Jim Elser

New study led by @ellie-mackay.bsky.social shows how organic nutrient fractions can stimulate the growth of algae in rivers, and explores the predictability of this effect across the UK.

share.google/qKtTDE0BMOF1...

🧪🦠🏞

What Scientists Found When a Deep Sea Mining Company Invited Them In

Deep sea mining is very bad for deep sea ecosystems.

"The secret of Nazism in practice, as Mein Kampf states time and again, is to do the most outrageously secret things quite openly. The Nazi success with this practice has been so great that there is nothing they will not dare."
- Bella Fromm, Berlin, 3/20/1938

BREAKING: ‘This hurts’: UNL eliminates 4 programs despite faculty, student pleas The University of Nebraska-Lincoln eliminates the Earth and atmospheric sciences 8-0, educational administration 7-1, statistics 7-1, textiles, merchandising and fashion design 7-1 programs.

It's over.

Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut.

www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...

A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

😬 #climate #water

Didn't know this ASLO program included undergrads as well, what a cool opportunity for research abroad!

I can’t tell you how glad I am to be released from the disgrace of Temu ACIP.

I made a commitment to watch and comment on these proceedings. Not sure I’ll do it again.

In summary, ACIP is no longer a legitimate scientific body.

Every U.S. state needs to decouple their vaccine policy from ACIP.

ASLO is accepting applications from undergraduate students for the NSF funded 2026 Limnology and Oceanography Research Exchange and Mentoring Experience (#LOREX) program!

📅 Deadline: Jan 15, 2026
📍Orientation: May 12, 2026 in Montreal

🔗 Apply here: www.aslo.org/lorex/lorex-...

Corn’s clean-energy promise is clashing with its climate footprint • Wisconsin Examiner America’s obsession with corn has a steep price: The fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water.

Corn [relies] on heavy fertilizer use to sustain today’s high yields.

"But... America’s obsession with corn has a steep price: The fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water."

Ethanol consumes more than 40% of the U.S. corn crop

wisconsinexaminer.com/2025/12/03/c...

#GVerse #Veterans
US Citizen detained by ICE: Clearly it didn't matter that I was a citizen, a veteran, or identified who I was. They ignored everything I said. They just broke my window and dragged me out. I let them know I was a veteran, I wasn't doing anything wrong, just trying to get to work.

What was once the US National Nature Assessment is now the United by Nature Assessment. These reports are only as good as the feedback they receive - nominations for expert reviewers is now open!

See from above, water covers an off-ramp of highway 101 and a parking lot next to the highway and bikepath.

The Bay took over the highway during this morning's #KingTides in Marin.

Factory Farms in Iowa Generate 110 Billion Pounds of Manure Per Year. No One Tracks Where It’s Going. Manure management planning could prevent fertilizer pollution. But an antiquated system isn’t doing enough to track manure, a former state employee says.

This story really gets at the nitty gritty of why Iowa is overflowing with Confined Animal Feeding Operations: the regs just require pieces of paper to be filed, there is no monitoring and the fines if an operator is ever caught are ludicrous, all things that could be fixed easily (charging CAFOs).

We’ve launched a new website — redesigned to highlight our work as it happens.

Explore unified project pages; a new MyAcademies login that works across the entire site; and clearer ways to engage, volunteer, or donate.

Visit the new site: https://ow.ly/BRQY50XBY3R

Every state needs to completely decouple their vaccination policy from ACIP if they haven’t already done so.

This is no longer a credible scientific body.

Well thank goodness for all the upper level administrators in US higher ed for propping up demand and being the biggest uncritical AI cheerleaders then!

Why one tribe has declared the Colorado River a legal person A tribal nation has declared the Colorado River a legal person. An Indigenous leader says it reflects how her people have traditionally valued the river as a living part of them.

‘This river is alive.’ Why one tribe has declared the Colorado River a legal person www.latimes.com/environment/...

YouTube video by Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance Potential for Wastewater-derived Fertilizers to Meet US Agricultural Demand

What potential does recycling phosphorus from municipal wastewater treatment plants in the US have for meeting national fertilizer demand? Find out on Phosphorus Science Now!
youtu.be/OY-T5TRhTXI?...

Philadelphia seniors track air and water pollution to ‘leave a better world’ Members of the Senior Environment Corps wade into streams, peer through microscopes and teach kids how to identify aquatic critters.

