iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

So excited to be a contributor and see this in print! And yet a hair devastated that this means fewer random animal facts from @emilypawley.bsky.social and @alixhui.bsky.social with every editorial update. Like, w/out this collab, I wouldn't know gators can stick out their tongues but crocs can't.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

As somebody who grew up during the era in which there was a massive public push to reduce teen pregnancy, it’s absolutely wild to me to see people on Fox News now complaining that not enough teens are getting pregnant.

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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026

[Exit Queen.]

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

"Congress has no official paid sick leave policy, and members can continue receiving their salary indefinitely while on a medical leave. At the same time, millions of American women who give birth each year do not have access to any guaranteed paid maternity leave."

newsweek.com

Mitch McConnell is getting more paid time off than women who give birth

Senator Mitch McConnell has continued to receive his full salary while being absent from the Senate for medical reasons.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Exsqueeze me, *us*? Love robber flies, for the record. Except for what they do to my tiger beetle friends.

AI Overview from Google whose relevant line reads: "Yes, robber flies can bite humans, but they do not hunt or seek *us* out." [emphasis added]

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I also want to add that every single time ICE has physically hurt me, they have grabbed me by my chest. Most of my femme friends have said the same. I will not be surprised if / when we find out about twisted sexual assaults conducted by ICE agents with these gloves.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

*please don't be an AI hallucination, please don't be an AI hallucination* Also I swear I looked this up for actual historical research purposes

A Google search, "what historical figures were famous for farting," yields two results in the AI summary:

Professional and Royal Farters
Roland the Farter: A 12th-century English flatulist and jester for King Henry II. He was famously granted a manor house and 30 acres of land in Suffolk in exchange for performing a yearly Christmas routine consisting of “unum saltum et siffletum et unum bumbulum” (one jump, one whistle, and one fart) simultaneously.

Le Pétomane (Joseph Pujol): A late 19th-century French entertainer who performed at the Moulin Rouge. Known as the "fartomaniac", he possessed extraordinary control over his abdominal and sphincter muscles, allowing him to draw air in and expel it at varying pitches to imitate instruments or cannon fire.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

“Universities denounced themselves as complicit in systemic racism.” Well yes, my university for example held the charred bones of Black children killed by Philadelphia police and at least one faculty member was using them to teach forensics so yes, gosh, there was some necessary self-denouncing

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laura olin @lauraolin.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Abdul El-Sayed on capitalism: “I’m capitalist who just knows about capitalism. I have a bad habit of reading, I’m so sorry.”

We’ve spoken about capitalism versus socialism.

Do you want to talk about capitalism? Let’s talk about capitalism. Are you recording? Capitalism is about leveraging the laws of supply and demand to efficiently allocate capital expenditure to maximize value. When capitalism works, it’s because you have free entry and exit into markets. So if you believe in capitalism, you have to believe in government regulation to protect markets. In fact, right now, we have exactly the opposite. You don’t have to be a socialist to believe that you should be taxing billionaires their wealth. In fact, if you are a capitalist, you should believe in that. So, I’m capitalist who just knows about capitalism. I have a bad habit of reading, I’m so sorry.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Why is it so much easier to run up stairs on all fours but not socially acceptable to do so in public?

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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The Pentagon is withholding causality and hit numbers. The CDC is withholding infection rates. The FDA is withholding information about food contamination. The EPA is withholding pollution and climate data. This corrupt administration is ALL about concealing the consequences of its incompetence.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Just saw a Redditor say we're now at the Schrödinger's McConnell stage and I am dead (and maybe he is too)

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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 28/05/2026

BREAKING: New proposed OMB regulation, applying to all federal grants, requiring grant reviews by senior political appointees and re-emphasizes that "peer review remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion". #standupforscience public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-10817.pdf

public-inspection.federalregister.gov

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Uh oh do not tempt me with a side quest

"A Note to Readers" from Anne Salmond's book Aphrodite's Island asking readers for help finding four lost manuscripts related to the history of Tahiti.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I've somehow found myself at the center of an underground reptile ring: Other 5-year-olds bring my daughter sloughed skins they find outside => I photograph them and send them to herpetologists for an ID => She brings the skins and names back to school => Now we're all wiser about reptiles

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 06/05/2026

horrible. this country’s turn away from science based medicine in the name of “wellness” is killing children and will kill a lot more. www.propublica.org/article/more...

propublica.org

Babies Are Bleeding to Death as Parents Reject a Vitamin Shot Given at Birth

A lifesaving injection given at birth to prevent severe bleeding has become collateral damage of the anti-vaccine movement.

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

"Brushing off these practices as unscientific implies that 'true' science is, and always has been, unimpeachable. It denies us a chance to examine what flaws may fuel our own ways of thinking." A new mailbag from @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social

contingentmagazine.org

They Thought What?

Unpacking the history (and present) of science

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

It's that time of year when the trees are blooming, the birds are singing, and belligerent carpenter bees crash into my face.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Love this: "Weirdness is not a flaw in a picture book. It is often the doorway in. It tells children this space is not governed by ordinary rules." And this: "A picture book read aloud is not just text being delivered. It is performance. It is call and response. It is music with page turns."

