it’s come to my attention that my tumblr post has been crossposted to bluesky, so I’m posting it on my account here #AntiAI #GenAI

It's me, the mythical STEM PhD who not only took history classes but got a whole history degree! Studying history is arguably one of the most important things STEM students can do. Science isn't done in a vacuum, and students should investigate the people, places, and events that shape it.

Google has started updating satellite images of Gaza. Holocaust. (📸 Barry Andrews MEP, European Parliament)

Doesn't surprise me that this is their (garbage) take But it does remind me that so many social movements (successful and failed alike) were driven by underemployed, overcredentialed, and aggrieved young people, even movements that primarily benefit other groups we're dangerous to the WSJ types [contains quote post or other embedded content]

The whole point of humans as a sociable, tribal species is we should eject people like this, so they starve in the wilderness alone. There are consequences to sociopathic behaviour. Somehow the abstract idea of money has short circuited our basic evolutionary safeguards. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Here's a balanced account of where the microscopy community stands on AI use by this year's Small World in Motion winner. My main issue is that no one seems to have seen the original data despite requests (no mention of it being reviewed by the organizers) https://www.the-scientist.com/allegations-of-ai-use-in-nikon-competition-spark-controversy-75041

US has deported more than 25,000 people under secretive agreements with 35 countries to take migrants with no ties to those nations, according to an investigation published Monday u.afp.com/Sj9Z

The proper word for “asymmetric views of sovereignty” is… Imperialism [contains quote post or other embedded content]

From the new info my bet is fluo labeling inference pushed to 11. Hallucinating nonsensical DAPI nuclei, mitochondria stain, membrane labeling from a kind of phase contrast image: wrong localization, wrong scale, wrong movement. Keeping this movie as SWiM winner is a disgrace to the competition [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705/life-beyond-measure-by-ed-yong/ 1/

NEW – Analysis: Nepal’s $20m ‘loss-and-damage’ claim only covers 0.7% of flood costs | @arunacsekhar.bsky.social @joshgabbatiss.bsky.social w/ comment from @harjeet11.bsky.social Read here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-nepals-20m-loss-and-damage-claim-only-covers-0-7-of-flood-costs?_thumbnail_id=83100

Today is #HobbitDay because Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were both born on September 22nd. Normally we'd shire a hobbit pun or two but it might just feel like a tolkien gesture and we don't want to embarrass our elves. Anyway it's a good day to come and boromir #Tolkien books. 📚

An amoeba living in a Californian hot spring is thriving above 60°C, a threshold previously thought deadly to complex life https://www.newscientist.com/article/2590054-fire-amoeba-breaks-heat-tolerance-record-for-complex-life/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=SOC&utm_source=Bluesky#Echobox=1790089701

I wonder who working on the field is surprised by this ‘finding’. Interesting refinement of what is already known, an elaboration but…..a surprise? [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Hallucinating AI robots wrote an article in one of the largest English papers in the world saying I quit writing to become a gardener. I did not! Instead, I wrote about them. Read on: https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/i-wandered-lonely-in-the-cloud

He’s been in a mutual petting society with noted race-science blog Quillette for a decade. His last book cited them as authorities on academia. The one before that made up a quotation in order to attack historians of science and talked about evopsych as an Enlightenment phenomenon. What are we doing [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Innocent civilians are being murdered with dirt-cheap and essentially impossible to ban tiny flying robots at shocking numbers globally (read our piece below). We have REAL, CURRENT cyberpunk horrors to deal with right now, and we don’t need to waste our time on hypothetical AI basilisks. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

'Pierre was one of the driving architects of modern molecular biology, whose scientific vision transformed the understanding of gene regulation in eukaryotic cells. His achievements were rewarded by most of the major scientific prizes (except the Swedish one)' https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-026-02771-z?utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=partner&utm_content=null&utm_term=null&utm_campaign=CONR_JRNLS_LYLT_GL_PJNL_06PJ3_ARTPROMTK

