Elaine Ayers

Beautiful day at the Smith Botanical Garden - one of the best university gardens I’ve ever seen - looking at baby Amorphophallus plants, plotting away for an article.

Research Fellow at The University of Edinburgh Recruiting now: Research Fellow on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

Great 3-year STS post-doc at Edinburgh, closes 18 August
#sts

The constant onslaught of news is depressing, so here are some photos of Franklin in his favorite bandana in honor of just having completed the annual pet screening I have to do for my building that for some reason takes like, a full hour of incessant clicking.

Hormone-based gender-affirming care for patients under 19 discontinued at YNHH Yale New Haven Hospital will no longer provide gender-affirming medication treatments for patients under 19, after “monitoring” federal executive orders.

Heartbroken to see that Yale New Haven Hospital (where many of us go for care) has followed other institutions in discontinuing hormone-based gender affirming care for minors. Children will suffer - this is just so, so wrong.

yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/07...

Public Programme Project Curator - British Black Voices (Fixed Term) at University of Cambridge Check out jobs.ac.uk for opportunities in professional services, including Public Programme Project Curator - British Black Voices (Fixed Term). Apply today and learn more about the role.

Curatorial opportunity to work with Cambridge University Library on Black British Voices: Black British Collections. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOC683/p...

The Sea Slug Defying Biological Orthodoxy Symbiosis may be more important to evolution than scientists once thought.

I've got a chapter coming out soonish on the history, present + future of symbiotic relationships + classification in natural history collections - happy to see this piece showing, once again, that organisms aren't solitary "individuals." (Also love sea slugs)

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

This is very bad. Although entirely predictable. Once more the humanities are being cut back to prop up STEM and, increasingly, AI investment (including at the expense of bench science). In the past, cuts to humanities were promoted on two separate logic streams that do not hold true: /1

The First Planned Migration of an Entire Country Is Underway The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu could be submerged in 25 years due to rising sea levels, so a plan is being implemented to relocate its population to Australia.

The first planned migration of an entire country due to climate change is happening! Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation, is at risk of being submerged under rising sea level, so it has signed an agreement with Australia to allow 280 Tuvaluans to settle in Australia as permanent residents each year.

Yale Art Gallery Withdraws Federal Grant Requests After Trump DEI Ban The university museum said it will self-fund an exhibition of African art instead of requesting NEA and NEH funding, which is subject to the president’s anti-DEI mandate.

Somehow missed this - Yale's art gallery (where I often teach + many of my students work) withdrew from federal grant requests + is self-funding a new exhibit after crackdowns on "DEI" content. Guess I'll work this into my fall syllabi...

hyperallergic.com/1028300/yale...

The Woman Scientist and Artist Who Revolutionized the Study of Mushrooms Scientists today still make use of Mary Banning’s research, examining the same mushrooms that she located, preserved, and packed away for posterity.

Dying to see the Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms exhibit at the NY State Museum curated by Patricia Kaishian - maybe a sneaky trip before the semester starts is in order. 🍄

hyperallergic.com/1029741/mary...

Least original post ever, but damn those end-of-summer writing deadlines hit HARD.

The Losses: Of Archives and Arthropods Dead for centuries, the bees can help save their living descendants

"Without the work of curators and curatorial assistants like myself, the unknown will remain hidden for decades more, quietly disintegrating in the lonely darkness...even dead for centuries, the information they offer can help save their living descendants."

contingentmagazine.org/2025/07/28/t...

Two babies’ skulls found at Mütter Museum linked to Gallitzin, Pa., murder mystery from 1980 The world believed the five infants found in Stella Williamson's attic had been put to rest. Decades later, the truth is still unfolding.

Two babies' skulls from a notorious 1980 homicide case were found at Philadelphia's Mutter Museum -- apparently donated by a former medical examiner in the late 90s.

Sensitive, essential work from my colleague Rosa Cartagena: www.inquirer.com/arts/mutter-...

The Democracy of Wild Carrot - Orion Magazine Lessons on birth control from the ubiquity of plants

"You can see where this is going. For as long as humans have been able to get pregnant, they have been turning to their environment for methods to avoid conceiving."

orionmagazine.org/article/the-...

And a quick trip to the Museo de la Historia Natural, which was sadly under construction but gorgeous nonetheless 🦕

I love a rocky, wild beach where you can hide, and Porto really delivered 🌊

The Forest Service Claims It’s Fully Staffed for a Worsening Fire Season. Data Shows Thousands of Unfilled Jobs. DOGE cuts and voluntary resignations have severely hampered the agency as the nation enters the peak of fire season, with more than 1 million acres burning across 10 Western states.

It's truly like we're just begging for disasters to hit harder now - like we want people to die, to lose their homes, to watch things burn to the ground and wash away. It's sickening.

www.propublica.org/article/fore...

“The dismantling of Harvard’s diversity offices arrived at Harvard College on Wednesday as websites for centers serving minority students, LGBTQ students, and women disappeared suddenly and without fanfare.”

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

lol just a random person who made it in the video for some reason

Listen, one of my friends is in this video and I’ll be living off of that high for the next 10-12 years.

Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with black jeans, chuck taylors, Chappell Roan, or calling me by my first name (obviously), but I will walk straight into the ocean with stones in my pockets before I or anyone around me writes in anything other than Times New Roman size-12. Nasty work.

WIRED is hiring! We're looking for a senior writer to cover the frontiers of scientific advancement—breakthroughs in space tech, quantum science, nanotechnology, batteries, and more—and the people and companies behind them.

This role is based in our London office.

www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...

We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.

Pollinator Pathmaker Design and plant gardens for endangered bees, butterflies and other pollinators using the algorithmic tool - an artwork by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.

Amazing session this afternoon at #ISHPSSB2025 about "Reimagining gardens"! 🌷🌳 Go check out the project pollinator.art by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg - it's really cool!

Postdoc Critical University Heritages Are you interested in developing interventions addressing the coloniality of physical anthropology collections and botanic gardens? Apply now!

Come work with us! A 2,5 years postdoc on critical university heritage: you'll contribute to two curated heritage interventions, based on (1) physical anthropology collections and (2) botanical history. You'll join an international, interdisciplinary team. #skystorians #heritage #histofscience

Hey #ISHPSSB2025 folks - come through Anf 6 at 9AM for our panel on museums + scientific expeditions, where I'll be speaking about the corpse flower, nationalist competition, and the politics of loss \ discovery. With Paul Brinkman, Cathryn Newton + Matt James!

Beautiful afternoon in Porto for #ISHPSSB2025 listening to Yale HSHM grad student Caitlin Kossmann speak about Lynn Margulis as a rebel educator, community builder + public scientist. Love to see Yale represent!

If you're not writing your long book what are you even doing. It's the summer of writing your long book, not the summer of experiencing happiness

Somehow didn't realize that the Azores are as fast / cheap / easy to get to from NYC as they are (despite flying out of JFK's truly horrible terminal 1). Actually getting to #ISHPSSB2025 sessions is becoming increasingly hard.