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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 08/04/2026

all these universities kept axing medieval history departments as if they thought tyrants beefing with the Pope was going to stop being relevant

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David Kindon @dakindon.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

If the world knows that the President of the United States is about to commit war crimes by bombing the infrastructure of another country, isn’t it imperative that he be prevented from doing so rather than simply watch it happen

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Dr. Cara Berg Powers @clbergpowers.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Everyone's job today

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 05/04/2026

The biggest story in the world right now is that the president of the United States is a demented old man who takes pleasure in torturing and killing people and is committing crimes with impunity. And yet most legacy media outlets are too cowardly to tell it like it is.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

They made them take down the videos because they would cause "reputational damage" to people like this young man, Nathan Cavanuagh, so definitely don't post this all over the internet with the name Nathan Cavanaugh attached, or this guy might suffer reputational damage. This guy, Nathan Cavanaugh.

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

One of my favorite pollinator photos, and the bee isn't even in focus. Which is why I love it. (Bombus sp, Illinois)

Macro photograph of a cluster of goldenrod flowers, one at top left crisply in focus, while a blurred bumble bee approaches in face view at upper right, its wings spread.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Some exciting news today: I'm writing another book!

Publishers Marketplace announcement reading:

Historian, science writer, and author of CURIOUS SPECIES Whitney Barlow Robles's SPECIMANIA: LIFE, DEATH, & LOVE IN THE MUSEUM, a scientific love story of the adventure and madness of natural history collecting, tracing how it evolved into a desperate attempt at preservation in the face of the extinction crisis, to Ryan Harrington at Timber Press, by Zoe Pagnamenta at Calligraph (NA). Rights also to Connor Stait at Icon Books (UK), by Sally Holloway at Felicity Bryan Associates, on behalf of Calligraph. Rights:
rights@calligraphlit.com

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Anne Helen Petersen @annehelen.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

My take on AI use 1) It's making it harder for people to learn *how* to learn 2) If you can't do everything you think ou should be doing without resorting to it — then you're doing (or being asked to do) too much www.patreon.com/posts/149942...

patreon.com

Don’t Let The Machines Do The Living | Culture Study

Get more from Culture Study on Patreon

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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

The Sermon on the Mount, by Beryl Lewis, before 1965, 📸 by @ScottStrazzante

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Jeff Melnick @melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

The dj on the MIT station just went on a gorgeous tangent about how this semester he’s taking all liberal arts classes, and instead of asking him to reproduce established knowledge (as in most MIT courses) they push him to think about how he thinks. My Super Bowl MVP.

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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

JD Vance in 2021:

JD Vance @JDVance
X.com
Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail?
And now we just don't talk about it.
8:28 AM • 9/4/21

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” - James Baldwin

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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 25/01/2026

DHS has shot 12 people during immigration enforcement operations since September:

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

An ICU nurse rushes to help a woman who has been violently shoved to the ground by ICE. And they execute him in cold blood for it. I can't even wrap my head around the depravity.

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molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

they're executing moms and nurses in the street. they're using preschoolers as bait. they're stealing people's dads and grandmas and children. they're tear gassing babies. they're staking out schools. there is no remedy but abolition. any proposal that doesn't start there is an act of violence.

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Missing The Point @missingthept.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem: “Immigration detainees are violent criminals.”

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Bill the Cat @billthecat71.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

ICE is a secret police force. No warrants. No courts. No lawyers. And no appeals. People vanish in the night, not because they broke the law, but because the law no longer means anything. The knock on the door is the sentence.

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

The educator in me is dying at chalkboards apparently being a “thing of the past” 😭 Like they’re as quaint as a quill or gramophone Source: my kid’s kindergarten homework #EduSky

Spanish-language worksheet in which pictures of things have been relegated into “the present” or “the past.” Things in the present column include computers and cars. Things of the past include typewriters and…chalkboards.

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 10/01/2026

A Black man was killed by ICE (off duty) in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. And like Renée Good, he was an American citizen. But most people have not heard about Keith Porter. I need y’all to realize this. Black people experience this lack of visibility all the time when it comes to being victims.

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Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Pastor: I said to this ICE agent, 'Take me, stop harassing her.' The agent got in my face, pointed a gun at me, and said, 'Are you afraid now?' To which I said, 'I am not afraid.'

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Abolish and prosecute ICE. They did a murder in broad daylight today. Imagine what they're doing in the closed facilities we're somehow not even allowed to see.

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Durrell @durrell.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

Pantone just updated their Color Of The Year

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Whitney Barlow Robles @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

A hilarious read. Especially: "The shark had looked sunken and strange after dissection, so the team “just shoved a load of lab coats in it”, says Maclaine, laughing at the idea that the stitches might burst in 100 years’ time, spewing foetid lab coats and puzzling future researchers."

countryfile.com

“He hauls out the wrinkled snout of a primeval beast.” There’s a hidden vault of weird and deadly creatures in this world-famous museum | Countryfile.com

Venture into the bowels of London’s Natural History Museum and you’ll discover a realm of deep-sea monsters and rarely seen oddities

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Adam Parkhomenko @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

It is absolutely wild that the guy who won’t stop yelling about law and order is now personally stepping in to keep January 6 documents hidden from the police officers who were attacked that day. He knows exactly what’s in those files and he is terrified the country will see it.

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Mike Chen @mikechenwriter.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Never believe the fuckers who say "why bother, they already won"

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