Brian Ingalls

• We Inherit the Fire, Kagiso Lesego Molope • Born at the End of the World, Donica Merhazion • A Dying Giant in the Palm of Your Hand, Adelehin ljasan • Wretched of the Earth, Fanon • White Possessive, Aileen Moreton- Robinson • Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi • The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Aye Kwe Armah • Scale Boy: An African Childhood, Patrice Nganang • Layaway Child, Chanel Sutherland • The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, Esi Edugyan

Black history month may be over but my reading list goes on, so hellooo Black History March! I learn as much from fiction as I do from non-fiction. Here’s what I’m looking forward to:

Beating cancer by eating cancer | Waterloo News A research team led by the University of Waterloo is developing a novel tool to treat cancer by engineering hungry bacteria to literally eat tumours from the inside out. “Bacteria spores enter the tum...

So proud of colleagues Dr. Sadr and Dr. Zargar for their achievements on this project uwaterloo.ca/news/media/b...

Fix Your Hearts or Die It's a invitation, not a threat. The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism.

"Loneliness *is* a problem. I am inviting you to contemplate how frequently it is treated as a problem for men and only for men, to be solved by everyone else, by doing work on their behalf that can only ever be considered repair if they do it themselves."

www.the-reframe.com/fix-your-hea...

With headlines that the University of Alberta will "abandon race-based" admissions policies, remember that anti-EDI framing is designed to make it seem like the pre-EDI status quo is somehow 'neutral'. In reality, by abandoning sensible EDI policies, institutions are *doing* race-based admissions.

Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

Feb 9: Education

Q: Why do Black kids not do well in school, or in subjects like Math and Science?

A: This is only true in extremely racist countries. A racist person cannot teach a Black child effectively. It's not race. It's racism.

Read the whole thread.

“I Felt Like I Completely Belonged in That Class”: Gender and the Development of Sense of Belonging in K-12 STEM Education - Educational Psychology Review Educational Psychology Review - Sense of belonging is an important motivational belief that represents individuals’ sense of fit within an environment. However, many women report feeling a...

🚨New paper alert!🚨 Super proud of the work that went into this one, which includes a systematic review and MEGA-ANALYSIS of the development of sense of belonging in STEM education across Grades K-12, with special attention to gender differences. (1/N)
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This is the best speech, just from a pure rhetoric perspective - its sophistication and persuasiveness - that I've seen a politician deliver in a good long while. Really recommend watching or reading the whole thing.

Symposium « Célébrer le succès des femmes dans les STIM » de 2026 : Briser les barrières, bâtir notre avenir (TRN4-E48)

Moins d’un mois avant le Symposium 2026 sur les femmes en STIM ! Joignez-vous en ligne pour célébrer l’équité, le leadership et l’innovation en STIM. Événement gratuit. #FemmesEtFillesDeScience
👉Inscrivez-vous : catalogue.csps-efpc.gc.ca/product?cata...

2026 Celebrating the Success of Women in STEM Symposium: Breaking Barriers, Building our Future   (TRN4-E48)

Less than a month until the 2026 #WomenInSTEM Symposium! Join us online to celebrate equity, leadership and innovation in STEM. Free event. #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience
👉Register now: catalogue.csps-efpc.gc.ca/product?cata...

Twitter is a litmus test for Canada With Twitter, the medium really is the message — one that should be clearly unacceptable for our elected officials and political leaders.

Canada has the opportunity to help create a global tech landscape that isn’t dominated by US oligarchs.

That won’t happen if our political leaders refuse to quit toxic platforms like Twitter. What are they waiting for? #cdnpoli

www.nationalobserver.com/2026/01/12/o...

Norway reaches 97% EV sales as EVs now outnumber diesels on its roads 97.6% of Norway's car sales were all-electric in Dec., and 95.9% for the full year. Also, there are now more EVs on Norway's roads than diesel

🇳🇴 Norway just capped off 2025 with about 97% of all new cars sold being electric. For the first time ever there are more #EVs than diesel cars on the road. It comes to show how fast the country’s shifted away from #FossilFuels 👀⚡️ Most cars still run on gas overall, so there’s more change coming 🚘.

