Joe Brown

I sowed all my wild oats years ago. Now I am sowing thoroughly domesticated oats.

I prefer these ones.

Under Trump, E.P.A. Explored if Abortion Pills Could Be Detected in Wastewater

👀

YouTube video by UnAmericanBandstand Woody Guthrie~ All You Fascists Bound To Lose

youtu.be/VwcKwGS7OSQ?...

In East Timor, U.S. Retreats From Plan to Build ‘Lifesaving’ Sewage Plant

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/w...

The Next Big Thing in Pop Culture: Public Bathrooms

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/t...

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

NSF GRFP is out 2.5 months late w/key changes

1. 2nd year graduate students not eligible.

2. "alignment with Administration priorities"

3. Unlike prior years, they DO NOT specify the expected number of awards... that is a BIG problem.

a brief 🧵 w/receipts

www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

My dog Daisy (x.com/DaisyFetch) is an anti-rabies-vaccine activist

Y'all should check her out

I can only clap at this news

Sorry, I guess that's gonorrhea. Maybe I will hold my applause until we finally have a solution to the epidemic of koala gonorrhea

Heavily polluted Tijuana River drives regional air quality crisis Industrial chemicals and untreated sewage have polluted the Tijuana River for decades, recently causing >1300 consecutive days of California beach closures. In summer 2024, wastewater flows surged to ...

Water pollution doesn't necessarily stay in the water, and downwind communities suffer. Proud to have been a part of this study led by Ben Rico and the Prather team at UCSD, and hoping for some effective action to clean things up soon.

@kprather.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

States Go Their Own (and Contradictory) Ways on Vaccine Policy

Horrific & stupid. Polio will come back to Florida.

By the way, everyone should just follow WHO guidance on vaccines. They are there (despite recent funding losses as America leaves the chat) to guide everyone, including folks in fragile states or in other places that lack competent leadership.

In a Lab, the Hunt for a Killer: The Legionella Germ Causing an Outbreak

This is the sort of work this administration is halting with their ridiculous, backward policies.

Public health scientists solve important problems and help people.

Kennedy Sought to Fire C.D.C. Director Over Vaccine Policy

These monsters are undoing decades of progress. We will all be sicker. More people will die. Needless suffering brought on my willful ignorance, grievance, spite, & cruelty.

I have no words to describe how distressing this all is. There is just no point.

Never let the pigeon drive the bus.

They objected to a propsed change to the vax schedule

The Unseen Dangers of Floodwaters

Just assume flood water has poo in it, because it universally does, though human versus animal & the amounts differ a lot. But any flood water carries exposure risks.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/w...

A Miles-Long Cave in Kentucky Was a Smelly Disaster. Now It’s Spectacular.

Today on the sanitation beat: cave remediation

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/c...

New Malaria Case Prompts Testing of Mosquitoes in New Jersey A Morris County resident may have contracted the illness locally, which would be the first known instance in decades of someone being exposed while in the state.

New Jersey scientists are testing mosquitoes after a resident may have contracted malaria locally, which health officials said would be the first known instance in decades of someone being exposed while in the state.

Excellent points! And the number 51 is my favorite example of a number that seems like it should be a prime but isn’t 😃

One of the students in my wife’s 3rd grade math class is headed for disappointment

Clear victory on the field of battle

These Majestic Seabirds Never Stop Pooping

Today on the sanitation beat: near constant shitting

Birds have to top the list of daily defecation by body mass, as observers of Canada geese & chickens will attest. But some clearly top the league tables.

"Streaked shearwaters ... [shed] about 5 percent of their body mass every hour."

The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry Founded in 1933 near Asheville, North Carolina, Black Mountain College fostered experimentation and interdisciplinary learning, placing the arts at the heart...

I’m not assigning this one - I teach in the UNC Department of Environmental Sciences & Engineering - but this is a fantastic collection, & not just for the name-brand authors like John Cage & Bucky Fuller. Plenty of folks I had never heard of, truly a delight to read!

Well done!

A hero sandwich

World’s swankiest manhole covers? A thrilling tour of the new embankments concealing London’s £4.6bn super sewer Built to tackle 18m tonnes of rising excrement, the Tideway project has also generated dramatic new public spaces dotted with giant artworks. Our writer takes the ‘stink tower’ tour of the capital

Today on the sanitation beat: sanitation as public art:

"You don’t want to scream ‘sewer pipe’ at people"

Actually yes, yes I do!

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

On the plus side, we finally have bullet trains?

Back to real life from time away pondering the universe. Night sky in Idaho's Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness.

Inside the ‘Radical Transformation’ of America’s Environmental Role

I am getting the sense that the people running the government oppose everything I have ever worked for

Or, more generously, they fundamentally misunderstand & therefore do not appreciate the importance of environmental quality & public health, & so don’t care

I don’t understand this

Every rebuttal letter