The 2026 Science Communication Awards are now open from our friends at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in partnership with Schmidt Sciences!
These awards recognize exceptional science journalists, communicators, and researchers.
buff.ly/YudkNX5 #SciComm
What exactly does “all lawful use” of AI mean? No one knows.
“Lawful” is a legal floor that will look increasingly shaky as AI capabilities advance. It doesn’t answer whether we have adequate civil liberties guardrails or technical safety standards in place.
Our statement: fas.org/publication/...
Premium Newsletter: The massive, 16.5k word Hater's Guide To Private Equity (and Private Credit).
With $3.7trn of companies it can't sell, PE is investing insurance premiums and retirements in unprofitable data centers and creating the next financial crisis.
www.wheresyoured.at/hatersguide-pe/
Private equity has yet to be punished by its limited partners and banks for investing in zombie assets, allowing it to pile into the unprofitable data centers underpinning the AI bubble, meaning that companies like Apollo, Blue Owl and Blackstone — all of whom participated in the ugly $10.2 billion acquisition of Zendesk in 2022 (after it rejected another PE offer of $17 billion in 2021) that included $5 billion in debt — have all become heavily-leveraged in giant, ugly debt deals covering assets that are obsolete to useless in a few years. Alongside the fumbling ignorance of private equity sits the $3 trillion private credit industry, an equally-putrid, growth-drunk, and poorly-informed industry run with the same lax attention to detail and Big Brain Number Models that can justify just about any investment they want. Their half-assed due diligence led to billions of dollars of loans being given to outright frauds like First Brands, Tricolor and PosiGen, and, to paraphrase JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, there are absolutely more fraudulent cockroaches waiting to emerge. You may wonder why this matters, as all of this is private credit. Well, they get their money from banks. Big banks. In fact, according to the Federal Reserve of Boston, about 14% ($300 billion) of large banks’ total loan commitments to non-banking financial institutions in 2023 went to private equity and private credit, with Moody’s pegging the number around $285 billion, with an additional $340 billion in unused-yet-committed cash waiting in the wings. Oh, and they get their money from you. Pension funds are among some of the biggest backers of private credit companies, with the New York City Employees Retirement System and CalPERS increasing their investments.
You shouldn't feel sorry for private equity - they deserve the pain to come - but you should care about what happens because private equity (and private credit) gets a huge chunk of its capital from retirement funds and life insurance policies.
www.wheresyoured.at/hatersguide-pe/
Sharing some taxpayer information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement amounted to the IRS breaking federal law “approximately 42,695 times,” a federal judge said in a court filing Thursday. via @mattbracken.bsky.social fedscoop.com/irs-broke-la...
27.02.2026 21:35 — 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Most AI assistants are feminine – and it’s fuelling dangerous stereotypes and abuse
theconversation.com/most-ai-assi...
Former directors and scientists rally to save US atmospheric research centre (my take: I'm generally for anything deemed 'climate alarmist' given, you know, reality) www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-usa-...
19.02.2026 15:59 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
poster reads "bureaucracy as social hope: an argument for renewing the administrative state" from the Federation of American Scientists
hey @ezraklein.bsky.social Center for Regulatory Ingenuity from @scientistsorg.bsky.social launched last week, more here: fas.org/publication/...
17.02.2026 19:40 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
As I say here, there is no scientific justification to revoke the engagement finding. In fact, over the last 15+ yrs, the evidence of how climate change affects our health has only grown. Higher risk of allergies, dementia, fertility, heart disease, and death: that’s what’s on the line. @nature.org
12.02.2026 21:44 — 👍 1406 🔁 649 💬 33 📌 14
"FAS [ @scientistsorg.bsky.social ] is starting the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity, which the group says will create "high-trust environments to brainstorm and refine the big ideas that will breathe new life into government" while building a "network of networks" to help implement those ideas."
12.02.2026 14:37 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0ewwwww!!!
09.02.2026 21:52 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
1/ The Trump administration's speech at the Conference on Disarmament accuses China of having conducted experiments to hide very low yield nuclear explosions and also made plans for bigger ones (less than 1 kiloton) not yet detonated. geneva.usmission.gov/2026/02/06/u...
