Phytomaven

Phytomaven

@tmigratorius.bsky.social

Watching climate, democracy, epidemiology, and medicinal plants. Medical Botanist; SWSBM 1995. Born at 313.2 ppm CO2

976 followers689 following4.4K posts

Phytomaven reposted

Kelton Minor
@keltonminor.bsky.social

Together with other scientists I’m suing the 🇺🇸 US National Institutes of Health for violating our 1st Amendment rights & censoring our health science. I’m ready to shine a light on the darkest days. Buckle up, read on. This gets pretty wild… THREAD

ACLU@aclu.org

By terminating research grants like Kelton's to censor views it doesn’t like, the NIH is blocking scientists from work that would advance public health for all of us. We're pushing back. Tell Congress to demand the NIH restore the grants and stop its censorship campaign at aclu.org/nih_censorship_

Phytomaven reposted

Simon Fisher
@profsimonfisher.bsky.social

“LLMs are trained on vast quantities of human-written text, much of it explicitly/implicitly concerned with thoughts, feelings & conscious experiences. They are mirrors that reflect an image of our collective past. We gaze into them & readily confuse the reflections with our own conscious minds.”🧪👇

nature.comThree reasons why AI is not conscious and perhaps never will beLarge language models can mimic thought and feeling with uncanny skill. But evidence from neuroscience suggests that intelligence alone is not enough for subjective experience.

Phytomaven reposted

Travis T. York, Ph.D. (he/they)
@travisyork.bsky.social

🧪Save SBE Toolkit - cossa.org/action-cente... - Kudos to @cossa.bsky.social for this! ‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research | @science.org | @aaas.org www.science.org/content/arti... @aaascsew.bsky.social #SocialScience #Science #DataMatters

science.org‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences researchAgency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year
Phytomaven
@tmigratorius.bsky.social

"What is critical is recognizing that humans have the capacity to change and choose a more survivable course." - A Darwinian Survival Guide by Daniel R. Brooks and Salvatore J. Agosta.

Phytomaven reposted

Rachel Maddow
@maddow.bsky.social

"On Saturday Oct 17, “No Kings: Vote Early” events around the country will promote early voting and help people form voting plans like requesting absentee ballots, checking on their voter registrations or finding neighbors to help them drive to the polls..." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/u...

nytimes.com‘No Kings’ Events This Weekend: What We KnowOrganizers are hoping to promote early voting ahead of the midterm elections in this latest round of nationwide demonstrations that have previously focused on President Trump.
Phytomaven
@tmigratorius.bsky.social

In Forbes: www.forbes.com/sites/sandyc...

forbes.comWhat The Grace Hopper Celebration Cancellation Means For Women In AIAnitaB.org canceled the 2026 Grace Hopper Celebration weeks before it opened. Here is what the loss means for women in AI and the companies hiring them.
Monica@monica.dev

I just received an email that the Grace Hopper Celebration scheduled for later this month has officially been cancelled 😢. When I was a student I had such an incredible experience attending GHC with my university’s Women in Computer Science (WiCS) organization.

Phytomaven reposted

JoansGarden
@joansgarden.bsky.social

My knitting groups are busy knitting blue wave hats so I thought I'd better get one done. If you haven't seen these they have a morse code message in the dots and dashes above and below the blue wave. My message is pretty tame - just 'vote blue'. Some of them are quite creative though. 🧶 #bluewave

Phytomaven reposted

Sam Adams
@samadams.bsky.social

just have to lean into the cliché that when people ask me what they should see right now my answer is "you should really check out this 11-hour Russian documentary"

Sam Adams@samadams.bsky.social

I wrote about My Undesirable Friends, a portrait of a nation's nosedive into fascism that is gripping, unsettling, and scarily relatable.

slate.comAn 11-Hour Masterpiece Is Finally Complete. It’s Riveting From Start to Finish. (Gift Article)An urgent, riveting new documentary feels like it could be a dispatch from America’s future.

