David Fainstein

The massive list of suspended UCLA grants came out today: 300 NSF and 500 NIH grants. I am miraculously not on the list, but this is devastating. Science will be lost, progress will be frozen, people will lose jobs, and careers in science and medicine are being destroyed. This is not ok.

Ichiro Suzuki in a suit with a mic in front of a red stage curtain with the Netflix logo and words reading "Stand Up Comedy Special"

Ichiro Comedy Special Somehow Already Up on Netflix: tinyurl.com/mry8xvj5

Comic. [3-column table with headers Period, My Favorite Part, and My Biggest Complaint] [Row 1] P: *Precambrian*, MFP: Life develops, MBC: Snowball Earth episodes [Row 2] P: Cambrian, MFP: Trilobites!, MBC: Evolution could stand to calm down a little [Row 3] P: Ordovician, MFP: Earth might have had rings, MBC: Scary volcanic eruption in North America [Row 4] P: Silurian, MFP: First land animals, MBC: Earth’s newfound mold problem [Row 5] P: Devonian, MFP: Big mountains in Boston, MBC: Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was *armor* [Row 6] P: Carboniferous, MFP: Cool forests, MBC: Bugs too big [Row 7] P: Permian, MFP: Pangea, MBC: Google “The Great Dying” [Row 8] P: Triassic, MFP: Tanystropheus [dinosaur with extremely long neck next to tiny person for scale], MBC: Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan [Row 9] P: Jurassic, MFP: Birds, MBC: Parasitoid wasps [Row 10] P: Cretaceous, MFP: Raptors, MBC: Raptors [Row 11] P: Paleogene, MFP: Pretty horseys!!!, MBC: Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum [Row 12] P: Neogene, MFP: Forests of *Dracaena* Dragonblood Trees, MBC: Zanclean Flood [Row 13] P: Quaternary, MFP: Burrito invented, MBC: Whoever picked this name for the third period of the Cenozoic

Geologic Periods

xkcd.com/3120/

It is fucking insane that we had a decade of people complaining about the dangers of cancel culture, and now literally hundreds of thousands of people are being purged from government jobs for ideological reasons, but that is not cancel culture.

useful_data_resources

I think you are thinking of Paul Bruno's list: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

New paper about a brief word-problem screener for use in the elementary grades. It's free to read this article! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
And then download the screener at: www.piratemathequationquest.com

"In the meantime for the sake of transparency to transit riders, King County Metro says it will be officially renaming Route 8 to Route ∞."

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

This is generally a must-listen podcast anyway, but this episode hit really hard. While none of my close friends and family who are teachers worked in the US during the pandemic, the statements that teachers' lives were the trade off to reopen schools still felt so true and validating.

BREAKING: A federal judge ruled all transgender and intersex people can obtain passports that align with their gender identity while the case against President Trump's executive order proceeds.

While this is good news, we will continue fighting until this executive order is blocked permanently.

Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...

Over the next 25 years, if proposed cuts in NIH funding are made real, “In a population of more than 340 million, this reflects **82 million** fewer years of life.”

In the US alone.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

An important thing to know about Donald Trump is that very few people actually like him! The structure of his support at this point is a relatively small number of psychotic groypers and a much larger swathe of the public who have been convinced by right-wing propaganda that Democrats are worse.

I want to help teachers work smarter, not harder.

That’s why I rely on respected researchers like Dr. Brian Poncy & @rastokke.bsky.social to tell me what the research says AND which resources to use to support my instruction. I don’t have time for new fads in education & my students don’t either.🧵

Huge thanks to @rastokke.bsky.social for not just telling teachers like me what to do but for providing great tools to support us!

Most teachers aren’t trained how to read, understand and interpret research papers. I only learned in my M.Ed. So here’s a helpful “cheat-sheet” for those who need it:

Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are increasingly popular in the social sciences, not only in medicine. We argue that the lay public, and sometimes…

Increasingly believe that this should be required reading before anyone is allowed to do science.