06.02.2026 17:10 — 👍 13 🔁 7 💬 2 📌 2lovely work! and such a nice profile too
05.02.2026 14:56 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
My Lino block portrait of Agnes Pockels holding her pen and notebook by her trough (which was 70 cm by 5 cm and 2 cm deep, with a ruler along its length and a sliding divider). There is a button attached to an apothecary scale in the through so she can measure surface tension. She has her hair up and wears a dress and a cross on a necklace. She is surrounded by soap bubbles and you can see text in reverse for the Pockels point, 20 angstroms squared. She is in a gradient of dark forest green to lime from the base of the print upwards. The text, bubbles, and swirling patterns in the soap film in the front of her through are in pale pinkish purple.
For #printerSolstice2526 prompt division here is my #linocut portrait of Agnes Pockels (1862-1935), the self-taught scientist who pioneered surface science. 🧪🐡👩🏼🔬 #histsci
As a woman she did not get the chance to go to university & study physics like her theoretical physicist brother Friedrich, 🧵
"If everyone's a writer, then nobody's a writer, and I think it's very evident right now"
www.businessinsider.com/hottest-job-...
"Without any kind of bilateral strategic arms control between these two nuclear superpowers, we're entering terrain that we have not been in several decades," @mattkorda.bsky.social tells Newsweek
03.02.2026 19:07 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Recent college & grad school alumni:
Work for 6 to 9 months with 1 of over 2 dozen NGOs in DC on international peace & security issues, including nuclear arms control, peacebuilding, & diplomacy. Apply by Feb. 27 to @scovillepf.bsky.social for the fall '26 semester. scoville.org
"The expiration of New Start is not really about New Start. It is about a broader pattern of mistrust and disinterest in arms control in general," @mattkorda.bsky.social tells @financialtimes.com
www.ft.com/content/fd1d...
Placing AI in the role of “decision maker” when it comes to whether or not to launch a nuclear weapon should stay science fiction.
Join us on February 10 from 6-8 pm for our AI x Nuclear Weapons reception in partnership with @futureoflife.org
🔗 luma.com/ecpzdn2x
Come join the team that keeps our region moving. We’re hiring key positions!
➡️Assistant Project Manager | careers.wmata.com/psc/careers/...
➡️Director of Special Projects | careers.wmata.com/psc/careers/...
➡️Senior Realty Specialist | careers.wmata.com/psc/careers/...
wmata.com/Careers
oh good thing I can put down the go bag www.404media.co/exposed-molt...
02.02.2026 15:03 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
In response to a weakened US labor market, the American Chemical Society has been stepping up to help members find new jobs. cen.acs.org/acs-news/Dem... #chemsky 🧪
30.01.2026 21:51 — 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1#journalists - Expert briefing on future of US-Russia nuclear arms control as 💣 New START expires, including @scientistsorg.bsky.social's @mattkorda.bsky.social Wed, Feb 4, from 9-10am ET. Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
29.01.2026 18:46 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Democratic Senators are united in fighting Trump policies that led to the killings in Minneapolis—including nearly all who opposed the last shutdown. Why? Because they see that Trump is destroying our constitutional order. He’s engineering regime change.
My column
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/o...
Murphy on Bovino: "That was a bone-chilling interview. I was shaking while I was listening to it, in large part bc it takes just an unbelievable amount of gall to lie to the American public. Everybody saw that video ... it should freak the public out that the Trump administration lies this easily"
25.01.2026 14:36 — 👍 9894 🔁 3056 💬 313 📌 121
Congress is not powerless. Democrats must unify around an actual agenda.
1. Vote no on DHS funding bill.
2. Repeal the multi-year $75 billion funding for ICE.
3. End qualified immunity for ICE agents.
4. Investigate and prosecute every single ICE agent who broke the law.
Ward 7 DC survey is open - questions about traffic & parking, nothing on public transit, cycling or pedestrians: www.congressheightsontherise.com/blog/ward-7-...
22.01.2026 17:39 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0US states should pass policy that clarifies this issue before it comes to a head. Otherwise gas utilities and their major investors will lobby to make people pay exit fees when they get off gas, potentially killing the economics of electrification.
22.01.2026 13:43 — 👍 48 🔁 14 💬 2 📌 0
Good morning with good news: Wind & solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels in EU (27 countries) for first time ever in 2025! Solar rose 20%
W&S produced 30% of EU's electricity in 2025, up from 20% in 2020.
Coal fell to record low of 9.2%!
ember-energy.org/latest-insig... #energysky
Next week, join FAS and @eesionline.org for this season’s hottest briefing on emerging solutions to tackle the wildfire crisis, and the federal policy strategies for getting these solutions into the field.
Register for in-person or livestream ➡️ www.eesi.org/briefings/vi...