Phytomaven reposted

NonStop Local Montana
@nonstoplocalmt.bsky.social

Over the coming 8-14-days, we expect slightly warmer and drier than average weather for western Montana, with closer to average conditions in the east. READ MORE: www.montanarightnow.com/weather/temp...

montanarightnow.comTemperature records smashed today in Billings, Livingston, and Cody WyomingToday, record-breaking heat built into southern Montana and northern Wyoming. An 87-degree day in Billings broke a previously-held record of 86 degrees in 2021. An 85-degree day in Livingston broke

Phytomaven reposted

National Center for Science Education
@ncse.bsky.social

Scientists have found the first series of dinosaur tracks suspected to be left by a t-rex, shedding some light on their walking pace. The individual who left these tracks appears to have been moving along about as fast as a human speedwalking. www.sciencenews.org/article/t-re... #FossilFriday 🦖 🧪

sciencenews.orgFirst series of adult T. rex footprints hints at its walking speedThe steps were poorly preserved, but still hint at an ambling pace of 1.6 meters per second, roughly equivalent to a quick walking speed for a human.

Phytomaven reposted

John Scalzi
@scalzi.com

He is so good at messaging. It's really kind of unreal.

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov

Calling all NYC artists — painters, filmmakers, poets, musicians and more! Did you know our city provides grants to support your work every year? And this year, we're DOUBLING the amount — from $5,000 up to $10,000 per artist! Deadlines are approaching fast — apply today at nyc.gov/artistgrants.

Phytomaven reposted

Marc Elias
@marcelias.bsky.social

Many of you are asking how you can help me. My only ask is this: Spread the word about the threats to democracy and how we can fight back. Tell everyone to subscribe to Democracy Docket and share its content. demdock.com/4w6emld

Phytomaven reposted

Marc Elias
@marcelias.bsky.social

Each election year, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) takes extra steps to ensure ballots sent through the mail arrive at election offices on time. This year, it’s delaying those efforts. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

democracydocket.comUSPS pushes back measures that ensure mail ballots arrive on time“The shorter timeframe is noteworthy and I don’t know why they’re doing this,” Steve Hutkins, who writes for Save the Post Office, told Democracy Docket.

Phytomaven reposted

Robert Reich
@rbreich.bsky.social

Household debt at a record high. Student loan defaults at a record high. Credit card debt at a near record high. Meanwhile, corporate profits are the highest they’ve ever been. CEOs are paid 325x more than their typical workers. U.S. billionaire wealth is up 30% in a year. It's unsustainable.

Phytomaven reposted

trishmaher.bsky.social
@trishmaher.bsky.social

On Friday the administration announced it is refusing to spend about a billion dollars Congress appropriated for programs that help the American people—a refusal the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) says is illegal—and on Saturday, Trump used taxpayer money for his own vanity ads.

Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR)@hcrichardson.bsky.social

September 28, 2026

heathercoxrichardson.substack.comSeptember 28, 2026It has become routine for Trump to spend the weekend posting wildly on social media, and this weekend was no exception.
Phytomaven
@tmigratorius.bsky.social

Just finished re-reading The Ghost Brigrades. This is some really good writing! Which is why I re-read it. 2nd in the Old Man's War series. (1st is awesome, too!)

Phytomaven reposted

Rachel Maddow
@maddow.bsky.social

"At least six babies in Pennsylvania have been born infected with measles, with two so sick they had to be admitted to intensive care. Congenital measles is a disease that’s rarely, if ever, seen in the U.S..." www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

nbcnews.comAmerica had wiped out measles. Now babies are infected at birth.Congenital measles has rarely been seen in the U.S. That’s changing as vaccination declines and more pregnant women become infected.

Phytomaven reposted

The Cottage Garden
@simonecannon.bsky.social

Red Valerian, growing on an old stone wall, with the skyline of Bath, England in the background. This wild perennial thrives in poor, well-drained soils and produces nectar and pollen, making it attractive to bees, butterflies, and pollinating insects #30DaysWild #LetItBloomJune #WilldflowerHour

Phytomaven
@tmigratorius.bsky.social

Wow. Mimulus was in the Phrymaceae. Now in the Orobanchaceae. I'm okay with that.

David Lowry@davidlowry.bsky.social

The monkeyflowers, including all those things we call Mimulus, have now been collapsed (along with some other small families) into the Orobanchaceae. This lumper couldn’t be happier. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.comLarge‐scale nuclear and plastid phylogenomic analyses inform an updated Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification: APG VWe present here a revision of the APG classification that considers the extensive recent analyses of hundreds of nuclear and plastid genes for many angiosperm species. Although previous versions of t...