Cadhla Firth

“The lumberjack from Real World Boston is building a nuclear reactor on the moon” is a phrase that might have gotten you a wellness check a year ago.

This is so important to read and share. It offers a brief and understandable explanation of why forcing women to undergo genetic testing for sports is stupid and wrong, but using science!

Both sex and gender are complex and to pretend otherwise for the sake of convenience or politics harms us all.

'Expat'

📣 I'm recruiting a postdoc researcher to join my team for a project on mosquito-specific viruses and host interactions. Peep the job description & how to apply below. Perfect for soon-to-be or recent PhD graduates in mosquito vector biology 🦟 or arbovirology 🦠
🗓️ Application deadline 31 August 2025

Review exploring role of traditional food markets as hotspots for zoonotic disease.
👉 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Satellites orbiting in space recorded the moment when tens of thousands of Palestinians surged toward aid trucks that had entered southern Gaza, in a desperate attempt to get aid.

I fell into this thread by accident but if you're an evolution nerd, it's a great read with really cool papers!

Folks...

Nazi population cleansing also ran on two tracks: they went after marginalized groups who were perceived as unproductive (eg the disabled) and minorities whose apparent industriousness was perceived as a threat to the dominant group (Jews)

Nashville Banner: Pregnant Mother in Tennessee Denied Care for Being Unmarried

Forget about what year it is. What century is it?

nashvillebanner.com/2025/07/20/d...

ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court ICE attorneys fighting to deport immigrants are able to obscure their identities — no masks required.

In @theintercept.com, Debbie Nathan reports on ICE lawyers refusing to give their names in court - and immigration judges going along with it.

theintercept.com/2025/07/15/i...

This is really insane stuff - more great reporting by @propublica.org

Harvard Abruptly Caves to Trump After Months of Fighting Harvard has quietly deleted the websites for centers serving minority and women student groups.

Harvard just quietly dismantled its undergraduate school’s offices serving minority and women student groups amid the university’s ongoing battle with Donald Trump.

https://trib.al/enZ6gYc

this entire thread is basically required reading for anyone who wants to talk about mamdani and identity

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

Almost twice as many people ride the New York City bus every day as live in Wyoming.

The bus should have two senators

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens.

Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important".

Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary.

substack.com/redirect/169...

These people are Nazis. I know that's well-understood by many people at this point, but not enough. They are Nazis and we need to keep saying it.

Reporter: There are reports of a 75 year old Cuban national who died in ICE custody. He had lived in the US for 60 years. Homan: I’m unaware of that. People die in ICE custody. People die in jails and state prisons… The question should be how many lives does ICE save because when they go into detention, we find many with diseases and stuff we deal with right away to prevent that

Tom Homan straight-up thinks it’s fine for people to die in ICE prisons.

A bold graphic with the headline “Take Action” in red above a pinned paper note. The note urges viewers to support EPA workers by reading the Declaration of Dissent and signing a public letter of support. The phrase “We’re flooding the zone” appears at the bottom. Below the note, raised protest signs read “Protect Our Planet” and “Climate Change is Real,” symbolizing public solidarity and climate activism.

(5/5)

The EPA Declaration of Dissent is live.
Let the brave EPA workers know we’ve got their backs.
Take action & add your name to the letter of support here.➡️ act.standupforscience.net/forms/epa-ad...

EPA employees put names to 'declaration of dissent' over agency moves under Trump A group of Environmental Protection Agency employees has published a declaration of dissent to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin over the agency's leadership and policies.

AP Story about the EPA Declaration of Dissent

apnews.com/article/decl...

1/n

(If you forget about racism for a second), it's crazy that the Democrats aren't throwing all of their weight behind Mamdani and candidates like him with actual positions on the issues people care about. Turns out Americans will vote for candidates that represent them 🤷‍♀️

Mamdani does what I've been calling constructive politics: appeals to identity as a building block of solidarity rather than a replacement for it. love to see it

Rule of law doesn’t exist anymore only power.

Terrifying imagery from the federal government. Are they going to feed immigrants to alligators? Is this a dog whistle back to the 'alligator bait' days of slavery and Jim Crow?

jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/201... Alligator Bait - 2013 - Question of the Month - Jim Crow Museum

Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters. A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago. And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety. To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And-

Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think- A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different. Q: They're not really. A: Those are like different genres. Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different. A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...

Imagine having hundreds of millions of dollars to spare, and using it to ensure that millions of people in your city can barely afford to live.

CDC Pulled Its Own Thimerosal Report, So We're Publishing It. The CDC posted credible reviews on thimerosal and the MMRV vaccine. The thimerosal report has since been taken down.

OK, now there's a proper write-up: CDC Pulled Its Own Thimerosal Report, So We're Publishing It. The CDC posted credible reviews on thimerosal and the MMRV vaccine. The thimerosal report has since been taken down.

infoepi.substack.com/p/cdc-pulle...

Tuberville says 'inner city rats' live off the American taxpayers: Trump should send them 'back home' Updated: Jun. 26, 2025, 11:55 a.m. | Published: Jun. 26, 2025, 9:14 a.m.

This from Tommy Tuberville may be the most racist things a U.S. senator has said in my lifetime. And the bar is high.
www.al.com/politics/202...

ICE is now changing tactics and arresting people who have been granted asylum hearings.
 
This is both a violation of US & international law that demands immediate attention from all New York elected officials & underscores the urgent need for legal service providers to be at all of these cases.