Kristina Killgrove

'We do not know of a similar case': 4,000-year-old burial in little-known African kingdom mystifies archaeologists Remains of what was likely a funeral feast were discovered in a 4,000-year-old jug in Africa.

A burial in Sudan has given archaeologists the first evidence of ancient funeral rituals in the area. 🏺🧪

30 Under 30 Science 2026: New Discoveries From The Cosmos To The Nanoscale These young scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are working to build a better world at every scale imaginable.

Always happy every year to announce the new group of scientists and entrepreneurs who make up our 30 Under 30 list for Science. This year's list has more startup founders than ever, which highlights how much more activity is happening right now in deep tech.

www.forbes.com/sites/alexkn...

The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine (Gift Article) A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.

An important write up from the NYT on the funding changes at the NIH.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Slop graphics in academic journals Use this form to share graphics (e.g., figures, covers, graphical abstracts) made using generative A.I. that have appeared in academic journals. The plan is to compile these slop graphics in an ope...

If you run across a gen A.I. slop 🤖💩 diagram in an academic journal, I’d love to know about it! Please fill out this form:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Slop in journals is illuminating about journals’ quality control. And journals would like you to forget their mistakes.

#AcademicChatter

“AI is clearly sticking around so you have to get used to it” wrong. I don’t have to get used to shit. I am a practiced hater and I can keep this going for decades if I am required to

Your AI-generated image of a cat riding a banana exists because of children clawing through the dirt for toxic elements. Is it really worth it? LLMs like Chat GPT come with major social costs — including child labor — that we can't ignore. Do we really need progress that's built on the suffering of others?

“LLMs like Chat GPT come with major social costs — including child labor — that we can't ignore. Do we really need progress that's built on the suffering of others?” 🧪

RFK Jr.’s new CDC deputy director prefers “natural immunity” over vaccines Ralph Abraham is “dangerous,” but somehow not the worst among those considered.

While he doesn’t support lifesaving vaccines, Ralph Abraham has endorsed the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the de-worming drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

I taught intro to anthro to many students like this over the years. Incurious, refusing to learn the material I was teaching, parroting religious/cultural talking points in a course on human diversity. I wrote feedback similar to this instructor many times.

This is absolutely chilling from OU.

OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:

Experts say strict new FDA protocol for vaccine approval is ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ Lead FDA vaccine regulator announced new approval process after claiming Covid vaccine had killed 10 children

I said a few days ago that RFK Jr. was advancing a stealth campaign to ban vaccination in the US.

That campaign is accelerating, & it ain't that stealthy.

I'll have more to say about this soon, but for now, just take this in: the US under RFK Jr.'s reign of error is about to kill a lot of kids. 1/

BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university

Full statement from NU below:

Weekly measles cases in the U.S. CDC data plotted by NBC News

The magnitude of the change over time is striking.
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town Does anyone *really* know their Factor Fexcectorn?

UPDATE: The publisher intends to retract the paper, but insists it went through two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers: nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the... by @jacksonwryan.com. No word on how they will make sure this sort of thing never happens again.

Meet the researcher aiming to halt use of ‘fundamentally flawed’ database linking IQ and nationality Rebecca Sear Rebecca Sear is on a mission to convince publishers to retract articles that use a database that purports to rank countries based on intelligence. To maintain the integrity of scientif…

. @rebeccasear.bsky.social is on a mission to get all studies using a database linking #IQ and race retracted. I spoke to her for @retractionwatch.com to find out more: retractionwatch.com/2025/11/25/m...

Who built a mysterious ancient city in western China? DNA recovered from people buried at the site reveals surprises

A massive study of ancient DNA from a Stone Age site China uncovers the roots of later Chinese states. @science.org

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a yellow wall Alt: a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a yellow wall

I cooked dinner tonight. Everything was done and hot at the exact same time: 6pm sharp. I have clearly won Thanksgiving.

A backyard with leaves and grass. A blowup Elf on a Shelf stands behind a blowup Santa that’s bending over forward.

*insert sickos meme*

(Seen on my neighborhood walk 🤣)

This is alarming, as @nature has one of the best statements on gen AI I’ve ever seen.

Here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Archaeology Fragments Quiz: Can you work out what these mysterious artifacts are? Break out your best magnifying glass to solve these visual archaeology puzzles.

Need a break from watching the parade or prepping another pie? Here’s a new kind of quiz for you — I’ve given you tiny closeups of famous artifacts. Can you figure out what they are? 🤠🏺🧪

FYI: law and science, political science, and sociology all still have DDRIG programs run outside of the NSF but funded by NSF. The rest of these programs unfortunately do not.

I run the political science DDRIG.

Ah, thanks! I couldn’t immediately find any SBE calls and of course couldn’t find anyone at NSF to talk to the evening before Thanksgiving.

Archaeology Fragments Quiz: Can you work out what these mysterious artifacts are? Break out your best magnifying glass to solve these visual archaeology puzzles.

Need a break from watching the parade or prepping another pie? Here’s a new kind of quiz for you — I’ve given you tiny closeups of famous artifacts. Can you figure out what they are? 🤠🏺🧪

The NSF social sciences program has funded some of the best research I’ve seen, especially at the PhD level. There really isn’t another country in the world with the equivalent funding capacity to fill this gap, and the damage from this choice will be felt for a long time.

It's a tiny amount of money ($25K, $12K when I was a student), but the consequences are huge. e.g., Years ago, this funding enabled me to conduct my PhD research, which ultimately informed the Supreme Court litigation that prohibited patents on human genes.

Talk about undone science.

Today's biggest science news: Doomed comet explodes | Comet 3I/ATLAS course alteration | Dark matter detected? Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025: Your daily feed of the biggest discoveries and breakthroughs making headlines.

NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research.

Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪

2,000-year-old gold ring holds clue about lavish cremation burial unearthed in France A lavish cremation tomb found in France may point to funeral rites for an adolescent boy.

One cool artifact is a possible bulla, which may mean the deceased is a young Roman boy. But there was also an intaglio ring with Greek letters, possibly spelling the deceased's surname. 🧪🏺

As far as I've seen, it's been quiet. Cara Ocobock posted on FB with text the NSF is sending in response to queries. It's a bit vague but suggests all SBE DDRIGs have been cancelled. There's also some vague text about future solicitations. 🤷‍♀️

It seems that DDRIGs are shut down for ALL of the SBE. Are there DDRIGs in other directorates? I did a quick search of the NSF website and can't find any DDRIGs that aren't archived.

Wait, did the NSF get rid of ALL ddrigs? I truly can't figure it out from their website.

Oooof. I funded my entire dissertation research project with this grant. Studied hundreds of ancient Roman skeletons and figured out which belonged to people who migrated to Ancient Rome. Other researchers are still citing this research (pub’d in 2010) and using my data to compare with their own. 🏺🧪