Julien Riel-Salvatore

Call for papers for the 2026 Cambridge Disinformation Summit.

www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/events/cambr...

Did you know that if you buy my book on Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes 5 times as much as I do on each copy sold? Sharing some behind-the-scenes book math on why buying directly from presses is best for EVERYONE (except Bezos) in my newsletter today! aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/book-math

Notre département recrute ! Nous cherchons un.e professeur.e spécialisé dans l'étude des transformations socio-écologiques, l’écologie politique, les changements climatiques, la justice environnementale et/ou la géographie des risques et infrastructures/réseaux.

Date limite le 10 novembre !

My first faculty position was on an H-1B visa. Just wanna highlight that I got my MA and PhD from @arizonastateuni.bsky.social, so it wasn't even just a question of "hiring the best talent worldwide" but really for a US university to hire someone who was funded and trained 8 years in the US.

Hahhahaha, oh wow!

Age yourself with a film you saw in the cinema as a kid.

Hippo!

One of the constant strands in the history of the university, dating back to its medieval origins, is the attempt of authorities - especially religious authorities but not exclusively - to control what can and cannot be taught.

In Ferrara (Italy) this week for the Meso2025 conference to talk and learn about all things Mesolithic. Presented Monday about my team's work on identifying the Mesolithic in W Liguria, which was unknown until 2021. 🏺🦣
meso2025.sciencesconf.org

@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised!

3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution

2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions.

Please share and apply!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Hearing news that primatologist Prof Jeff Meldrum - probably best known as lone extant academically qualified advocate of the supposed biological reality of #bigfoot - died Tuesday after sudden downturn in health. Thanks Brandon Peecock of Idaho State University for info.

If *your department head and your dean* can be removed for supporting your colleague in teaching in their area of expertise, then you have no academic freedom. In a functional sense, you don't work at a university at all.

Archaeological and systemic context for the plastic age: Theorising the formation of contemporary and future archaeological records | Cambridge Prisms: Plastics | Cambridge Core Archaeological and systemic context for the plastic age: Theorising the formation of contemporary and future archaeological records - Volume 3

Our new open access paper: how do we understand plastics as a contemporary archaeological record, and what does this mean for how we mitigate their environmental impacts? 🧪 🏺

Today, I found out that I'm old enough that some of the very first undergrads who took classes from me are enjoying their first sabbatical leave. #midcareer

Five days before his death, Adam confided to ChatGPT that he didn't want his parents to think he committed suicide because they did something wrong. ChatGPT told him "[t]hat doesn't mean you owe them survival. You don't owe anyone that." It then offered to write the first draft of Adam's suicide note.

Holy fucking shit

The Future Of Podcasting Is Here, And It Sucks | Defector This week, Left Of Dial published its Essential Listening Poll, a compilation of the 100 best podcasts of all time, according to industry creators, writers, and scholars (Disclosure: I was invited to ...

There have been a ton of 20th anniversary "best of" podcast lists lately, and it has started to feel a bit like an obituary for an industry.

[gift link] defector.com/the-future-o...

The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.

Slightly diminish a band:

Godspeed You Black Baronet

*screams in paleoanthropologist*

Yesterday I discovered that ChatGPT's PhD-level expertise didn't extend to bird anatomy. This morning I thought, perhaps I was being too hard on the half-trillion-dollar company. Birds are a little weird, anatomically speaking. Let's try something more familiar. A mammal. Behold.

Google Scholar Is Doomed Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

A beautiful illustration by Tom Björklund accompanying this great write-up by @killgrove.bsky.social of the Arene Candide 12 artificial cranial deformation study:
www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Job Alerts!🚨 We are looking to fill three Independent Junior Research Group Leader positions in the 'HUMAN ORIGINS' Cluster of Excellence at the University of Tübingen
Application deadline: Sept. 10, Starting Jan. 1, 2026

1. Genotype-Phenotype interactions:
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

Early European evidence of artificial cranial modification from the Italian Late Upper Palaeolithic Arene Candide Cave - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Early European evidence of artificial cranial modification from the Italian Late Upper Palaeolithic Arene Candide Cave

Paleolithic evidence for artificial cranial deformation in an Epigravettian individual from Arene Candide Cave (Italy), dating to ca. 12.4ky BP. This new study adds to a host of diverse ritual, mortuary and social behaviors documented at the site. 🦣🏺🧪

Left and right views of the cranium from the Arene Candide 12 individual, showing artificial cranial deformation.

(TW human remains)
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Here's a figure from the article showing the extent of the artificial cranial deformation, which in the past had been suggested to represent a pathological condition.

Early European evidence of artificial cranial modification from the Italian Late Upper Palaeolithic Arene Candide Cave - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Early European evidence of artificial cranial modification from the Italian Late Upper Palaeolithic Arene Candide Cave

Paleolithic evidence for artificial cranial deformation in an Epigravettian individual from Arene Candide Cave (Italy), dating to ca. 12.4ky BP. This new study adds to a host of diverse ritual, mortuary and social behaviors documented at the site. 🦣🏺🧪

📣 Work with us! 📣

The Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge is looking to appoint an Assistant Professor in Zooarchaeology.

📅 Closing date: 15 September
👉 More info and how to apply: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

If you work in higher ed, you need to get your folks together and end the use of course evals or at least bar their consideration in evaluation, promotion, and hiring. This needed to happen yesterday because they don't measure learning, they measure instructor gender, but now it's a snitch pool.

This is a super thread that really puts the whole "Neanderthal fat factory" into much broader context and highlights the multiple dimensions of hunter-gatherer diets. Very interesting to get a crop scientist's perspective on this topic! Definitely worth a read!!