Chris Marcum 📖

Great to be invited!

I pushed a longer version of my AI Companion reply to JB Branch in Issues---now with more robots---to this version on my blog: https://www.chrismarcum.com/marcum-blog/2026/03/11/AI-Companion-Risks-in-Older-Adults.html

It's been a long while since I put on my gerontologist's hat. Amplifying the risks of AI companionship was a good reason to do so for this letter to Issues in Science and Technology in response to J.B. Branch […]

Philip Bourne , your memory will be a blessing. Thank you for your service and for all that you've done for the open science movement. This is very sad news and my condolences to his family and to the UVA and NIH colleagues that shared in my pleasure of working with him […]

The National Institute of Mental Health is requesting comments on a new information collection regarding deletion of controlled access data from local machines at a project's conclusion. Given the high potential for this Administration to remove data assets from the NDA (see the disclosure on […]

There's lots to celebrate with the release of the new U.S. Department of Labor Open Data Portal. However, I'm still waiting for their evaluation program data website to be restored with planned updates that were supposed to be completed this fall: https://clear.dol.gov/2025update

Another great Zooniverse project that you should give a dam about: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/jenbays/beaver-dams 🦫 : . Original post bridged here.

Open, collaborative, and community-driven peer-review of preprints is a great way to advance science without contributing in the inequities inherent in traditional publishing: https://buff.ly/7MpqKYB . Original post bridged here.

The broken US healthcare system that only benefits the health of shareholder bank accounts has made for strange bedfellows in Congress. Senator Warren and Senator Hawley introduced the Break Up Big Medicine Act to combat the rising costs associated with the anti-competitive vertical integration […]

Linus Torvalds on how annoying it is that #Linux hasn't earned the desktop market share he intended (and it deserves) when he developed it. Meanwhile, Windows 11 still cannot open two excel files with the same name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCgwHzmUYsA&t=3s . Original post bridged here.

dataindex.us's ICR inventory https://dataindex.us/icr is pure gold. I use it every day and I shudder to recall that OIRA in the Office of Management and Budget is running major infrastructure on antiquated, ugly, and user-hostel platforms of rocis.gov and reginfo.gov. . Original post bridged here.

I took these photos on expired (c. 1986 stock) Kodak TMAX 100 last summer. I just developed and scanned them this week. I used D76 developer and made my own fixer and stop bath from pool chemicals and food preservative. . Original post bridged here.

There's more time to sign the Data Foundation letter to HHS supporting restoration of the ACF's Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation:
https://datafoundation.org/news/advocacy/809/809-Sign-On-Letter-Preserve-Federal-Research-Evaluation-on-Children-and-Families . Original post bridged here.

To threaten independent researchers with discipline for reporting factual economic and statistical analysis is a clear violation of scientific integrity, among other more egregious fouls by political officials […]
https://sciences.social/@csmarcum/116093831723215757 . Original post bridged here.

A well-played meme by Jeremy Berg in response to Stuart Buck and Aishwarya Khanduja on their R&D funding piece : https://goodscience.substack.com/p/a-reality-based-view-of-government . Original post bridged here.

Today is the last day of Love Data Week and I'm going out birding:

https://searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com/ . Original post bridged here.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@MikeElgan/116020018001404902

We can still preserve this important data resource: https://dataindex.us/newsletter/article/fdb7d5aa-ff53-40bc-9596-b0642be0bd83
https://mastodon.social/users/MikeElgan/statuses/116020018001404902 . Original post bridged here.

I've contributed some open-source tools that you can use to automate data pulls about information collection requests from OIRA's reginfo.gov (a notorious kludge of a database):

https://www.chrismarcum.com/marcum-blog/2026/02/27/Automating-Information-Retrieval-from-reginfo.html

I just submitted comments to OIRA and CDC about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Data Management Plan template. NIH and CDC (and all federal agencies) should be coordinating on these changes. The real path to burden reduction is interagency consistency and setting up researchers […]

Looks like The National Institutes of Health is moving ahead with this insufficient and under-developed DMP template page in the name of "burden reduction" - it'll just create more burden in the long run though if datasets are not appropriately documented. Once the template comes up for public […]

Linus Torvalds on how annoying it is that #Linux hasn't earned the desktop market share he intended (and it deserves) when he developed it. Meanwhile, Windows 11 still cannot open two excel files with the same name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCgwHzmUYsA&t=3s

I took these photos on expired (c. 1986 stock) Kodak TMAX 100 last summer. I just developed and scanned them this week. I used D76 developer and made my own fixer and stop bath from pool chemicals and food preservative.

Thanks for sharing

In some encouraging news from the federal government for a change, the wood stork was removed from the endangered species list. They aren't the prettiest bird but they are beautiful. It's a great comeback and a testament to effective conservation policy […]

[Original post on sciences.social]

Copyright and AI Policy Needs Precision, Not Panic Luke Hogg and Nick Garcia examine the debates over generative AI copyright and creator rights and the risks of expanding takedown and enforcement regimes.

“Theft” is powerful rhetoric but unhelpful for understanding AI & copyright, argue Luke Hogg and Nick Garcia. These debates span hard technical, economic, and legal questions. Flatten that complexity into slogans, and policymakers risk enacting enforcement that locks in power and harms creators.

I don't often log into this account, but when I do, I have fans? 😂

Sign the letter to protect #OPRE at #ACF. Thanks, @nickhartphd.bsky.social , @clairemkbowen.bsky.social , and @csmarcum.bsky.social . #defendresearch #defenddata #BethesdaDeclaration #HHSstrong

Delighted to join fellow members in welcoming Mal Sharan, Lamis Yahia Mohamed Elkheir, and Kirstie Whitaker to the @prereview Advisory Committee. Thank you so much, also, to outgoing member Kristen Ratan for her years of critical leadership on the Advisory Committee […]

Sign-On Letter: Preserve Federal Research & Evaluation on Children and Families The Data Foundation is coordinating a sign-on letter to HHS Secretary Kennedy urging the Department to halt the restructuring of one of the federal government's most effective evaluation offices.

There's more time to sign the Data Foundation letter to HHS supporting restoration of the ACF's Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation:
https://datafoundation.org/news/advocacy/809/809-Sign-On-Letter-Preserve-Federal-Research-Evaluation-on-Children-and-Families

Mark Graham has an excellent piece on how libraries, like the Internet Archive, are not a backdoor for AI to abuse copyright protections (e.g. the unfounded fears of major news outlets and publishers).

"When libraries are blocked from archiving the web, the public loses access to history." […]