Dr. Brendan Anderson

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to widen the shipping channel leading into Port Everglades, blasting through a coral reef and dredging up sediment that could smother acres of coral, federal scientists say. https://wapo.st/4r7kRAU

⚒️ #WavyWednesday

I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

“The fact that Ellis was flagged for her name change alone suggests the state of Kansas is intensely monitoring transgender citizens.”

A composite image. On the left, 3D scans of trilobite babies that are about the size of a grain of sand, revealing insight about their growth stages. On the right, a photo of a fossilized adult of the closely related species Lonchodomas rostratus. It has a long nasal appendage.

It's Trilobite Tuesday—and we have new research to share! On the left is a 3D scan of Lonchodomas chaziensis babies that are about the size of a grain of sand. The accompanying photo on the right shows an adult specimen of the closely related species Lonchodomas rostratus.

A scanned image of the first page of a legal document on letterhead from Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, dated February 27, 2026. It is labeled "Opinion No. KP-0518" and addressed to Mr. Darrel D. Spinks, Executive Director of the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council. A portion of the first paragraph is highlighted in yellow, reading: "mental health care providers" licensed by the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council."

A scanned image of the second page of the Attorney General Opinion document. A section in the first full paragraph is highlighted in yellow, which reads: "[f]or the purpose of transitioning a child’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the child or affirming the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex."

A scanned image of the third page of the Attorney General Opinion document. The text discusses various statutory and dictionary definitions of the terms "health care provider" and "health care". There are no highlighted sections on this page.

A scanned image of the seventh and final page of the Attorney General Opinion document, showing the "SUMMARY" section and the signature block for Ken Paxton. The entire summary paragraph is highlighted in yellow, reading: "The definition of a “health care provider” in subsection 161.701(2) of the Health and Safety Code unambiguously encompasses the professions regulated by the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council. Any licensee that facilitates the provision of unlawful procedures or treatments that aim to transition a child’s sex are thus forbidden from receiving public money in support of those efforts and, separately, risk revocation of their licenses to practice."

Texas AG Ken Paxton has declared that it is illegal for mental health providers and therapists to treat trans youth. It means that trans youth will be denied access to any mental healthcare that isn't conversion therapy. Paxton also threatens parents of trans youth with child abuse investigations.

When Putin needed pretext for creating "The Red Web", Russia's authoritarian system of online censorship that effectively bans LGBTQ speech, he did it through the EXACT same moral panic about social media and kids that liberals and many leftists are spreading today.

the incentives here are so obscenely terrible that the entire thing should be illegal by default

“I am sabotaging negotiations because I stand to make piles of money on Polymarket” is absolutely in play, what a horrifying clusterfuck

Hey look! If you've been using AI to shortcut everything in your life and suck the soul out of your creativity, good news for you: you're now complicit in making it popular enough that the US Government has co-opted it for mass murder. Good job, everybody.

In case you’re just waking up, the U.S. has teamed up with Israel overnight to start an illegal war of regime change, apparently on a presidential whim with no involvement of Congress, and they are already committing horrific atrocities.

This push for AI at the NSF grant-making level is less discussed than other AI drives but is highly consequential because it creates incentives that change entire fields. People will pivot away from other research that isn’t being funded to this and many won’t come back.

Society for the Study of Evolution Site description

📢 Now accepting proposals for the Graduate Research Excellence Grants! These provide evolutionary biology research funds for early and advanced Master’s and PhD students. Applicants must be members of SSE. Deadline: May 18, 2026
www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci...

Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses "The legislature did not include a grace period."

From @erininthemorning.com; Transgender people in Kansas have been sent letters ordering them to immediately surrender their drivers licenses which will become invalid tomorrow, Feb 26th, with no grace period for updating.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...

AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases

AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases

www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

I notice that no one has offered to de-extinct Titanosarcolites. Cowards.

streaming link opens up very soon! get your credit cards ready, get your drinks and snacks, mute the word "Trump" on here if you haven't already, and get ready to have your mind expanded by a dozen nerds nerding out

I'm one of them, just from a couple years before in late 2022. Got out of Oklahoma due to rapidly hostile legislation and drove across the country to NJ where I had no family or network except a couple of friends letting me stay with them.

So the number is likely much larger than even this.

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

This means I literally could not teach my subject (African politics) at the institution at which I earned my PhD.

the actual story of what happened at the National Endowment for the Humanities last year is even more infuriating than we thought

Extreme heat lab: enduring the climate of the future Graham Readfearn enters a simulation to investigate how heatwaves affect the human body

According to the medical journal @thelancet.com, heat extremes caused an estimated 546k deaths every year between 2012 & 2021 – a 63% rise on rates seen in the 1990s

“That's the equivalent of a fully loaded jumbo jet full of people going down once every 7hrs throughout the year” says Prof Ollie Jay

The left is missing out on AI As a movement, it has largely refused to engage seriously with AI, ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right

I finally read this after seeing so many people discuss it and I disagree with the premise.

Believing that AI is harmful and overhyped, and AI companies should be held to unsafe product laws and laws preventing theft of intellectual property IS taking it seriously.

If you're an #EcoEvo #PhD candidate anywhere in the world looking for project funding, consider applying for the @asn-amnat.bsky.social Student Research Award.

Ten proposals for $2k in research funds will be awarded. Due 13 March 2026.

Please share widely! 🧪 #grants #ecology #evolution #behavior

"You Outlaw It": Heritage Foundation President Announces Intent To Outlaw All Trans Adult Care Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts indicated his organization's position on the PBD podcast.

Heritage foundation plans to outlaw all gender affirming care, regardless of age. I think it's a near guarantee they'll succeed if the Trump admin buys in and uses the same tactics they did on youth care.

Anyway, another I told you so on many levels.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/you-outlaw...

Alternatively is there a recent one you *would* recommend for someone who doesn't read paleoanthropology primary literature often?

About NSF GRFP's being rejected without peer review:
[from submitted info to Grant Witness]
"12 RWRs as involving ecology, six in cell biology, five in psychology, four in neuroscience, and 14 in other subfields of biology"
www.science.org/content/arti...

Once more: Columbia could have fought; it chose not.

An historic illustration of two brown and cream snails shooting "love darts" at each other.

💛 Happy #LibraryLoversDay 💛

If you love libraries, biodiversity, and open knowledge, please consider making a gift to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Your support keeps 63+ million pages freely available to everyone, everywhere. #ILoveBHL

Donate: ancrywkv.donorsupport.co/page/BHLDona...

The emergence of Nadine and her speed-reading companion: