Anna Sharman

4-panel comic: Astronomers asking researchers from different departments to help them identify the “little red dots” in JWST images: (1) Entomologists [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 2 with shoulder-length hair.] PERSON 2: Clover mites. (2) Computer Scientists [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 3 with beanie.] PERSON 3: Stuck pixels. (3) Dermatologists [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 4 with ponytail.] PERSON 4: Cherry angiomas. (4) Graphic designers [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 5 with short hair.] PERSON 5: No, those are vermillion, or maybe jasper. Can I see your color settings?

Little Red Dots

xkcd.com/3212/

Great article. Another issue I've seen among friends is an unwillingness to treat themselves (e.g. going on holiday) because they believe that they should minimise their own impact. The ascetic approach is no good for long-term mental health.

"“The sector was never designed with the well-being of the workforce in mind,” Mohan says, noting that many conservation leaders, often from a scientific background, haven’t had training in how to run an organization or how to help maintain staff well-being."

Webinar Today!
Negotiating Your First Group Leader Position

Join us today to hear from three group leaders — including a co-author of a BMC Proceedings article on this topic — about their experiences and practical tips for negotiating your first group leader role.

👉 www.embl.org/about/info/e...

Are AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research? Despite didactic, ethical, and environmental concerns, the use of GenAI is on the rise in academia. For most applications, the jury is still out on whether and how they will benefit education and rese...

This is one of the most reasoned & persuasive arguments for not allowing LLMs anywhere near reading & writing intensive classrooms. We can 100% choose not to outsource our reading & writing labor to a bot, and model for our students why they should do the same. #EduSky

www.tue.nl/en/our-unive...

ChatGPT training data is 93% English language says Nikesh Gosalia. Is AI democratising access to scholarly publishing or encoding colonialism at scale? The evidence suggests we are heading down a dangerous path #R2RConf

Our AI only "sees" Western, English speakers. 93% of training data for #GPT is in English. Is AI democratizing access to scholcomm OR encoding colonialism at scale. (SR NOTE: TLDR - my vote is the latter).

#NikeshGosalia #R2RConf

"Everyone deserves to be seen" re: AI.
Commerce or equity? Efficiency or justice?

AI that only works for 20% of researchers is NOT neutral. You have choices around HOW you use it. How YOU use it matters: #NikeshGosalia #R2RConf

A brilliant presentation by @nikeshgo.bsky.social from @cactusglobal.bsky.social #r2rconf
Outlining the many ways in which AI amplifies the biases built into scholarly publishing.

This is not a metaphor for #colonialism. It is colonialism. #NikeshGosalia #R2RConf And every minute it gets worse. Compounding with each new training instance. AI is being optimized for specific user base. Non-english speakers not "seen" in these tools.
#academicsky #AI #sciencesky

Solutions from @nikeshgo.bsky.social #r2rconf.

The “Shirley Card” Legacy: Artists Correcting for Photography’s Racial Bias | National Gallery of Art Whiteness has been the default in color photographs, but artists like John Akomfrah work toward a “uniquely Black image.”

#NikeshGosalia kicking off #R2RConf session on #AI impact on global south - fascinating story of "Shirley cards" used by Kodak to calibrate for color of their printers. They KNEW the whole time that it didn't work on brown/black ppl. Techonly changed when chocolate makers didn't like how it looked.

Designed for Someone Else’s Life: Balancing Academic Careers with Caregiving Responsibilities - The Scholarly Kitchen Most people in academic careers will at some point be faced with parenting and/or caregiving responsibilities. But is academia designed to support caregivers and parents?

Care work doesn’t wait.
Parenting. School calendars. Aging parents.
It doesn’t replace work.
It runs in parallel.
And yet academia is designed for uninterrupted lives

Read more about this in my latest post on @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social blog

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/09/d...

Standing Up by Stepping Down - The Scholarly Kitchen Today's post discusses the impact and intention of DEIA advocacy and the value of taking a pause as an act of resistance and self-preservation.

Standing Up by Stepping Down scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/02/25/s...

