. Nope, let's all lash out at e-bikes and bike lanes.
438346
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Dr Grace S Peng @gspeng.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Spending a holiday weekend reading a 633 page draft EIR for a freeway widening project, as one does. This one is complicated by adjacency to a waterway. Dominguez Channel’s in-channel service road was supposed to become a dry season bikeway. This plan doesn’t have it www.metro.net/projects/i-4...
Regional Location and project vicinity map with section of freeway and intersecting roads in red. Map extent from LA Harbor north to Inglewood
1213
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Kristin Briney @kbriney.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I just published a new libguide on research data #accessibility: library.caltech.edu/data-accessi... I would be very open to constructive criticism. There's limited guidance on this topic and most of it applies to business documents and not research data. #dataManagement #a11y #research
library.caltech.edu
Library: Research Data Accessibility: Home
Guidance on making research data more accessible
091
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Not a single company in human history has ever had $1 trillion in revenue, to give you some sense of how insane this prediction is. Amazon, which is currently the company with the highest revenue on the planet, reported $716 billion in revenue last year.
51979238
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 19/08/2026
Last thought: I am waiting for all the learning loss trolls who demanded teachers catch COVID because they didn’t want to deal with kids at home to discuss what AI is doing to young people. This is a real, measurable impact on learning and the Emily Oster types are just silent about it.
22310
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Sarah Kirchberger @sarahkirchberger.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
“The evidence is pretty unambiguous that one of the United States’ superpowers is its ability to attract the top talent from essentially every other country in the world and put them to work here for a time, if not for their full careers,” Gross said. “I think that’s what’s at stake right now.”
113949
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Nick Andert @nickandert.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
E-bikes are SUCH a good last mile solution. They can open up so many more trips to transit, they can enable carless travel even in steep hills, and they’re insanely coat-effective compared to cars. We should be helping every person in this state who wants an ebike to get one.
46710
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Abigail Goben @hedgielib.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
If you have current NIH funding, they dropped changes to the Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) last Friday and you will want to take a few minutes in advance of your next RPPR so you're not caught by surprise. (Also, this is why I have 9 meetings tomorrow). (1/)
178
Reposted by Tom Morrell
California Department of Public Health @capublichealth.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Going on a trip? Don’t let COVID-19 crash your summer plans. Wearing an N95 mask protects you from respiratory viruses like COVID-19. Consider wearing a mask in indoor and crowded places like airports and planes. Learn more: go.cdph.ca.gov/respiratory-viruses
424386
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 25/07/2026
My two cents People are going to get so fucking sick and not know why. Some people are going to die.
14682199
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 21/07/2026
1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.
arxiv.org
The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science
As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...
10838339
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
DOGE officially ended over the weekend. One of its crowning achievements was cutting $15M from the federal government’s screwworm monitoring program. Now, the Trump administration is preparing to spend $1B to combat the screwworm outbreak. "Efficiency."
15347181782
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Dr Grace S Peng @gspeng.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
One calculation that blew my mind: When I push a pedestrian beg button to cross an arterial road w/ 40 mph spd limit. Wait of 90 sec means a car 1 mile away gets to priority to clear the intersection before I am allowed to cross the road. I am standing roadside breathing particulates
19495131
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Arabella @arabellaspireship.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
It would have been epic
2521147
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Bike Lane Uprising @bikelaneuprising.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
It’s been less than a week since Riley O’Neil’s funeral and the city is actively removing protected bike lanes from 18th street. Just 2 weeks ago everyone in the city made public comments that Riley’s death was a tragedy & yet this week they’re making biking less safe
627086
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts
196133306755
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Here is the full post laying out not just what students said (they had a lot to say!) but also why it felt much different this time around—and what I think is important to take away from these conversations: thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/i-asked-my...
thebrokencopier.substack.com
I Asked My Students About AI Again
Here's what they said—and why it wasn't what I expected
24916
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
We identified 17 of the 27 'grievances' in the Declaration of Independence with a contemporary analog. We then annotated those 17 grievances with quotes from federal judges across 52 court cases involving the Trump administration. The judges in their words (many referencing the Declaration itself)
justsecurity.org
Today’s Judiciary on the Anniversary of Declaration of Independence
Many actions taken by the current administration echo the grievances laid out in the Declaration of Independence against King George III.
13462205
Reposted by Tom Morrell
David Roberts @volts.wtf · 17/06/2026
And while I'm retweeting Nathan, I would desperately like everyone on Bluesky to read & internalize this thread of his. The fact is, people generally say what they think. There's no secret Straussian cabal manipulating things. People aren't lying for money. They believe the things they say.
1349998
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Assuming Democrats ever re-obtain power, they cannot treat it as a mere change of party control, the next swing in the perpetual metronome of American democracy. They must characterize it as an AMERICAN RESTORATION, a new birth of constitutionalism in a dark sea of corruption and absurdity.
25700125
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Michael Okun @michael-okun.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇
5435871430
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 10/06/2026
Another handful of sand in the gears: Researchers cannot serve on a panel *at all* if anyone from their institution has submitted to that panel. Recusing themselves for the proposal itself is no longer sufficient. This is needless, but will certainly slow things up even further.
science.org
NSF imposes stricter conflict-of-interest rules for grant-review panels
Researchers say changes could further burden the understaffed agency
1320085
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
the following are all probably true and not in the least contradictory: 1. There's a huge bubble in AI investment, the crash is going to be bad 2. A majority of the tasks we've been promised AI will "take over," it will not 3. AI will completely transform coding
631273172
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 04/06/2026
has any man ever been more vindicated? x.com/stuartbuck1/...
Conversation
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
·
Feb 15, 2025
DOGE has a very obvious feedback mechanism for its cuts.

