Dr. Emily Dolson

You're right, but I feel gross about potentially benefiting from this

Two rejections, one on major evolutionary transitions and one on species interaction networks

I agree. That said, I think she deserves a lot of credit for her work on the video reminding the military that they don't have to obey unlawful orders and her subsequent handling of Trump's threats against her.

Save the date!
The annual #Conference on #ArtificialLife - #ALIFE2026 will take place in Waterloo (Ontario, Canada), 17-21 August 2026. More details coming soon!

Using CC-Licensed Works for AI Training - Creative Commons The application of copyright law to AI training is complex.  Around the world, there are varying exceptions and limitations to copyright that permit AI training. Jurisdictions also often consider the ...

Based on this (creativecommons.org/using-cc-lic...) it looks like CC-ND would do the trick, but that's not an option for OSF preprints, right?

Good to know, thanks! I guess I'll need to think about switching to CC-BY-ND as my default.

It's not clear to me that CC-BY should permit feeding a work into an LLM, given the propensity of LLMs to incorporate text/ideas into themselves and then spit them back out without attribution.

AI-generated code contains more bugs and errors than human output AI-generated code produces 1.7x more issues than human code

Step 1: GenAI coding contains almost twice as many errors as human coding.
Step 2: Satya Nadella says as much as 30% of Microsoft code is written by AI.
Step 3: Windows 11 is a sluggish, buggy mess.

One of my most formative experiences in academic medicine was chasing down a citation.

I wanted to cite a reassurance I heard in residency that a 1cm dural exposure over the ear was okay. I found it--it was from a book chapter without any experimental evidence.

The experience rewired my brain.

This is 100% infuriating.

Our paper on constraints and functions is out!

We show that agents can change from open loop control behavior to closed loop control by modifying their environment.

It’s a follow up to many of the ideas that Tim Taylor explores with his POA framework.

direct.mit.edu/isal/proceed...

was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans at all levels in the scientific process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil.

Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...

Thank you for saying something!

Intracellular interactions shape antiviral resistance outcomes in poliovirus via eco-evolutionary feedback - Nature Ecology & Evolution A model of intrahost poliovirus replication shows that, after several rounds of replication, pocapavir, a poliovirus capsid inhibitor, collapses viral density, preventing intracellular interactions th...

My first lead author paper is out with Ben Kerr and @alisonfeder.bsky.social! We found that making an antiviral too strong can sometimes make resistance easier to evolve. This has implications for how we design drugs, choose doses, and think about viral evolution in the face of treatment. (1/n)

Our #ALIFE2025 paper is out! 🎉 We show that even when two circuits produce the same output, their evolutionary potential can differ greatly. #Evolution at the smallest scale.

“Parameter Evolvability in Gene Expression Models Drives Phenotypic Adaptation”
🔗 direct.mit.edu/isal/proceed...

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I've used Readwise Reader for this and it's worked fine! read.readwise.io

I've never used Debian or Manjaro, but again, I'm skeptical that there could be a big enough difference for it to be worth it. Ubuntu is the most commonly used distro. For a group resource, there is a lot of merit in using the most common thing. You'll find better support, etc.

I like pop (it's my laptop's OS), but it's not different enough from Ubuntu that I'd think it's worth switching on the recommendation of one student (also right now the current release is old enough that it's kind of a pain if you need an up-to-date C++ compiler, but that will be fixed in a month).

Pros for meeting abstract: it's what ORCID import does automatically and it lets you enter both the conference name and publisher (doesn't let you enter a page count, though)

Pros for other: lets you enter a page count (doesn't let you enter a publication venue name, though)

Fellow scientists who write conference papers and submit NSF/NIH grants: what publication type are you using for conference papers in your NCBI Bibliography? I realized that I've been doing a chaotic mix of "other" and "meeting abstract", each of which has pros and cons.

Jeffrey Epstein justified his evil actions with "science"

Evolutionary biologists whispering in his ear about how men and women are fundamentally different, and it's "natural" to desire younger women

Our field has a duty to explain why this is wrong both scientifically and ethically

Is half dome small enough to be a rock or does it count as a mountain?

The polling place where I usually work (not there today because I had to teach) is also getting way more voters than I was expecting. The only thing they've got on their ballot is a city council race, and it's a campus precinct. In similar elections in the past we've gotten just a single vote.

Rep Tom Barrett would rather take food from the hungry than give care to the sick. If he won't lift a finger to help his constituents, I will. I'm holding vigil for 30 hours leading up to the SNAP cutoff deadline, and collecting donations for the Greater Lansing Food Bank. bit.ly/cd7food

Remembering the time in grad school when a Black PhD student at the next desk over was doing computer vision research. He was testing out a facial recognition tool using his own face as a reference, but it wasn't working. So he asked a (white) colleague to try it, and of course it worked for her.

The official home of the Python Programming Language

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵

Oh, okay, I take it back! I didn't even realize there was a preprint. That seems legitimately useful.

I think the issue isn't with contributions being weighted unequally (of course different people contribute different amounts to different papers), but instead with attempting a one size fits all ranking. If the tool looked at author contributions and weighted based on that instead, I'd be open to it

Data like these are exactly why I think @wewill2026.bsky.social is an excellent candidate to be the next MI-07 representative!

Some people say Elissa Slotkin won our district because she's moderate. I think that's wrong. I think she won because she stood for something. Will does too.