Placements for PhD Students We welcome PhD placement students to learn from our experts and make real contributions to our work at Kew Gardens in London or Wakehurst in Sussex.

Are you a PhD student looking for a placement? I’m offering a 3-month project at @rbgkew.bsky.social to build on @forest-protection.bsky.social research on pest and pathogen risks to trees 🪲🪾🦠🪾 Apply by 13th March! www.kew.org/science/training-and-education/placements-for-phd-students

Oh dear me. Having found nothing, they pin hope on a result that is significant “before adjusting for multiple comparisons”. People: this adjustment is not optional. It’s clear nobody will ever give up on this quest.

Deer shooting to be facilitated in England to protect woodlands Government plans legislation giving landowners and tenants rights to cull deer to protect crops and property

To help protect nature, all publicly owned or managed land in England will now have deer management plans within 10 years, and landowners will be paid to shoot deer, both in and out of woodlands.

Food for thought re Ireland's surging deer numbers crisis too?
share.google/yT1kZOQG0UgV...

Thanks to @shaunoboyle.bsky.social for this very helpful resource when preparing prideinstem.org/2024/11/18/t...
Also check out @schoolsoutuk.bsky.social for more info on #LGBTHistoryMonth #LGBTPlusHM

A conical flask busting with a progress flag design. Art work by Dr Robin Hayward

Why were people obsessed with Nikola Tesla’s (lack of) sex life?
What happened when work took me to a country where being gay can mean life imprisonment?
Why did a queer astronaut take that secret to her grave?

Some of the many Qs I covered in my #LGBTHistoryMonth talk to @aktcharity.bsky.social

"Coffee-harming heat"!

Even the most virulent climate skeptic might start caring if the beans stop flowing...

when i posted this three days ago i was hoping it would catch and i'd get to hear a buncha people share their special interest info and it got a decent response

it randomly caught today and i am so. so. happy.

i miss being in school and i love getting to just genuinely share knowledge. so. thanks💜

Important article for anyone hiring academics or researchers

🎉 Today is Darwin’s birthday! This is an actual wild tomato plant that he collected, over 180 years ago! 🍅

We have millions of specimens like these in our collection, but did you know you can now see them on our new Data Portal, for free!? 👇
👉 https://ow.ly/2ZuW50YcG4Z

#DarwinDay

The collections at @nhm-london.bsky.social are full of glorious specimens esp the Flies. But they also come with lots of extra information

Roger Crosskey wrote down his feelings 50 years ago about this species complex - his frustration evident

@dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Photo of houses of parliament and Big Ben clock tower. EDICa logo. A crudely made icon of the Employment Rights Bill with King's signature and seal. BSL available

The new #EmploymentRightsBill is requiring organisations over 250 employees to have a "Menopause Action Plan". EDICa's consulting with government advocating this covers #MenstrualHealth more widely.
We're hosting workshops on what would an Action Plan look like.
edicaucus.ac.uk/impact#menst...
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Gritter tracker | Traffic Scotland Traffic Scotland gives you the real-time information you need about Scotland’s trunk road network

Here's some inspiration from Scotland www.traffic.gov.scot/gritter-trac...

Equity, Ethics, and genAI in Academia Generative AI tools are openly accessible, increasingly normalised, and mostly inequitable. They’re a great example of a marketing success benefiting a specific industry that has quickly ignited a …

We all have opinions about using genAI, but what happens when our collaborators, students or stakeholders hold different views? I've already run into several of the challenges @manusaunders.bsky.social identifies here.

"...open science behaviors function as honest signals of a researcher’s willingness to expose their work to scrutiny. As with honest signalling in biological systems, the value lies ... in that these behaviors are sufficiently costly ... that they are disproportionately avoided by [bad] actors"

Is academia a job, career, or calling? Yes, yes, and yes. The answer is not defined by the role, it is defined by the person in the role.

It is perfectly acceptable to decide it is any of these for one's interests and well-being, and to live and work accordingly.

Is academia just a job?

We assigned this paper in our professional development seminar last week and it was quite popular.

My view: I grew up in a working class family and no one I knew considered their job "a calling". I also had a bunch of jobs that felt, well, like jobs.