If DOGE makes a big, broad cut against a million programs, people get upset about a few specific, very good ones like PEPFAR, and then that program comes back because DOGE's members are, thus, informed it was good.
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
·
Feb 15, 2025
I can only hope people realizing this won't damage the mechanism, because it's still useful to have professionals getting mad about some very good thing getting cut before it's brought back online as a result.

In a word, DOGE is responsive, which is unusual for the government!
Stuart Buck
@stuartbuck1
·
Feb 15, 2025
I agree, but it would be more efficient to spend one hour ahead of time talking to experts or just reading up on the history of a program for [disease, student testing, nuclear safety, etc.]

Plus, some programs don't have famous proponents with time to dig into the weeds.
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
·
Feb 15, 2025
I'm highly sympathetic, but there really are thousands and thousands of programs and grants to cut, so I'm not sure the small team doing the cuts has the ability to go through them all one-by-one on their short timeline.

Maybe a system can be developed to assist with feedback.
This Post was deleted by the Post author. Learn more
Stuart Buck
@stuartbuck1
Despite some bogus grants, a lot of government is like this cartoon. I bet this "small team" would find a line item for "screwworm sterilization" and delete it, not knowing that they just devastated American farming: https://theatlantic.com/science/archiv
e/2020/05/flesh-eating-worms-disease-containment-america-panama/611026/
Image
5:03 PM · Feb 15, 2025
·
33.3K
 
Views
View quotes
Sky Marchini

Stuart Buck
@stuartbuck1
·
Feb 15, 2025
I can see the DOGE tweet: "We canceled a contract for Panamanian screwworms, saving $165 million dollars!!!" [https://aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-an
nouncements/usda-approves-emergency-funding-protect-us…
4744201403
Reposted by Tom Morrell
elizabethginexi.bsky.social @elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Calling all Scientists! Research Administrators! Deans! Fans of Science! No one is coming to save us. Here is your assignment. I have written a step by step, easy to understand "how-to" document to help you comment on the proposed OMB rule. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...
elizabethginexi.substack.com
What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB 2026-10817)
What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice
8216217
Reposted by Tom Morrell
T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 @tryangregory.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Virologists love typological thinking. Even when leads them to be wrong over and over again (including about COVID being airborne!), they will confidently cling to it.
411127
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Hannah Čulík-Baird @opietasanimi.com · 29/05/2026
to say the quiet part out loud: most PhD programs fund grad students with a mix of fellowships and teaching, but mostly through teaching. if TAs are replaced by AI, most PhD programs will cease to exist
516258
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
What I’m hearing from friends and colleagues in tech companies is the most insane shit I’ve ever heard. Organizations are fucking up previously functional workflows and operating models, ditching workers, and adding unpredictable costs out of mass FOMO with no plan.
19622
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Melissa @bibliothecar.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I stepped off the library dean path when it became clear that this would be the job--managing the end of academic libraries as we know them. Please know that these changes are just a result of defunding. They do not herald some bright digital future. There will just be less access to knowledge.
214362
Reposted by Tom Morrell
gregor (defenestrate billionaires, ride bikes) fallis @gregfallis.com · 27/05/2026
"One of the reasons the e-bike discussion feels so distorted is because humans are terrible at evaluating familiar risks versus unfamiliar ones. Cars have been dangerous for so long that Americans largely accept the danger as background noise." #bikesky electrek.co/2026/05/26/a...
electrek.co
America is panicking about e-bikes while ignoring the real problem
If you spend enough time reading local news headlines these days, you’d be forgiven for thinking electric bicycles are one...
0166
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
I have been saying for years that Democrats should run against Republicans on the issue of corruption. Make fighting corruption the centerpiece of their hopefully populist campaigns. Well, if they don’t run on corruption this year, against Trump, then they deserve to lose.
37967461318
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 24/05/2026
Yes. Especially true for things like IT! IT for science should report up to scientists, not just lawyers. Cut the mission focus out of maintenance and rooms go boom (or fall apart); cut the mission focus out of IT and tech doesn’t work or falls apart.
2114
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 22/05/2026
“Units of the NIH are privately directing grantees to request permission in advance for any co-authorship with a scholar affiliated with a foreign institution, even if all the work was done in the United States.” Grantees also told to remove papers with foreign authors from progress reports.
science.org
U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
NIH, NASA grantees are confused and concerned amid agencies’ piecemeal communication
31417259
Reposted by Tom Morrell
anil oza @aniloza.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖
Twitter thread from Thomas Dietterich, reading "Attention 
@arxiv
 authors: Our Code of Conduct states that by signing your name as an author of a paper, each author takes full responsibility for all its contents, irrespective of how the contents were generated. 1/
3:03 PM · May 14, 2026
·
66.7K
 Views
Relevant
View quotes