I spend an *inordinate* amount of time these days citing this piece and explaining that RCTs are not instrinsically and exclusively causal.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Figure titled "conceptualization of factors with strong empirical support for special educator wellbeing and burnout, 1979 to present. Figure includes working conditions (specifically, administrator support, planning time, and instructional grouping) predicting special education teachers' workload manageability, which in turn predicts stress, which in turn predicts burnout. This chain of special education teachers' workload-stress-burnout is moderated by their identity, characteristics, and experience as well as their affective responses to work stress. Teacher wellbeing/burnout, in turn, is associated with teacher outcomes, including teaching self-efficacy, evidence-based practice use, intervention fidelity, and intent to leave. All of these, in turn, predict student outcomes.

Updated literature review on special education teachers' occupational wellbeing and burnout is published online! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/... @lizbettini.bsky.social @michellecumming.bsky.social Excited to see the nascent intervention work prior research has catalyzed!

Read the whole thing. You won’t be surprised, but you should be outraged.

Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US EU will spend over $500 million to recruit researchers and scientists.

The program will invest €500 million ($568 million) between 2025 and 2027 to recruit specialists in various fields of knowledge to come and work in Europe.

The world needs more of this and less of most other things

Bennobecks on Threads: "The Pope was chosen in 2 days. Your remote hire doesn't need 5 rounds of interviews. I said what I said."

!!!

Me in front of a big sign that says AERA

I understand why @aeraedresearch.bsky.social asked us not to share pics etc from presentations at the conference. So I’ll just say there are great people here doing important work benefitting all people. I’m proud to be among them and look forward to days ahead when we can properly celebrate them.

In Elementary School, Many Teachers Have a Shaky Grasp of Math. Can Preparation Programs Change That? | EdSurge News Elementary school teachers aren’t set up for math. But can changing teacher prep programs help?

This article describes a problem I see daily in the math classes I visit.

More teachers than we care to admit have only a shaky understanding of the math they teach. Some have a palpable FEAR of math.

They deserve better support. #iTeachMath

www.edsurge.com/news...

What are ways to help students understand expressions and equations? Download these FREE lesson guides, problem sets, and vocabulary cards! buff.ly/4gRHNz5

“It is essential to consider any practices that need to be de-implemented (Hamilton er al., 2023). It is unreasonable to roll out new initiatives without a game plan for how they will fit and what will go to make room.” Nathaniel Swain 1/3🧵

A number of presidents have added their signature throughout the day.

If your president isn't on here yet it may be that they are still in process with their board or etc about signing - or it may be that they need a nudge from you, or a group of you. If the latter - organize on your campus/alumni.

Things that happened in Canada the last time voter turnout exceeded 70% (1993):
- Canadiens won their 24th Stanley Cup
- Toronto Blue Jays won 2nd World Series
- This Hour Has 22 Minutes premiered
- Nunavut Act Passed

Let's beat 70 this election! Get out and vote!
#letsbeat70

the nice thing about creating a variable is that you never know who might be mad at you 20 years later for your weird decisions while doing so

UMR Releases Annual NIH Economic Impact Report: 2025 Update - United For Medical Research A POWERFUL RETURN ON INVESTMENT: $2.56 GENERATED FOR EVERY $1 INVESTED in NIH RESEARCH NIH Research Funding in FY2024 Drove $94.58 Billion in Economic Activity   WASHINGTON, DC — March 11, 2024 — Unit...

For every dollar invested in public research grants the economy benefits $2.56 (for medical research).

I think auditing the rich returns us $12 for every dollar invested but that doesn’t appear to be on the table.

Hey Canada! Advanced Polls are now OPEN! Friday to Monday you can vote from 9am to 9pm - go to elections.ca to find out where and how.

After all, the Easter Bunny might not be real, but threats to our democracy are! (I asked Carney to make this his slogan and he refused for some reason) 🐣🍁