Melissa Baker

I was about to complain that El Paso is supposed to get up to 90 degrees on Sunday but then I saw a place in south Texas reached 106 yesterday so, never mind. I’ll be at the pool this weekend with my mouth shut.

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

Before anyone asks, it wasn’t just a tool to structure the review or anything like that. One of the three things it immediately suggested I ask is about the claims in the manuscript.

After accepting a review request a journal provided information about how I would be part of a pilot to using AI for peer review. I feel like we have all seriously lost the plot. Anyway, I withdrew from being a reviewer for the first time today.

Wondering how long I should avoid my Canadian & hockey fan neighbor now that Canada has lost to the US women’s and men’s hockey teams 😂

Psychologist friend: did you know students don’t know or comprehend what US politics was like pre-2016

Me, a political scientist: oh you don’t say

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

There’s definitely a think piece to be written about how it’s almost exclusively white men who think a “hyper-personalized experience” is desirable and a good marketing technique

🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):

We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.

Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.

w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social

URL: osf.io/preprints/os...

Gallup is going to stop polling on presidential approval after 88 years. Wow.

thehill.com/homenews/med...

A major metropolitan area went into full panic for hours but at least two government agencies got to enter a game of chicken over who has more authority and they shot down a *party balloon* earlier this week.

Unreal.

The fact the answer seems to be that the DoD was using technology that put civilian planes at risk & the FAA was tired of asking nicely/begging for communication so they shut it down so DoD would listen… 😵‍💫

I miss precedented times.

Oh wow. Well, good! If mass panic in El Paso was the goal, mission accomplished based on my group chats haha.

El Paso resident here who would love to know the answer to this question. 10 day closure is wild.

It is out! We find that linked fate (or lack thereof) helps explain 2024 Trump support in young Latinos. @mattlamb.bsky.social @landgravephd.bsky.social spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hooooooboy

AI Completely Failing to Boost Productivity, Says Top Analyst AI may or may not excel at a lot of things, but from an economic standpoint, it's definitely not making us more productive.

For coding tasks, one of AI’s most widely hyped applications, another study showed that programmers who used AI coding tools actually became slower at their jobs.

Cases of workplace deployment of AI have suggested that the tech is far from being ready for primetime.

futurism.com/artificial-i...

Drug companies: Yall are beautiful & live wonderful fulfilling lives, would you like a confidence boost too?

US Gov: Listen up you fat fucks, have you incompetent morons ever heard of an APPLE???

Blue banner with the text "Politics and the Life Sciences" in white, and "#OpenAccess" below in black.

#OpenAccess from Politics and the Life Sciences -

Conspiracy thinking in American politics - https://cup.org/4aBsTwW

- @davinphoenix.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @davidakaye.bsky.social, @laurennross.bsky.social et al

#FirstView

Adding in the part of giving the little kid the Grammy was 🤌

My dog watched the entire puppy bowl and is now passed out like she was there playing.

I've discovered a new superior Olympics watching location: An airport next to several gates that have upcoming international flights.

It was a lot of fun giving a talk at Illinois yesterday! Lots of great feedback, fun research convos, and time with solid people. & who knew that Champaign has a Chinese restaurant good enough to get a write up in the NYT!

Thanks! I’m glad we got time to chat!!

I know none of this is new or surprising these days but it is wild that at one point during my life, misspelling potato or excitedly yelling into a microphone ruined political career progression but this is the president now & nobody seems to expect even elite pushback over this post.

Airport therapy dog is tired of how much of a mess 2026 is and how much support everyone needs from him

A friend recently asked if I saw some story about a high profile academic being in the files. I hadn’t but apparently I didn’t look surprised at all. He thought I knew about the specific person & I had to explain that after the last 10 years it just wasn’t surprising that academics are in there.

My claim to fame in that scene is that her & I had a like 20 min convo at a show when we were both teenagers haha

i mean, how cool is this