Casey terHorst

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June)

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Inside Cal State's big $17 million bet on ChatGPT for all Critics say the cash-strapped system misspent millions of dollars getting upgraded accounts for all students. CSU leaders insist they're needed to meet a changing economy.

A million dollars a month...in a budget crisis

Man arrested, accused of starting deadly Palisades Fire in California Jonathan Rinderknecht allegedly set a New Year’s Day fire that reemerged six days later to become the devastating blaze that killed 12 and burned nearly 8,000 homes.

Florida Man started the Palisades Fire?

www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

If you are interested in joining the Diversity Committee of the American Society of Naturalists, please nominate yourself! Or please pass along to others who may be interested
www.amnat.org/announcement...

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

The schedule for #WSN2025 is now up on the website!
www.wsn-online.org

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

Weekend at Bernies 2

ICYMI

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I’m no Newsom fanboy, but figuring out how to change the incentives of institutions considering capitulation is one of the big tasks of our moment.

Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law – #261 in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio (D. Mass., 1:25-cv-10685) – CourtListener.com Judge William G. Young: ORDER entered. FINDINGS OF FACT AND RULINGS OF LAW, PURSUANT TO FED. R. CIV. P. 52(A)(Sonnenberg, Elizabeth) (Additional attachment(s) added on 9/30/2025: # 1 Main Document) (J...

BREAKING: WE WON!!!
💥 💥 💥

Federal Judge William G. Young ruled today in our lawsuit against the Trump administration that the policy of arresting, detaining, & deporting noncitizen students & faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the 1st Amendment.

Full ruling here:

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

You try to make one reference to How Stella Got Her Groove Back and students don't understand...

In a sane country with competent leadership, the 50 highest-ranking Democrats would call a press conference to denounce what just happened as a threat to the republic and demand Trump's immediate impeachment and removal from office.

I don't know he could make his intentions more clear.

I did a little digging on the NSF side. Their search is not quite the same so I looked for active awards with original award dates during specific fiscal years. Here is what we have:
2023 - 8960
2024 - 9888
2025 - 9169
That kind of blew my mind...

Don’t ask “when is it coevolution?” — ask “how?” Abstract. Coevolution has come to be widely understood as specific, simultaneous, reciprocal adaptation by pairs of interacting species. This strict-sense

And that's the paper in a social thread, though I hope you'll read the whole thing!

The full final article is indebted to discussions with @colincarlson.bsky.social, @ecoevolab.bsky.social, Judie Bronstein, and of course that critical email exchange with Daniel Janzen

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

We've already got hundreds of students and mentors here, sharing how the sudden policy change has derailed plans. We're looking at formally "delivering" results to NSF leadership tomorrow, please do keep sharing and spreading the word: laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

and the school cake appears to be just a basic frosted yellow cake?

Finally: AI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100% convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job, and when the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging "foundation models" will be shut off and we'll lose the AI that can't do your job, and you will be long gone, retrained or retired or "discouraged" and out of the labor market, and no one will do your job. AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations:

This whole section really.

Consider signing this if you or your students are affected by changes in GRFP eligibility!

Follow up: what is golden syrup?
Not trying to be difficult, but US syrups only come in three flavors: simple, maple, and corn

Dear British folk:
Please explain what a flapjack is.
In the US, it’s synonymous with pancake, but #GBBO suggests otherwise

Pete Hegseth’s meeting could have been a signal chat

Yeah, it's a lot of pressure on first year students without much notice to try to pull an application together!

Good news and bad news here. The GRFP solicitation is now live. Yay!
However, those who have completed more than a year of graduate school already are no longer eligible. This absolutely sucks...

The GRFP is allegedly being given this year, but there is still no solicitation or application available. Consider expressing your concern in the open letter below

a baby in a black shirt is running through a hallway ALT: a baby in a black shirt is running through a hallway

When you forget to register for the conference that you helped to organize...

Here are the Top 5 Dogs of the week!