Karen James

Karen James

@kejames.bsky.social

Environmental geneticist & outdoorswoman into eDNA, botany, evolution, space, sci-comm, skiing, Outlander & kindness • auntie • she/her “I would teach my feet to fly” Banner art by @truelovebirch@bsky.social 📍Unceded Wabanaki land (aka Maine)

8.8K followers2.6K following4.9K posts

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

By popular demand, here’s how one would use DNA to figure out what the heck is going on in the reflecting pool: 1. Take a ~1 liter water sample from the pool. Ideally take several, from different locations around the pool, with 2-3 replicates and a negative control at each location. 1/

Karen James reposted

Data Rescue Project #DataRescue
@datarescueproject.org

We didn't create this, but a group notified us to let us know that they were crawling the site. The crawl is available at this link: archive.org/details/epa-...

archive.orgEPA Web Archive (archive.epa.gov) preservation crawl, October 2026WARC capture of archive.epa.gov ahead of the site's announced retirement on 2026-12-31: the 79,352 pages and files listed in the site's sitemaps as of 2026-10-23, plus files those pages link to that n...
Mother Jones@motherjones.com

In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web.

motherjones.comThe EPA is quietly killing its web archiveTens of thousands of documents on contamination, clean power, and Trump's climate deletions are now scheduled to disappear.

Karen James reposted

Johnnie Jae
@johnniejae.bsky.social

Horror has always had a place in Indigenous storytelling. Our stories carried warnings about dangerous spirits and unexplained forces. redpopnews.com/7-dark-and-u...

redpopnews.com7 Dark and Unsettling Indigenous Horror Films You Won’t Soon ForgetHorror has always had a place in Indigenous storytelling. Our stories carried warnings about dangerous spirits and unexplained forces. From a Māori woman uncovering her family's dark past in Victorian...
Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

Friendly reminder that this is the week when Europe is FOUR hours ahead of the East Coast, NOT FIVE. Because time travel is real, apparently. Wait, you know, it DOES happen at Samhain… *hums Skye Boat Song*

Karen James reposted

Chris Kluwe, adjudicated poaster
@chriswarcraft.bsky.social

There was a fucking hole in our planet’s *atmosphere* Like a legit, no joke, “this will unravel our entire ecosystem” hole in the world, and then we fixed it by working together across national and political lines As a species we decided, “we will survive” Let’s do that some more

Michael Druker 🇨🇦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

The not-actually-dire-wolves were bad enough. This is downright evil.

Rowan Hooper@rowhoop.bsky.social

Is there anything more grotesque than wanting to bring back an extinct species into a world of suffering and loneliness? Well yes - wanting to genetically engineer dogs for the military

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

Google in 2004: “Don’t be evil.” Google in 2026:

The Guardian@theguardian.com

‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

theguardian.com‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentreCompany ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone. After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that remains is a vast expanse of mud indented with the trail marks of machinery, puddles and mounds of earth, roots and branches. Residents say that brown water flowing off the site is going into a stream that feeds the Oulujoki River. Continue reading...
Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

The huckleberries are poppin’! I’m really happy with how this pic came out - it captures the immersive golden glow I saw in the moment. Witch Hole Pond carriage road, Acadia NP, Maine.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

A short, personal thread about how it feels to be a soft-money scientist in the era of AI: Over my career, alongside my research, I have taught/advised/mentored HS students, undergrads, grad students, secondary teachers (CPD), and community scientists aged 10-65+ across a wide variety of formats.

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

And it just seems like way too much to possibly catch up with now. I feel like I’d need multiple professional development courses myself to learn what they’ve learned through experience, and to adopt their best practices if I ever wanted to teach again.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

This is obviously (I hope) distinct from the impacts of AI on scientific research, which affect all scientists whether on soft money or not… though probably resisting AI could have more immediate consequences for people without tenure.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

A short, personal thread about how it feels to be a soft-money scientist in the era of AI: Over my career, alongside my research, I have taught/advised/mentored HS students, undergrads, grad students, secondary teachers (CPD), and community scientists aged 10-65+ across a wide variety of formats.

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

But now, because of AI, the prospect of teaching just seems so much more intimidating and depressing. I watch with admiration the creative measures my academic colleagues are taking to counter AI as it’s being pushed on them from all directions, and how they learn & pivot w/ each new student cohort.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

A short, personal thread about how it feels to be a soft-money scientist in the era of AI: Over my career, alongside my research, I have taught/advised/mentored HS students, undergrads, grad students, secondary teachers (CPD), and community scientists aged 10-65+ across a wide variety of formats.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

I enjoy teaching and think I’m reasonably good at it. At the same time, I find it exhausting, and adjuncts are treated like crap, so, unlike a lot of my soft-money colleagues, I haven’t really considered it as a primary or even parallel career path. This probably isn’t smart but it’s where I live.

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

Anyways, that’s how today’s charade looks to me. Happy for those who know more than me about thus to correct or add to this context.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

(For example, one thing I can’t find out easily is whether Biden’s executive action was ever actually funded, even in part, by Congress.)

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

Trvmp’s executive order today rescinds Biden’s executive actions and doesn’t allocate or request any new funding for the task force or for women’s health.

Karen James reposted

Alex Wild
@alexwild.bsky.social

The best way to ensure that Meta no longer censors political opposition to autocratic regimes is for people to stop using Meta platforms. There's no law that says you have to post there. There are open alternatives.

Bill Kristol@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social

No Kings response to Meta: “In the 24 hours before our account was shut down, we posted only a handful of times and livestreamed to thousands. Meta's "high-frequency" excuse doesn't add up…We need answers about why this happened & immediate action to ensure it never happens again.”

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

A hill I will die on: people slag off social media (and more generally, the internet), but the way it helps 1) young people esp. in rural/conservative places understand they’re not alone & 2) adults keep their chosen family, friends & support networks with them at all times is massively underrated.

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

These are NOT MODIFIED beyond the occasional auto-adjust thingy in the iOS Photos app and sometimes not even that. This one for example isn’t modified at all.

Karen James reposted

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
@theradr.bsky.social

What if we just didn't make fun of what people looked like (or their size, or ability, or hair or clothes or makeup or plastic surgery even or any of that shit) Because actually what matters is what you say and what you do words and actions and their impact on other people

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

Bonus 1: The religious right are going to get their knickers in a big ol’ twist. 🍿 Bonus 2: It’ll be a timely, kids-and-magic alternative to the remake of that other series by she who will not be named.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

TV/films in which Europeans are shown eating foods like potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, chocolate, and smoking tobacco in TV/films set BEFORE they violently colonized the western hemisphere where those crops come from.

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Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

Yes I know LOTR is set in a fictional universe but it is widely regarded if not intended by Tolkien (I’m sure someone will tell me which) to be a mythical prehistory of Europe.

Karen James
@kejames.bsky.social

That's right, my dears, there were no PO-TAY-TOES in European prehistory (which LOTR mythologizes) or even the medieval period (in which the films were set, stylistically). Sorry.