Thomas G. Dietterich
@tdietterich
·
1h
If generative AI tools generate inappropriate language, plagiarized content, biased content, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content, and that output is included in scientific works, it is the responsibility of the author(s). 2/
Thomas G. Dietterich
@tdietterich
·
1h
We have recently clarified our penalties for this. If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the results of LLM generation, this means we can't trust anything in the paper. 3/
Thomas G. Dietterich
@tdietterich
·
1h
The penalty is a 1-year ban from arXiv followed by the requirement that subsequent arXiv submissions must first be accepted at a reputable peer-reviewed venue. 4/
Thomas G. Dietterich
@tdietterich
·
1h
Examples of incontrovertible evidence: hallucinated references, meta-comments from the LLM ("here is a 200 word summary; would you like me to make any changes?"; "the data in this table is illustrative, fill it in with the real numbers from your experiments") end/"
9458111914
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Miss Omar @auntiekayadventure.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
This is the best cycling advert ever, especially because I’m in it. It beautifully shows that cycling is for everyone, no matter who you are or where you come from. Bikes bring people together and remind us that cycling is one of the best ways to improve our health and wellbeing.
1029689
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 06/05/2026
Rode the Bergen Bike Bus today to make a big announcement: We’re redesigning Bergen Street and Dean Street, from Court Street to East New York Ave — adding new bike boulevards and more pedestrian space. Safer rides to school for New York City kids coming soon.
302501293
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Jane Natoli 🥑🚲🍍 @wafoli.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Gotta love how in an era where gas prices are spiking and we might, just might, get more people interested in biking, especially with the advent of e-bikes, the CA Legislature is doing its damnedest to kill e-bikes because of weird moral panics www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
sfchronicle.com
California should reconsider its rush to regulate e-bikes
OPINION: California is debating ill-considered legislation that would issue new restrictions on e-bikes, including a bill that would enact age limits, Stephen Zoepf writes.
37311
Reposted by Tom Morrell
bikebike @bikebikeyyc.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
You wanna know something really wild? E-bikes are already displacing more emissions from autos than electric cars. Wild! Break free from the uncertainty and cost of gas prices - buy an e-bike! www.cbc.ca/news/climate...
cbc.ca
Want an EV for under $5,000? How about this option? | CBC Climate Change News
In this issue of our environmental newsletter, we look at trends around a cheaper kind of electric vehicle: e-bikes; check out CBC's own e-bike fleet; and find out how laptops are getting recycled in ...
471106284
Reposted by Tom Morrell
punished brian @brilandia.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
it you watch the video, it's pretty insane that the truck just flat out does not see the car, yet drives fast enough in a parking lot to roll up the hood. cool that this is legal, but e-bikes are getting banned.
1134
Tom Morrell @tmorrell.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
California folks: The state is considering some really poorly written e-bike regulations and now is the time to let your representatives know that we want workable regulations that support legal e-bikes. @calbike.bsky.social has a summary and contact form at www.calbike.org/ab1557ab1942
click.everyaction.com
Don’t Punish E-Bikes for the E-Moto Problem - AB 1557 and AB 1942 - CalBike
Electric bicycles are already clearly defined under state and federal law. But increasingly, high-powered “e-motos” — often exceeding 750 watts and capable of motorcycle-level speeds are being markete...
000
Reposted by Tom Morrell
Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
People compare e-bikes to cars, because e-bikes are increasingly being used to replace car trips. There may be more e-bike/pedestrian conflicts due to insufficient infrastructure, but e-bikes are still *much* safer than cars. If we want to talk about e-bike safety, this context is important.
917826