Federico Andrade-Rivas

The National Science Foundation’s entire budget is $10 billion.

Dear funding agencies,

I know we all want to discover the wonder drug that will cure the horrible diseases, but to do that, we need to invest in basic, unsexy, foundational research on how the systems work. Funding can’t all be drug development.

Sincerely,
Looking for basic research grants.

Are you passionate about solutions-based research to help address planetary health challenges?

The Planetary GeoHealth Lab may be the right place for you!
Looking for 1-2 graduate students

Interested? Please fill out this form: federicoandrade.github.io

Work less, be more productive?

Study in 6 countries found 4-day work week led to:
⬆️wellbeing
⬇️burnout
⬆️job satisfaction
Likely due to better sleep, improved work ability & less fatigue. This was compared to companies that stayed with 5-day work week.
#publichealth
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🤩

It is never helpful to remind one grieving of what they have not lost or of the fact that it could have been worse. We do not grieve what we have but what we do not have. We compare our loss to the good we had, not to the bad that never happened. The empty space is that — empty.

Once again, to inject some research into this conversation...although millionaires often threaten to move if taxed, that tends not to actually happen. The millionaire tax flight thing is a myth.

See book below ⤵️

www.sup.org/books/sociol...

This is a Hall of Fame reader comment on a very reactionary op-ed about Zohran Mamdani's victory that was published in my local paper today.

Advice to incoming interns:

Congratulations, the universe sent you this dog because you have been chosen. Joy awaits. 13/10

It’s weather like this when you really start to realize how many streets have zero trees. ☀️🥵

More funding for more trees! 🌳

😍

I challenge Sam Altman to climb K2 using an AI route shortener

There Were Still Old People When Life Expectancy Was 35. A demography myth that won't die

“Historically, no one lived past age 35”

"I’ve heard *so* many versions of this claim, including recently from a menopause doctor (implying menopause is not “natural” because noone lived long enough to go through it). Every time someone states this “fact,” a demographer loses a piece of their soul"

The first U.S. bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV—a refugee himself—is mobilizing priests to accompany migrants at immigration court on June 20.

(Via Christopher Hale)

The 'Millionaire Exodus' the UK Media Told You About Never Actually Happened The equivalent of 30 stories a day were published about an exodus of wealthy people that a new study finds was "non existent"

🔴The ‘Millionaire Exodus’ the UK Media Told You About Never Actually Happened

The equivalent of 30 stories a day were published about an exodus of wealthy people that a new study finds was “non existent”

bylinetimes.com/2025/06/10/t...

The politics of pronatalism and the two-child benefit cap - British Politics and Policy at LSE Nigel Farage supports the scraping the two-child benefit cap as a way of encouraging people to have more children. But pronatalist policies that offer a one-off "baby bonus" are not effective.

Another excellent piece from a demographer, this time Stuart Gietel-Basten, on how "pronatalism is a dead end"

"Without addressing the root causes of low fertility—inequality, instability, and the incompatibility of work and family life—top-down efforts to “encourage” childbearing will fail"

Ok, time for a short thread about this paper.

My sense over the past six months or so is that chain-of-thought prompting as used in e.g. ChatGPT o.3 improves substantially upon previous systems such as ChatGPT 4.o, at least for certain tasks.

But how revolutionary is it?

Here's a baby otter to start your week.

Tips For First-Time Hikers Don’t hike with anyone you’re not willing to eat.

Tips For First-Time Hikers
theonion.com/tips-fo...

I ran an experiment, simultaneously posting articles on Bluesky and X, and then testing to see how many people actually clicked and read them. The numbers on Bluesky are higher, both because the X algorithm downranks journalism, and because Bluesky attracts readers, not just shitposters.

Tweet from Elliot Rockart: I hate Ai so much. I spent five hours on a lab report. No outside help, didn't even use google. It wasn't even graded because turnitin software said it was "80% Ai". What the fuck does that mean and how do I appeal it?? I have literally never used Ai???

The AI industry is full of blatant lies, but the claim that we can reliably detect AI-generated writing is one of the worst. The idea that these pseudoscientific AI writing detectors are being used to justify punishing young people makes me incandescent with rage.

Gorgeous, devastating writing by @tessairini.bsky.social telling the story of one of my grad school heroes, Daniel Janzen, witness the disappearance of life he's spent his career studying.

A PhD position (initially 3 years) is available in our laboratory in the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), at the University of Tübingen (Germany). The position is available with an intended start date starting January 2026. Interested applicants should submit a single PDF comprising a motivation letter describing your research interests, an up-to-date CV, and the names and contact information for 2 references to timing.lab@zmbp.uni-tuebingen.de ideally before July 21st.

We're looking for a new PhD candidate to join the lab. Please share 🌱😄

Tip for PhD applicants reaching out to prospective advisors: Don’t use an LLM to write these emails. It’s not a great first impression to express your admiration for a recent paper the faculty member published if that paper does not exist.

📌

The bizarre story of when Australia went to war with emus—and lost A military campaign meant to rid Western Australia of crop-destroying emus ended in failure. But the surreal showdown highlighted the birds’ critical role in the country’s ecosystem and cultural ident...

Just sharing that this would make an amazing film and we need ⁦‪Taika Waititi‬⁩ to do it.

The bizarre story of when Australia went to war with emus—and lost

Carl Sagan speaking at MIT in 1987 on lowering our C02 emissions.

Apply these words to any technological problem our world faces today and it holds up.

Hats off to the MPPGA Class of 2025! 🎓"The problems are big but so are our learnings, so is our hope, and so is our responsibility.” #UBCGrad https://sppga.ubc.ca/news/hats-off-to-the-mppga-class-of-2025/