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

I am an evolutionary biologist (though publishing more in medicine these days). I think trans modality is an evolutionary spandrel. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandre...

Great episode! Thanks so much for sharing your conversation. I’m looking forward to digging into the refs you cited and sharing with colleagues. Grateful for the introduction into this important literature.

Here’s UWaterloo’s: uwaterloo.ca/indigenous/indigenous-verification

This really is a must read for anyone in academia.

We remember them always.

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte

This afternoon, I informed the Prime Minister of my decision to resign as Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, Minister responsible for Official Languages, Minister of Nature and Parks Canada, as well as his Lieutenant in Quebec.

You can find my full statement below.

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Falling for anti-migrant racism doesn't protect workers, it entrenches capitalism by making workers more vulnerable & exploitable! Our enemy arrives in limousine, not someone on a boat fleeing colonial devastation.

Being pro-migrant is central to our collective fight against fascism!

No plaques appearing on your bacterial lawn?
Problematic phage gap.

Elsevier has a 38% profit margin, and the other journal publishers aren't far behind.

Like math and plant community ecology?

I am recruiting one or two new Ph.D. students to work on theory and its integration with data in the areas of forest dynamics, species coexistence, or plant community ecology more generally.

Deadlines for the EEB and Plant Biology programs are Dec. 1.

Robin holding a sheet of pin badges with their design

The LGBT plus History Month 2026 logo – an eruption of rainbow colours from a conical flask containing pink, white, blue, and brown fluids . At the top, the flask is fizzing yellow with purple bubbles . The overall effect reflects the colours of the intersex -inclusive Progress Pride Flag .

Immensely proud to share that I am the designer of the official badge for LGBT+ History Month 2026.

Last night, @lgbthm.bsky.social revealed that the 2026 theme for the month will be 'Science and Innovation', so get ready to learn about some amazing queer scientists next year!

I had student meetings yesterday for my class. It was a writing class so most meetings started with my comments on their papers, but I told them they could ask about anything. Some asked for advice for gap years, how to choose the next career step, even audio books :) my favorite question was...🧵

You could also work with Debbie Leung, Richard Cleve, David Gosset, Luke Schaefer, Ashwin Nayak, Norbert Lutkenhaus, Mike Mosca, Christine Muschik or some combination of us if you do theory.

Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: I'm tabling the following motion: That the committee request the three funding councils, namely the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as part of the study on the impact of federal funding allocation criteria on research excellence in Canada, to provide it with the disaggregated data of all submitted applications, whether funded or not, for all student and faculty funding programs from the master's level onwards for applications made between 2020 and 2025. That this data include (1) demographic data of applicants and collaborators, including applicants' responses to the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) questionnaire, (2) the institutions and departments of applicants, including the institutions of collaboration, (3) the language of the application, (4) all data regarding the type of application and project content (application year, grant program, discipline, title, summary, amount requested by the applicant), as well as (5) the identity of the evaluation committee, comments, opinions, scores assigned to applications for each criterion, and (6) the outcome of the application and the amount awarded. That the three funding councils submit all this data to the committee within 15 days following the adoption of this motion, in an Excel spreadsheet format.

The Canadian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research is launching a US-style attack on EDI in Tri-Council funding.

As part of this attack, they are demanding disclosure of confidential demographic info + reviewer comments of all Canadian researchers who have applied b/w 2000-2025.

a post showing a bowl of candy with a single potato in the center with the text: Tonight kids chose potato more than 25 times, each time triumphantly proclaiming to friends and family, "I GOT A POTATO!" One kid shouted, "A potato, just like last year!" and another group said, "Oh, youre the potato house? You're legends!" This has become an unexpected and joyful tradition. Kids are given the free choice and over and over again they choose Potato. My friends, every day you are given a choice. I encourage you: choose potato

thinking about potato house this halloween

I was recently invited to present my thoughts on the role of universities in the #climate crisis

Several audience members asked that I share my slides, so I've decided to post them here too as an open resource

I'd love any feedback, & for you to share examples of projects & best practice.

Long 🧵😊