Carrie Muir

Image: A red mailbox in a snowbank with a purple background. Image reads: Make sure your gifts arrive in time! Holiday shipping deadlines. Standard December 12. Expedited December 14. Priority December 16. There is no deadline for gift cards. Our elves send those via email.

Shop last minute gifts before 12/17 and you're automatically entered to win a $250 gift card!! NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US only, 18+. Ends 12/17. See full rules: bit.ly/check2x

A large green frog with wide brown bands running down their back! They have very warty, rubbery looking skin and very stout legs! Their head is nearly a third the length of their body, and they have a very large mouth!

Our friend the Helmeted Water Toad is the only living species in family Calyptocephalellidae which technically makes them not a "true toad", but they share many toady characteristics! They are known to eat nearly any animal that fits in their very large mouth! (photo by Benjamin Gallardo)

I do love being able to send out "this meeting could be an e-mail, so it's going to be" cancellations.

I've been having the related radical meal of just rice cakes lately. Crunchy rice!

N-benzyl-N-methyldithiocarbamate (BMDC) combines with metals to produce antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Staphylococcus epidermidis | mSphere Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Staphylococcus epidermidis, are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in vulnerable populations, contributing to an escalating health and economic burden. Biofilms are an important reservoir that protects bacteria from immune clearance and antimicrobial agents. However, current strategies to effectively target MRSA biofilms are limited. This research describes a therapeutic approach that can disrupt biofilms in both MRSA and S. epidermidis, thereby enhancing bacterial clearance.

I am proud to share a new paper out of our lab. We showed that our antimicrobial works with copper and zinc to kill MRSA & Staph epi. It can function through mature biofilms they form and on multiple surfaces. This outstanding work was led by Yamil Sanchez-Rosario.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Oklahoma Technical College and Community Care College are the 10th and 11th higher ed institutions to receive major donations from MacKenzie Scott. A combined $16 million.

www.oklahoman.com/story/news/e...

thisaliennerd: chronic pain diagnoses are all like yeah. we don't know what this is or why it happens. we also dont' know how to treat it. good luck out there solider. girl-mercury: you got symptoms syndrome. yeah it's permanent. what is it? like... what, is it? well it's a thing where this set of symptoms usually comes in a variety twelve-pack, what do you want. symptoms syndrome. don't overuse the ibuprofen aralintheobsessive: you should probably also get checked out for Overlapping Symptoms Syndrome, they often come as a two-for-one kinda deal. what can we do if you've got that too? well we can tell you to exercise. it'll probably make some of the symptoms better but others worse. yeah, worse. it's all we've got so take it or leave it. slivergyrphonart: alright fine if you really want a recommendation, we can at least tell you to ignore all the advice your well-meaning friends and family give you. healthy people advice will make most of your symptoms worse. you need advice from other people with symptoms syndrome. lower your standards about peer review because actual data doesn't exist yet.

This is one of the best synopses of Symptoms Syndrome I've ever read 😭

Effectiveness of 2024–2025 COVID-19 Vaccines in Children... This report describes COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness among children ages 9 months to 17 years.

COVID-19 vaccines protect children from severe illness, a new report from (~checks notes~) CDC finds. Meanwhile, the administration no longer recommends COVID-19 shots for kids.

I want to add to Daniel's excellent points here bc I've been arguing against these uses of "AI" by historians for years. What's important is this, as ever: the tech isn't the central issue; the surrounding political & economic project of its deployment is. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Avoiding Tech Fatigue in the Classroom: ‘It’s All About Balance’ | NEA Too often, educators are asked to integrate technology into the classroom without support, training or boundaries.

This is maddening.

1. First, we hear from a man who "continues to explore the newest technologies in his sixth-grade science and math classroom, constantly learning and adapting new ways to mix technology with hands-on learning."

He's a "veteran teacher," so no excuses, all you old dogs!

Very much agreed that digitizing records is a potentially good use case for machine learning.

Very much do not think we should be using a for-profit company's AI tool to do it.

Thread:

So many progressive groups almost exclusively use Instagram for social media. If you have influence on any, PLEASE encourage them to post here more. Eventually Meta will kill their reach.

3 Questions for Learning Innovator and Scholar Robin DeRosa A conversation about transitions, scarcity and alternative academic careers.