"For a man whose academic field was built largely on faulty studies to ignore the intellectual fraud in his circle and lash out at people like Arday for bad scholarship – well, psychologists used to call that projection" @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social https://www.thenerve.news/p/steven-pinker-anti-woke-eugenics-race-science-free-speech-epstein-edge-nathan-cofnas-jason-arday?utm_source=www.thenerve.news&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-trouble-with-steven-pinker-weekend-edition&_bhlid=1f268042f567f25ac82c1e9e507e58e39aa805ff

Not new, and not discovered...still great news. I offer a, perhaps, more accurate, less colonizing, title: "Western scientists describe a felid known to local communities as Tilcayo. It is the first description of its kind in over a century" [contains quote post or other embedded content]

From an environmental justice POV, it's just the opposite. Global avg carbon footprint/capita: ≈4 metric tons/yr Avg American: ≈17 tons Avg African: <1 ton If we're gonna prioritize lives for everyone's good, we should start by euthanizing billionaires https://climatecrisis247.com/news/this-is-donald-trumps-carbon-footprint/ [contains quote post or other embedded content]

"We warn readers that the content of this study is confronting and possibly distressing" I've never seen a trigger warning in the abstract of a research paper before This study estimates there were 2.2 million Indigenous Australians before British colonisation https://share.google/eCcqV6xHaVSxzMusN

Damn. @tobyn.bsky.social has produced the most detailed map of Big AI’s incestuous relationships I’ve seen so far. And it’s interactive! https://www.ft.com/content/8475dc9b-b2d4-4e10-a6b6-12796b11758a?shareType=nongift

Lovely to see several pieces of our ctenophore work featured in this beautiful new story from @quantamagazine.org 🪼 Great piece by @mstarling.bsky.social, also featuring work by @stevehaddock.bsky.social, @arnausebe.bsky.social & @hejnol.bsky.social. https://www.quantamagazine.org/ctenophores-arent-just-beautiful-theyre-biological-wonders-20260916/

Wilhoit's Law: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Please join me in thanking the named plaintiffs in this lawsuit, including @arghavansallesmd.medsky.social @michaeldgreen.phd & @jddaw.bsky.social These brave scientists are taking on risk to protect science, scientists & beneficiaries of science (all of us). https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/researchers-challenge-nih-screening-of-grants-for-disfavored-viewpoints

Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible

I'm just going to keep yelling this louder and louder until it clicks: weird overpaid AI nerds hand-wringing about human extinction are trying to distract you from the extremely deadly and serious harms they are causing yesterday, today and tomorrow https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-14/us-data-centers-set-to-burn-more-natural-gas-than-most-nations

Out today in Nature: sex without crossovers. Rhynchospora tenuis makes pollen, fertilises and sets seed, yet 0 crossovers in 10,997 pollen nuclei. Chromosome drive and ~87% seed abortion rebuild the mother's genotype, so the offspring are clones. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11057-7 [contains quote post or other embedded content]

"Science communication is thriving, but that’s different than science journalism. What growth there is tends to favor quick takes and attitude, rather than institutionalized journalism with its commitment to verifying information as well as its costly trappings." buff.ly/Mya1BdE https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/09/is-science-journalism-dying-comparing-a-science-crash-40-years-ago-to-today/

Yes, we already have artificial autonomous entities that are not aligned with human values and that we've allowed to get out of control - they're called corporations [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Today marks 6 yrs that the regime has kept Umar Khalid in prison without trial or bail, for legal protest. “How is it that I have spent most of my 30s in captivity? I wonder if this continuing injustice makes a difference to anyone? Does it move even a feather in our hallowed chambers of justice?” https://www.siasat.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-umar-khalid-in-tihar-jail-after-6-years-3541349/

Fold Spacer lets you fly through protein structures (Weekend project #2). It’s my first game: I originally set out to build a racer with structures as the tracks, but was a little too crazy. So it became this instead. You can upload your own structures. 🌐 martin-steinegger.github.io/Fold-Spacer/

An acortical mouse — born without hippocampus and most of its neocortex — learns the Manhattan Maze: a 30× improvement in 5 hours, 18 rewards! Now a question for everyone: How can an acortical brain do this? Leave a comment! Preprint w/ @mameister4.bsky.social: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.30.747945v1