Ada

The logo for LGBTQ+STEM Day, with the hashtags below and the date 18 of November, over a rainbow background

Happy International Day of LGBTQIA+ People In STEM!

How are you celebrating it?

#LGBTQSTEMDay #PrideInSTEM

Screenshot of LinkedIn’s menu: “How LinkedIn uses your data”. Near the bottom, is the option to turn off “Data for Generative AI improvement”, shown with a red arrow.

🤖 If you use LinkedIn, please be aware that they automatically use your profile to train their GenAI. To turn off, go to Settings > Data Privacy > Data for Gen AI improvements.

Happy birthday!! 🎉❤️😊

You know why ethnic minorities in the UK always feel second-class as if they're never safe in this country and could be asked to leave at any time?

This is why:

The maintenance loan now covers only half of students' costs Jim Dickinson argues that students are facing a convergence of pressures that could destroy access and quality, all while policymakers look the other way

'The financial pressure on students has intensified dramatically across all UK nations. In England, even students receiving maximum maintenance support can only cover half (50 per cent) of their actual living costs, forcing them to work over 20 hours per week at minimum wage to make ends meet.'

I keep seeing her in these secret diet/lifestyle/supplement adverts on Instagram through algorithms 😵

A year after racist riots erupted across England and Northern Ireland following the murder of Bebe King (aged 6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (aged 7) and Alice da Silva Aguiar (aged 9) in Southport, Amnesty International has found that social media platform X played a central role in the spread of false narratives and content which incited violence against Muslim and migrant communities. Our analysis of X’s open-source code reveals that the platform’s content ranking algorithms prioritise the type of content that can spread misinformation and hate, with deeply inadequate safeguards to prevent human rights abuses. “Our research demonstrates that these design choices significantly exacerbated human rights risks for racialised communities in the wake of the Southport riots– and continues to present a serious human rights risk today,” said Pat de Brún, Amnesty International’s Head of Big Tech Accountability. Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric on X after Southport Attack Within hours of the murder of the three young girls and attempted murder of ten others by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, incendiary posts by far-right influencers went viral on X. Within 24 hours, posts falsely claiming the attacker was Muslim, a refugee and/or a migrant who had arrived by boat reached an estimated 27 million impressions. Our analysis of the recommender system and the removal of safeguards at X demonstrate that it is set up to amplify this type of harmful content and that there are few safeguards to prevent it. The net result was a staggering amplification of hate speech and anti-migrant sentiment. Andrew Tate, a notorious online influencer, posted a video falsely claiming the attacker was an “undocumented migrant” who “arrived on a boat” whilst Elon Musk claimed that “civil war is inevitable”. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s (also known as Tommy Robinson’s) posts on X, including claims such as there being “more evidence to suggest Islam is a mental health issue rather than a religion of peace”…

New research out today: Amnesty International has found that X/Twitter played a central role in the spread of false narratives and content which incited violence against Muslim and migrant communities in the UK last summer

A charcoal portrait of a women of colour sat on a rock, book in hand wearing a gown, spencer and bonnet looking at the viewer

The portrait of Miss Lambe next to artist Lela Harris.

Incredible to be at the installation today of Lela Harris’s breathtaking new portrait of Miss Lambe, from #Sanditon. Lela undertook the commission as Artist in Residence from our exhibition Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter at Harewood House. 1/

UMich cancels doctoral epidemiology program admissions for 2026 The University of Michigan School of Public Health will not admit a 2025-2026 admissions cycle cohort to its PhD in Epidemiologic Sciences program.

People thought I was overreacting when I said Trump’s list of “banned” words meant epidemiology was itself defacto being banned.

But this week U Michigan announced they aren’t even accepting applications for the 2026 epi PhD admissions cycle.

www.michigandaily.com/news/news-br...

Motherfucking wind farms…

Open letter: Request for biometric deferral and safe evacuation of incoming Palestinian students and scholars from Gaza to UK Universities More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. We, the academic community hoping to welcome these scholars, ca...

More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. Please sign and share ⬇️ docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The BBC News website has pages & pages of coverage related to farmers protesting inheritance tax, including events where only a few hundred turn out.

In London yesterday 100,000 people marched for trans rights, and nothing.

Imagine if it was 100,000 anti immigrant activists, they'd cover that.

BREAKING: Attendance at Trans Pride London today has been estimated at more than 100,000!

Logo of the Department of Education. Title: Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education. Subtitle: Statutory guidance for governing bodies, proprietors, head teachers, principals, senior leadership teams, and teachers. Dated July 2025

🆕🚨 New statutory Relationships and Sex Education guidance published today will:

- Restrict schools from using materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender"
- Teaches children the laws about "biological sex"
- Removes all references to the word transgender

What we know so far 🧵

Office Space(US)! I like the more recent The Narrow Road from HK too

Listening is a tool for health equity, not just a soft skill The medical establishment hasn't always listened to patients; nurturing this vital skill can help to tackle health inequalities, says Rageshri Dhairyawan Communication skills such as listening are of...

“Listening is a tool for health equity, not just a soft skill”

Had a wonderful experience writing this piece that was commissioned for The Student BMJ by editor @georgeawebster.bsky.social!

www.bmj.com/content/390/...

The Super Goat Girl Bundle preorders are LIVE in my online shop. 🥹

The book drops July in the UK (17th) and the USA (15th), If you preorder through my online shop then you can pick up these bits and bobs along with a signed copy of the book.

This is offer only available in the UK btw. 🥲

It's bad enough that the British government did not extend full British nationality to Hongkongers the way that Portugal extended full Portuguese nationality to people born in Macau before December 20th, 1999!

8 years on we remember. 💚

#Grenfell #GrenfellTower #ForeverInOurHearts

Award-winning scientist, Andrea Sella, has returned his Royal Society award in protest over the Society's continued apathy over Elon Musk.

My latest substack in which I make the case that we need more scientists like Andrea, who are prepared to take a stand: open.substack.com/pu...

Family visa income threshold should be lower, review says An increase to minimum salary requirements would risk breaching international law, an advisory body warns.

Good news and an excellent report by the Migration Advisory Committee.

The ECHR is *not* the central issue here - MAC are recommending a lower threshold because of the impact on families and children, not because of the ECHR.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There’s an important distinction between “undocumented immigrants contribute so much to this country” and “undocumented immigrants are normal folks trying to live their little lives and be happy just like you and me.”

The latter doesn’t advocate for them through the lens of model minority tropes.

🫂

“I really think the faculty are ultimately going to have to stand up for themselves,” says Professor @claudia-polsky.bsky.social, one of the attorneys on the case, along with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Sorry I was in Tokyo for a short trip in early April but didn't know about your shop, otherwise would have tried to visit! I hope I can come back soon to do so. Add oil!! 🙌

i mostly agree, but would want to add that "rest and recovery" should be taken seriously as "action'. burnout is real.

This is absolutely terrible for researchers. And a sign of how fragile digital "preservation" is.

Ten years ago, 8,000 Rohingya were left stranded in the Andaman Sea during a refugee crisis that grabbed global attention.

Today, #Rohingya refugees continue to embark on these high-risk journeys.

Learn more:

AI Is Eating Data Center Power Demand—and It’s Only Getting Worse A new analysis of AI hardware being produced and how it is being used attempts to estimate the vast amount of electricity being consumed by AI.

tired: people AI-generating rando images of themselves as anime

WIRED: AI’s energy use already represents as much as 20 percent of global data-center power demand, new analysis has found