Rob O'Malley (he/him)

Looking forward to "Chain Reaction" with @storycollider.bsky.social @acs.org on Nov 5 at Penn Social! Details and tickets available here www.storycollider.org/tickets/2026... @dcswa.bsky.social @aaasmassmedia.bsky.social @aaasstpf.bsky.social #SciComm #Science #Storytelling

Fall is here. So we can finally talk about this serious topic... Jonagold vs. Honeycrisp apples.

There is a familiar proverb, often attributed to African tradition: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” #chemsky 🧪

Emphasizing again that we cannot treat this as just business as usual. This is the President of the United States openly attacking an entire ethnic group.

Marjorie Taylor Greene comes out with a statement opposing the raid on Ilhan Omar before Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic Party

He's also ruined "grok," using it as he does for an LLM that fundamentally fails, on multiple levels, the entire concept of "grokking." But this is the Billionaire Way, naming shit for things in their favorite books in ways that the original authors would likely look on in horror

A council has been called to determine the fate of humanity this fall

“Nothing is sacred right now" www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adve...

A new Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology has just been published, in which it is claimed that the human species is polytypic: not only is race biologically meaningful but the races are distinct enough to be considered subspecies. Published by Elgar. In 2026.

One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”

I need people without kids to understand the extent to which, when you have kids, your laundry machines are basically always running

With all the news of museums being closed and/or defunded, I feel the message of our paper on the importance of natural history research (and the collections housing those specimens) is just as relevant (or more) today as it was when it was published. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Today was incredible. The fight to save the academy of natural sciences is far from Over

a president planning military operations based entirely on election cycles is actually a giant scandal

In light of today’s Supreme Court ruling, PLEASE continue to go to handsoffourvote.net to CONTINUOUSLY check your registration, to register to vote, to work the polls and secure the vote during and after the election and to find ways to get involved locally.

I don't think there's a better illustration of the incredible danger of people credulously and irresponsibly over-adopting generative AI than the use of it by DOCTORS to note vital information. This should be as illegal as fabricating notes by hand. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...

It hasn’t rained since June. “The small ditches and even the rivers have dried up, which makes it extremely hard for us to put out the fires. Our only option is to gather at the edges of the plantation or the forest to keep a constant watch on the fire’s progress. It is extremely dangerous.” 🏺🌏🧪🦊🐒

Is it a big deal that the U.S. president is telling insane lies that he personally rushed to the site of 9/11 and heroically acted like a first responder himself? Sorta seems like it should be! Maybe?

Two new NO AI ONLY BRAIN paintings in the shop artologica.etsy.com

The Streetcar tracks, protected cycle tracks, and red bus lanes were all added in the last 12 years. Good things are possible if we fight for it.

HHS is canceling infant mortality and postpartum grants to focus instead on research related to what the department says are “root causes” like sperm counts and erectile dysfunction. https://www.notus.org/health-science/hhs-cancels-infant-mortality-postpartum-grants-focus-infertility

A few Gila monster shot glasses fresh out the kiln. I’m obsessed with this concept! #lizard #pottery #ceramics #art

Sobering, insightful essay on how chatbots mangle historical primary sources. 🗃 www.hnn.us/article/ai-i...

CHATGPT AND CLAUDE ARE DOWN!! Teachers, time for an exam

@ifbookspod.bsky.social Ancient sheep virus found hiding in medieval parchment | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

The Hoff Crab is neither a crab nor is it David Hasselhoff. It is a Yeti Crab, which is neither a Yeti nor a Crab but a sub-group of Squat Lobsters, which are not lobsters, they're Anomurans, like Mole Crabs, which are neither moles, nor crabs.

New York City Public Schools, the largest school system in the country, has banned student-facing generative AI tools in classrooms through eighth grade for this school year, adopting one of the most aggressive AI policies in the nation. https://wapo.st/46EjUbw

I know the fault of the closing of the Academy of Natural Sciences lies with Drexel University but I called to complain to the Mayor anyway. If I learn of something more useful to do I'll let you know. Her office number is (215) 686-2181 Saving the museum would be great PR for her (she needs it).

I've been seeing a lot of "well I guess this is the way things are now" "ah another line of evidence that we are a fallen empire", attitude that I am begging people to shake off. There are people working their butts off to make things better. Please don't give up. Join us.

not that they’re doing it correctly or well or rigorously or competently, but it is funny how these guys spend all their time doing gender studies

Too much modern culture only understands politics as a form of performance art and not as a form of individual and/or collective action, even though the latter is what politics actually is.

The real American 🇺🇸 “brain drain” isn’t that a few established scholars might get new jobs outside the US, it’s the enormous number of grad students - particularly international grad students - who can’t or won’t study in the US now or in years to come. That’s the body blow.

If you just happened to pick this week to start yelling about the importance of academic freedom, I sure hope you did more than watch silently for the past 18 months as the Trump administration assaulted everything from mRNA vaccine research to gender studies to the very idea of having universities.

EXCLUSIVE: More than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, fungi scientists at the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany have been forced to adapt to increasingly difficult working conditions. A dispatch by our Editor-at-Large from Kyiv, Ukraine: www.thexylom.com/post/ukraini...

very grateful for the opportunity to help pilot a #chemistry themed #TTRPG game session at #ACS2026 today as part of @comscicon.bsky.social programming! Building human connections and community is the heart of #SciComm!

It's cool to look into new technology. It will find its place where it will be useful. Maybe in 10 or 20 years it will be every where But slow adoption is okay too and that means not shifting massive amounts of resources to the shiny new thing that is out there [6/?]

Beginning my research seminar, as always, with Lynn Hunt's essay How Writing Leads to Thinking (and Not the Other Way Around). Should be mandatory reading in light of the impact of AI. www.historians.org/perspectives...