The members of Philadelphia's Senior Environment Corps wade into streams, peered through microscopes and teach kids how to identify aquatic critters. (via @whyy.org)

This has happened several times before:
Aral Sea (a large inland lake)
Lake Amik, Turkey
Ulaan Lake, Mongolia
Lake Poopó, Bolivia
Lake Chad
Tulare Lake, California
etc

The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop? Amid concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration has abolished climate-friendly farming incentives

On king corn & its possible reincarnation as an aviation fuel: it “could prompt another 114m acres to be converted to 🌽 […].
“The result,” said University of Iowa professor and natural resources economist Silvia Secchi, “would be essentially to enshrine this dysfunctional system that we created.”

California strongly objects to Trump's plan to pump more delta water south The Trump administration plans to send more water to Central Valley farmlands. California is objecting, saying that poses multiple threats.

The Trump administration has outlined a plan to weaken protections for fish in the Delta and pump more water to Central Valley farmlands. State officials have objected, warning it would threaten fish and could reduce water deliveries to millions of Californians.
www.latimes.com/environment/...

"Captain Gains" on Capitol Hill Shang-Jin Wei & Yifan Zhou WORKING PAPER 34524 DOI 10.3386/w34524 ISSUE DATE November 2025 Using transaction-level data on US congressional stock trades, we find that lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension. Leaders' superior performance arises through two mechanisms. The political influence channel is reflected in higher returns when their party controls the chamber, sales of stocks preceding regulatory actions, and purchase of stocks whose firms receiving more government contracts and favorable party support on bills. The corporate access channel is reflected in stock trades that predict subsequent corporate news and greater returns on donor-owned or home-state firms.

令 1 1 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Year Figure 2: Estimated dynamic quasi-difference-in-differences coefficient, di, of equation(3), with vertical dashed lines representing 90 percent confidence intervals. The point estimate of the year in which the lawmaker became a congressional leader (Year 0) is normalized to zero. BHAR over the 250 days following each trade is the dependent variable and calculated using the Fama-French five-factor plus momentum as the benchmark model.

After becoming a congressional leader, a politician’s stock portfolio beats out those of peers by 47 (!!!) percentage points a year through trades timed around bills and firms that later get government contracts

www.nber.org/papers/w34524

via @florianederer.bsky.social

Go to Neues Museum to see this amazing Bronze Age artifact. Mind blowing.

Denver Celebrates 10,000 E-Bike Rebates Since its inception in April 2022, Denver has distributed over 10,000 electric bikes (e-bikes) to community members through its pioneering e-bike rebate program. As the first U.S. city to implement su...

since denver launched its e-bike rebate program - the have sold 10,000 e-bikes and reduced an estimated 1,000,000 car trips - replacing millions of VMTs and reducing air pollution

there are no climate silver bullets... but damn - e-bikes and e-cargo bikes are close

denvergov.org/Government/A...

Clean electricity is officially growing fast enough in China that the level of fossil generation is falling, even as overall demand rises. They've gotten over the hump.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is seeking suggestions for experts to serve on an independent ad hoc committee that will conduct a technical review of the draft United by Nature assessment [nas.us8.list-manage.com] report. United by Nature has asked the National Academies to conduct this review of the draft assessment. The United by Nature assessment aims to provide a holistic evaluation of U.S. lands, waters, wildlife, and the benefits they provide. The review committee will consist of approximately 12–16 volunteer experts with relevant expertise. Suggested individuals may also be considered as potential peer reviewers for future publications stemming from this effort. Individuals who have served as contributors to the United by Nature assessment—including authors, chapter leads, advisory board members, technical contributors, or members of the secretariat—are not eligible to participate on the review committee. We are seeking nominations with expertise in the following areas: Ecology or evolutionary biology Biodiversity, ecosystem services, and environmental change Agriculture Conservation-relevant biophysical sciences Climate adaptation and mitigation Environmental social science and human-nature interactions Science communication Please submit suggestions by December 15, 2025, at 11:59 PM ET.

@nationalacademies.org seeking experts by Dec 15 in
Ecology
Biodiversity, ecosys services, env change
Ag
Conservation biophysical sci
Climate adaptation & mitigation
Env social sci + human-nature interaction
SciComm
for a technical review of United by Nature
survey.alchemer.com/s3/8589587/R...

talking to reporters last night, Trump claimed of Hegseth's double tap strike that "I don't know anything about it," then moments later claimed "I don't who you're talking about" when asked his plan to pardon the former Honduran president