Jessica E Beyer

not too late for a flu shot btw, flu historically often peaks in february and by all accounts it is pretty bad this year

First-of-a-kind study shows encouraging data for trans kids who socially transition Ninety-four percent of participants in a new study stood firm in their trans identity after five years, and "detransitioning" is rare.

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality.

And trans lives are grounded in reality.

We see y'all. No matter what.

www.popsci.com/science/tran...

Disability-Inclusive Laboratories in the chemical sciences report front cover. Making chemistry accessible for everyone

Behind every barrier is a scientist whose ideas matter.
Disabled chemists share their experiences, and how we can build labs where all talent thrives #InclusiveLabsRSC

Read the @rsc.org Disability-Inclusive Laboratories report:

www.rsc.org/policy-and-c...

#ChemSky #DisabledInSTEM

Choppy and cold day out on the lake today!

Oklahoma’s data center boom Is about to hit the grid — and your power bill A wave of big data centers is triggering a scramble for new electricity generation. OG&E and PSO are pushing to charge ratepayers more as they race to keep up.

A wave of big data centers is triggering a scramble for new electricity generation. OG&E and PSO are pushing to charge ratepayers more as they race to keep up.

More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters Exclusive: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisis

This is an important read- flying under the radar for some of us, but relevant to all. This was a topic that came up several times at the Oklahoma Governor's Water Conference last week, with legislators pushing for sustainability of new facilities.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Alright scientists! It's that time again!

Time to sign up for Skype a Scientist's spring semester.

Want to get matched with a classroom in 2026?

Sign up now 🥰

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Study after study shows that using LLMs is bad for cognition, bad for learning, bad for understanding, bad for mental health. So why are our schools and universities still relentlessly pushing them?

U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students

“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Folks need to stop believing that computers think. They do maths. They regurgitate.

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

Your local library is full of media that the president hates but can't use his regulatory power to get rid of.

A tree frog (maybe Hyla versicolor) perching on the edge of a terracotta pot

A large praying mantis sitting on the underside of a Ficus on our back porch

A sweet, little monarch caterpillar grazing on the vining milkweed on our chainlink fence. Small, orange aphids are visible on the underside of a leaf behind the caterpillar

Some garden friends from the past week

There's some fantastic data visualization in here. I'm looking forward to using it in my Water and Ecological Sustainability class!

In related news: I was able to get a COVID shot in Oklahoma by only checking a box stating that I had one of the allowed conditions. This is a great time to do it.

The Varga = The COPILOT function comes with a couple of limitations, as it can't access information outside your spreadsheet, and you can only use it to calculate 100 functions every 10 minutes. Microsoft also warns against using the Al function for numerical calculations or in "high-stakes scenarios" with legal, regulatory, and compliance implications, as COPILOT "can give incorrect responses." It's rolling out now to users on Windows and Mac in the Beta Channel with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Microsoft plans on refining this feature in the future by upgrading the function's underlying model and potentially adding support for web access.

Microsoft drops a crappy AI function into Excel and then warns people NOT to use it for anything that involves math or anything they consider pretty important. Excel is for doing math and organizing important information. www.theverge.com/news/761338/...

Just donated to fill up a bubble in Oklahoma!

I usually use adonis2 and metaMDS in vegan, but I saw BEST used in a paper and I'm curious about how the two compare.

I agree- I generally use vegan for NMDS and PERMANOVA.

I read a paper where they used BEST analysis in PRIMER-E, so I'm trying to see how that approach would compare with PERMANOVA. I'm not finding much documentation out there on the comparison between the two approaches.

Can someone help me understand BEST analysis in PRIMER-E? I've read the documentation but I'm still stumped. I'm not seeing how you would go about doing a similar process in R. Also- any reason to prefer these over PERMANOVA?

#Rstats #stats #ecology

Trump Wants to Cut Tribal College Funding by Nearly 90%, Putting Them at Risk of Closing ProPublica found that Congress was underfunding tribal colleges by a quarter-billion dollars per year. Rather than fixing the problem, proposed federal funding cuts unveiled this week would devastate…

Tribal college leaders said they were stunned by the Trump administration's proposed cuts to their already insufficient funding and had more questions than answers.

“It’s a dagger, and I don’t know how we can survive these types of cuts,” one college president said.

a man drinking from a can on a boat ALT: a man drinking from a can on a boat

All right, friends, let's dream-cast "Muppets: Jaws".

First of all, the only human is Quint, everyone else is a muppet.

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is Hooper.

Sam Eagle is the Mayor.

Who else?

A checklist for designing and improving the visualization of scientific data Nature Cell Biology - Creating clear and engaging scientific figures is crucial to communicate complex data. In this Comment, I condense principles from design, visual perception and data...

I gave in! After students asking for it, I now made a simple figure design checklist.
To help all scientists w/o graphic skills create clear, accessible, and truthful charts!
-> Out in @nature Cell Biology: rdcu.be/erwl4

#DataVisualization #PhD #SciComm

Thx for review @bethcimini.bsky.social + 2

AI overview from google: "The term "Metabolism 02641" is likely referring to a zip code in the context of metabolism research or a specific study. "Metabolism" generally refers to the chemical processes that occur in the body to sustain life, including how the body converts food and drink into energy. The number "02641" is a US zip code, suggesting the research might be focused on a specific geographical area or population in that region"

Looking up some gene functions using a kegg orthology number- this doesn't seem like the right answer...

For reference, this is what I'm looking for: "ferredoxin--NADP+ reductase"

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Yes, agreed- it's a low percentage, but only a lower boundary on AI use. Something that concerns me is the citation of these papers, too.

‘As of my last knowledge update’: How is content generated by ChatGPT infiltrating scientific papers published in premier journals? The aim of this paper is to highlight the situation whereby content generated by the large language model ChatGPT is appearing in peer-reviewed papers in journals by recognized publishers. The paper ...

If you're into this topic, this paper calls out examples in specific journals and estimates how common the problem is field by field:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Science sleuths flag hundreds of papers that use AI without disclosing it Telltale signs of chatbot use are scattered through the scholarly literature — and, in some cases, have disappeared without a trace.

I've seen this in my students' papers and I'm horrified (but not surprised) that the same trademarks of AI are showing up in published lit. This read is 100% worth some of your Friday time.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...