Travis Seaborn

Landscape Genetics DGS Landscape Genetics - Distributed Graduate Seminar The Landscape Genetics Distributed Graduate Seminar (DGS) is an international collaboration that provides a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary ...

One of my favorite things as a graduate student and now as a faculty is the Landscape Genetics Distributed Graduate Seminar. Happy to answer questions.

Please see course website for more info if you are an individual or group interested in joining us this spring:
sites.google.com/site/landsca...

Folks whose jobs, postdocs or grad school fellowships or applications were cut short--drop them a line

The reviewer crisis: data from the journal Biological Invasions:

"Reviewer acceptance rates dropped steadily over the past two decades. Early-career researchers had the highest acceptance rates, while senior scholars were least likely to accept review invitations."
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🚨 Breaking News | MIT has rejected the Trump admin’s proposal to sign on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would mandate sweeping changes across campus in exchange for preferential treatment on federal funding.

Read the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/4h5dQgM

Stop treating code like an afterthought: record, share and value it Scientists, research institutions, funders, libraries and publishers must all improve software practices.

This:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Absolutely yes. And I'm proud that @asn-amnat.bsky.social has led the way on this with requiring code and data editors checking code for about five years now!

Oh cool, he’s singling out random academics now to send targeted harassment this way! Can we stop doing this with our hands tied behind our back and actually try to push him out now

This is the genius of the Portland protests - they make the claims of lawlessness look not just wrong, but comical

Just because an LLM can produce a report with various figures & charts doesn't mean it is good at statistics.

Because good statistics is not about producing code.

It's about deep knowledge of study design & conduct. In my opinion, 95% of all data science problems come from poor questions & design.

RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

N.J. professor says he’s moving to Europe after death threats over antifa research Mark Bray said right-wing influencers have been targeting him on social media. Turning Point USA wants him fired.

Read of the day: “Turning Point USA is targeting a Rutgers faculty member for doing his job — in this case, researching the history of postwar anti-fascist movements and writing about them,” [Rutgers AAUP-AFT President] Givan said. https://loom.ly/1rQW_J8

periodic reminder that if you write stuff that's published on the web for a publication you yourself do not own, PDF that shit as soon as it goes live

Scientists Completed a Toxicity Report on This Forever Chemical. The EPA Hasn’t Released It. Agency scientists found that PFNA could cause developmental, liver and reproductive harms. Their final report was ready in mid-April, according to an internal document reviewed by ProPublica, but the ...

It looks like Trump's EPA is stonewalling the release of a major scientific report on the health effects of "forever chemicals" in our drinking water.

www.propublica.org/article/epa-...

Whimsical photo of a karure | kakaruia | Chatham Island black robin courtesy of Kevin Parker. Features as a wee black bird with four leg bands: white over orange on the left leg and red over white on the right leg. Sneaky tufts of feathers peak out from otherwise borb-like body, encouraged by the unseen wind.

What are the ‘social dimensions’ of moving species for conservation and why does engaging with them matter?

This is the focus of our new paper doi.org/10.1016/j.tr... published in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social olevo.bsky.social led by ever talented @aisrayne.bsky.social

📷 Kevin Parker

The American Fisheries Society extends our support to the furloughed fisheries and aquatics professionals affected by the U.S. federal government shutdown. Read our full statement on the shutdown and its impacts on natural resources here fisheries.org/2025/10/afs-...

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Text of the fourth amendment “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Just posting this. Everyone knows why.

Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference

This is extortion. Faculty, students, staff, alumni across the country need to get to their Presidents & Trustees today. Just say no. This blackmail only works if most everyone folds. Capitulation now means the end of American higher education for a generation. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

AAUP-HARVARD, AAUP, & UAW WON THE HARVARD CASE!!!!

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Main Topic: Dozens of Scientists Find Errors in a New Energy Department Climate Report via @npr.org
On The Extreme Temperature Diary WED 9/03/2025
At: guyonclimate.com
+#climate #weather + record temp reports via
@extremetemps.bsky.social/ @michaelemann.bsky.social
@katharinehayhoe.com

🚨 Breaking News | Judge Rules Harvard Funding Freeze Illegal

A federal judge said the Trump administration violated the institution's First Amendment rights when it froze billions of dollars in research grants. https://bit.ly/42bh3oH

#EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

FDA quietly positions itself to disrupt childhood vaccine schedule While CDC turmoil grabbed the media spotlight, a quieter but potentially more consequential drama unfolded last week at FDA. The agency has positioned itse...

Vinay Prasad, a former adult oncologist, has moved to disrupt the childhood vaccine schedule by asserting - against all evidence - that administering multiple vaccines at the same time “could blunt their efficacy.” The added burden/delay of separating shots would sharply reduce US vaccination rates.

Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

An extraordinary joint op-ed and plea by NINE former directors or acting directors of the CDC under both Democratic and Republican administrations, succinctly describing undermining of public health, and what’s needed now.
(gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Scientists Are Caught in a Political Trap Fighting back against the Trump administration means they start to look more like activists.

Insisting on expertise over ideology is not “politicizing” science. The ideologues installing scientific and governmental policy that is contradicted by evidence and data are.

By emphasizing ideology over expertise, THEY have made arguing for expertise and evidence-based decision making partisan.

The Practice and Assessment of Science: Five Foundational Flaws in the Department of Energy's 2025 Climate Report Adopted by the Executive Committee of the AMS Council on 27 August 2025

Here is the official statement from the American Meteorological Society on the "foundational flaws" of the Department of Energy’s recent attempt to deny the reality of #climate change.

www.ametsoc.org/ams/about-am...

“Daskalakis went on to say that Kennedy… had never taken a briefing by a CDC subject matter expert from his center” [vax and respiratory disease]

It’s a hard reality to see all of the NSF & USDA climate education funding vaporize. My sense of how to collaborate & move work forward has shifted tremendously. Definitely feeling some anchoring in the student energy, work, & community right at home.

For the eleventy billionth time:

Attacks on science funding and science jobs in the United States don’t mean that science will just move elsewhere.

It means a lot less science for everyone.

There aren’t enough jobs or funding everywhere else )combined) for US scientists to just move.

National Guard troops deployed in D.C. add sanitation, landscaping duties Service members say they’re glad to help the National Park Service. But some question if trash removal and groundskeeping are an appropriate use of the military.

"work like this falls to the National Park Service, which was already facing staffing shortfalls when the Trump administration this spring directed additional cuts ... The service used to have 200 people assigned to maintain thousands of acres of trees and gardens in D.C., and now there are 20"

Some FEMA staff are put on leave after signing dissent letter More than 180 current and former FEMA employees signed the letter sent to the FEMA Review Council and Congress warning that FEMA's capacity to respond to a major disaster was dangerously diminished.

This week FEMA staff raised legitimate concerns about the agency's ability to effectively respond to extreme weather events. The Trump administration responded by punishing the messengers instead of better preparing for the next climate disaster. www.npr.org/2025/08/27/n...

Yesterday we had a “using AI” workshop in faculty retreat - one exercise was to upload PDFs and let it make a little podcast about the info. It defaulted to a man and woman talking and apparently it is normal that the male rattles off the facts while the woman goes “oh gosh that’s interesting” 🙄