An interview at @insidehighered.com with my now-former supervisor and always-forever friend @robinderosa.net about her job elimination, the situation at our school, and the sad state of higher ed generally:
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Not exaggerating even a little bit when I say it’s been at least fifteen years since sex workers and drag performers and sex educators first sounded the alarm on social media platform censorship

A digital painting of a wood duck male's head looking to the right. It's green feathers are interspersed with different blues and purples contrasting against the white forehead and chin stripes. The orange bill and eye stand out sharply.

I had a fun time working on this wood duck drake's head. There are so many different colours blended into the feathers and I wasn't sure they were all going to work together for a while there, but I'm happy with the final result. #Art #Birds #ArtAdventCalendar

„The paper has serious problems. Specifically, all the scientific process heavy lifting they should have got a human to do … they just used chatbots! I mean, they don’t seem to have written the text of the paper with a chatbot, I’ll give ’em that. But they did do the actual procedure with chatbots.“

Good morning. Today, Senate Republicans have one last opportunity to vote to save the ACA tax credits.

If they refuse, they are CHOOSING to let premiums more than double, and they would force millions of Americans to go uninsured.

Big Tech warned over AI 'delusional' outputs by US attorneys general Microsoft, Meta, Google and Apple were among the 13 companies that received a warning from a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, according to a letter from the state leaders, who said their c...

Earlier this week, 42 state attorneys general sent a warning letter to the major AI companies regarding the dangers and harms created by AI chatbots. It's as forceful an indictment of what's happening that I've found, so here's a short thread to walk you through the evidence they've compiled... 🧵

GitHub - Gorcenski/skeeter-deleter: A script for auto-deleting Bluesky posts A script for auto-deleting Bluesky posts. Contribute to Gorcenski/skeeter-deleter development by creating an account on GitHub.

With the news that the US wants to have five years of your social media history allow me to remind you of the tool I built to scrub your skeets

Trying to hold off on sleepy old bear mode until the quarter is over, but definitely identifying with it.

Read the whole thread, but this. this. this.

Five pointed aper stars made with origami and kirigami.

Five pointed aper stars made with origami and kirigami

Five pointed aper stars made with origami and kirigami

Five pointed aper stars made with origami and kirigami

Had a fun day working with several groups of middle school students. We folded and cut pentagons and stars using instructions from @paulakrieg.bsky.social. Revealed the mathematical geometry in the folds and shapes. #ITeachMath bookzoompa.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/p...

When this "AI" bubble pops, the men pretending they weren't pushing the hype, like "critics" whose position is "AGI is real but LLMs aren't the way," who were in eugenicist and "AI existential risk"🙄 circles, will get specials discussing what they saw coming, when its the women who told you so.

Big update: STRETCH GOAL!

You all blew us away by funding this campaign in the first 10 days! Thank you! We're increasing the goal to $7,500 to buy you even more to read this holiday season and in 2026!

Black-and-white photo of two long-haired kittens. One is white and ginger tabby, the other is a brown tuxedo tabby. They are sitting up on a brocade tablecloth looking adorably toward the camera. Text at the bottom reads “We is brothers”.

Little boys. 💕 Postcard from my collection, unsent, 1902.

A quarter of intertwined winter bonnet mushrooms grow from the decayed punk of a log in winter. The gray sky casts soft light over their translucent caps. All photos by me

Here are some nice mushrooms

Text matches post. Illustration of bag of groceries and Washington state EBT card. Photos of power outage and water over roadway. DSHS logo.

⚠️Flood alert! Did you lose food bought with food benefits because of recent flooding or a power outage? You can file a claim to replace those food benefits.

A photo of an empty classroom, taken from the back of the room, with a chair and desk combination most prominent in the center of the frame.

IU Prof Suspended for White Supremacy Graphic Returns to Class https://bit.ly/4ppBMia

The DHS Data Grab Is Putting US Citizens at Risk As the US government rapidly merges data from across agencies in service of draconian immigration policies, citizens increasingly risk being caught up as well.

As immigration raids have swept the country and the US government rapidly merges data from across federal agencies, it’s not just immigrants who have been kidnapped and detained. American citizens have also been caught up.