Mom. Social epidemiologist. Professional angry feminist. Jewish San Diegan. "So-called expert" on terminated science
Associate Professor of Public Health at UC San Diego, all views my own
When the NIH abruptly terminated thousands of research grants last year, the fallout wasn’t distributed equitably. A new analysis suggests the cuts disproportionately hit women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ investigators.
My latest for @nature.com
Well the first person to describe measles was Abu Bakr al-Razi, and he knew more about the disease than RFK Jr despite living >1000 years ago 🤷🏻♂️
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bak...
RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."
RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."
In 1985, you could attend your state's public flagship with no debt by working a summer job at McDonalds. A year of tuition at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities was $1,704.
The difference between then and now is that your state subsidized 90% of the cost of attendance via direct funding.
The soaring costs of public universities is a political decision. When these schools predominantly served white students, they tended to be free (UC, CCNY, etc.) But as the number of students of color has increased, funding for the public universities has decreased.
www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/b...
Now that the AI whisperer class has affirmed that reading and writing are the killer capacities for co-existing with AI, I look forward to universities putting commensurate resources into teaching students how to read and write critically and creatively.
the year is 2030 and i no longer consume anything that isn't personalized to me. every game, every book, every movie extends to the limits of my own imagination and no further. i haven't been surprised in five years. i cry softly, in bewilderment, if i see a word i don't know
maybe i'm old fashion but the coolest thing about video games is being taken to new worlds that i hadn't thought up and experiencing something exciting that the artists behind the game want to show me
Youth need spaces to be authentically themselves! At PANA, we believe intergenerational organizing is a part of creating these spaces. Thank you to The California Endowment for featuring our Director of Organizing, Rahmo Abdi, and Board Member Mohamed Mbenge! Read more:
buff.ly/02iyKT0
I got a PhD because I wanted to solve interesting puzzles and talk with people in interesting places. Now I find I'm suddenly running three small businesses in a trench coat and my life is nothing but email.
As a PhD student designing my first survey, I added what I thought was a throwaway question at the end. To my surprise, thousands of academics answered it! The paper is out today: doi.org/10.1093/pnas...
People in California who are facing a terrible ICE surge: remember that if you need whistles, we are still sending them out for free.
In fact, we just passed 1.7 million whistles sent out.
linktr.ee/3Dwhistles
What if the people most impacted by displacement designed the future of the land? Watch the story behind Global Village. youtu.be/zYfEcGMl-PE?...#globalvillagesd#panasandiego#panasd#tedxsandiego
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton with the @voiceofsandiego.org team presenting his law and order arguments for why we should cooperate with ICE to deport more people. #Politifest2026
Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week:
-A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses
-A ban on ICE agents working for the state government
-A ban on websites selling your data
-A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights
-A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers
Discworld QOTD, from Feet of Clay
“They were men who felt that The Time Had Come. Regimes can survive barbarian hordes, crazed terrorists and hooded secret societies, but they're in real trouble when prosperous and anonymous men sit around a big table and think thoughts like that.”
In many ways, the only thing boys need to learn are the lessons we already teach girls. They need to learn to be part of a community.
And if they understand that, then the lessons on consent and sexual violence come naturally.
Teach your son to wait.
Teach him that other people are as important as he is.
Teach him to apologize and go back to the end of the line if he made an entitled decision.
Teach him that girls and women deserve respect in *all* scenarios—not just during sex.
I’m seeing a lot of posts about talking to your sons in light of the Cornell article.
And yes. Talk to your sons. Here are some things you should say, based on anti-violence research about what they need to hear:
The Governor just signed my bill to allow people to sue ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agents for violating people’s constitutional rights. Starting immediately, people can sue federal agents retroactive to abuse occurring in March 2025.
It's true, every sahm has made the choice not to participate in the workforce out of nothing but personal agency. There are no economic considerations at all. And also, these non-existent economic considerations definitely impact men and women the same since there is no gender pay gap.
(/S)
"Making day care free, while offering nothing to stay-at-home parents, appeals to the educated, urban, affluent voters who have come to make up the Democratic base, but not to the electorate at large," Marc Novicoff argues:
Look man, I'm low on executive function as it is, the last thing I need is a series of unaccountable and untrustworthy autonomous processes to track and double-check for hallucinations and unpredictable omissions
In an interview, Peter Thiel said that being evil is good, because evil is always competent, and "getting things done" is a moral good.
Listening to the incoherent ramblings of billionaires does more to discredit the idea they earned it than any statistics ever could.
I hate doing the "a rollback of trans rights is the gateway for a rollback of women's rights" thing because trans rights are human rights in and of themselves, whatever the impact on cis women.
But goddamn I wish more cis women had a sense of history and self preservation.
I never would have predicted that cutting 20% of the staff at the federal agency that makes sure our food is safe would result in a bunch of our food being declared unsafe.
I love children's literature SO MUCH.
My forever comfort read is Thurber's _The 13 Clocks_.
A lesser known one I haven't seen in the replies is Kathryn Lasky's _Memoirs of a Bookbat_
I don't know if Dolly Parton was the greatest songwriter of all time but I do know that Dolly Parton writing "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" on the same day is the greatest day any songwriter has ever had.
Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.com
I still believe that there is a labor movement that could change that. At least in some states. I do not believe there is a culture of labor among well employed faculty that’s even close to being willing to do that.
1. Hi everybody!
2. Now the difference between us and other banks is that other banks are banks.
3. Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
4. I’m a level 5 vegan.
5. I just tripled my productivity.
The 5 Simpsons lines I’ve uttered most off the top of my head
1. I for one welcome our new ____ overlords.
2. The lesson is, never try
3. I'm in danger!
4. What's the difference between this lamb and the one that kissed me???
5. Grade me, evaluate me, rank me! I'm good good good and oh so smart!!
“Hi foreign medical graduates, please come work in the most conservative state in the country, where almost every politician has demonized immigrants, and where the current docs are fleeing. It’ll be great!!!”
cowboystatedaily.com/2026/02/12/w...
My mom has worked at the local county epidemiology department for more than 20 years.
Don't eat sprouts ranks above don't eat anything from Chipotle. Sprouts are NOTORIOUS.
Sprouts are INFAMOUS for being very prone to outbreaks.
Why? They grow in a lil container that's kept warm, moist, & rotated to keep all the seeds wet & growing in random directions.
AKA, a microbial incubator that guarantees every stray cell of Salmonella or E. coli gets its BEST start in life.
Sometimes we really are America's finest city, though.
"The emperor is a fan of Flock, and we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium"
because let's be so fucking for real right now:
1) you can't appease the people who don't want ADHD to exist by sacrificing the "functional" ones who have managed to string together coping mechanisms that will burn them out by 50
2) stigmatizing support will make it harder for all of us