Vivek Nityananda

OpenAI's robotics head quits after company's Pentagon deal: 'This was about principle' Caitlin Kalinowski says she is quitting OpenAI over concerns that the technology could be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.

Caitlin Kalinowski, OpenAI's head of robotics, said on Saturday that she had resigned.

In an X post, she criticized OpenAI's deal with the Pentagon.

The deal raised concerns over the use of AI surveillance and lethal autonomous systems.

Workshop on genetics, eugenics and scientific racism next week! #Philsci #Philosophy #Ethics #HPS #Sociology #AcademicSky
We will be conducting hybrid sessions, you can find the zoom link at www.imseam.uni-heidelberg.de/en/heinzelma...

Not something I had thought about before but now I really need this!

⭐ASSAB 2026 Plenary Speakers⭐

🐝Prof. Andrew Barron: Why the honey bee is smarter than ChatGPT

🐦🐿️Assoc. Prof. Kristal Cain:
Chasing birds and shiny squirrels - an alternative path in academia

🪲Dr Kawsar Khan
Behaviour ecology in the Anthropocene

🐟Dr Upama Aich
Sex and stress in a changing world

Northumbria University staff announce 10 more days of strikes in pensions row UCU members at Northumbria University have confirmed that they will take another 10 days of strike action, as a dispute over an alleged 'pension grab' continues

As @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social say in this article - we don't want to be on strike and our door is open to talk to management @northumbriauni.bsky.social. But our members (and any right-thinking people) will never accept pay and pension injustice! www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

BBC Radio 4 - BBC National Short Story Award - Submissions open for 2026 BBC National Short Story Awards with Cambridge University Find out how to enter this year's competition.

Discovered this morning, after one of my Curae prize folk checked with the team, that 'established author' for the purposes of this prize can mean a SINGLE published story. Not only that, but you can enter THAT short story, even though it says 'prior' publication... www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a...

Broad claims about gender and behavior fall apart when studies include ethnically diverse samples Behavioral economics relies heavily on studies of Western, educated people. A recent analysis provides evidence that ignoring racial diversity within the United States has led to flawed generalization...

"The research suggests that generalizations about human behavior are often flawed because they rely on samples composed largely of White individuals."

This Brazilian frog might be the first pollinating amphibian known to science Nectar-loving tree frog likely moves pollen from flower to flower

It’s the first time a frog—or any amphibian—has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023.

Learn more on #WorldWildlifeDay: https://scim.ag/4riUU1G

Great argument here for why we should overhaul how we teach genetics.

Looks like it's voluntary severance or compulsory redundancy all over again 😬

📣 Call for Applications: The University of Vienna invites applications for more than 40 fully funded doctoral positions across a broad range of disciplines in Life Sciences and Natural Sciences. 👨‍🔬👩‍🔬 #PhDSky #PhD #univie
📅 Application period: 2 March – 27 March 2026, 12:00 CET

More information: ⤵️

Take it or leaf it: bees learn leaf shape as a cue when flower colour is easily learned Over a century of research has demonstrated that pollinators, such as bees, associatively learn diverse flower cues, including tactile, visual and olf…

Curious whether bees can learn non-floral cues to find floral rewards? New paper in Animal Behavior @animbehsociety.bsky.social by @mtcastagna.bsky.social, @jentomology.bsky.social, Ciara Stewart, and myself!

We find evidence that bees can learn leaf shape!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This imaging and data analysis strategy was developed by the brilliant Valentin Gillet, Marcel Sayre and Griffin Badalamente! Huge thanks also to @janfunkey.bsky.social, the CAVE-team, the CMM team in Brisbane around Nicole Schieber, and the most amazing IT wizard Kevin Tedore!

After 5 years of developing, a new preprint from the lab - introducing our workflow for comparative insect connectomics, aimed at democratizing connectomics. @erc.europa.eu @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This always cheers me up

Join us next week (March 11) as @viveknityananda.bsky.social examines frameworks for investigating insect welfare, including key debates around insect emotions and pain.

The session will be followed by a Q&A—a great opportunity to bring your questions on insect sentience!

bit.ly/4bFAITn

Who’s Deciding Where the Bombs Drop in Iran? Maybe Not Even Humans. Behind last week’s scrum between the Trump administration and Anthropic lies a deeper question of how warfare is conducted—and whether accountability even exists anymore.

Truly dystopic.

"we are witnessing the fullest expression of the most inhumane weapons of the century: Autonomous bombs and missiles. Their “autonomy” refers to fact that humans need not be in the loop in any meaningful way when deciding where to target or whether to launch such weapons."

Abstract tapestry with a composition resembling a landscape in green, teal, and maroon, with some threads hanging down in three-dimensional sections.

Abstract tapestry with a composition resembling a mountain landscape in green, grey, and orange, with some rows of orange and deep blue threads hanging down in thick waves.

Abstract tapestry with a composition resembling a mountain landscape in purple, yellow, and blue, with a row of deep purple threads hanging down at the bottom in a wavy line.

Abstract tapestry with vertical lines in green, yellow, and red, with a line of gold and purple tassels hanging down along the bottom.

Textile sculpture by Columbian artist Vanessa Valero, 2020s.

Join Dr Hanno Brankamp in their Glasgow book launch on March 6th. They will be giving a talk on their book, Occupied Refuge, followed by a panel discussion.

🎟️ Reserve your spot here: buff.ly/dVpssC0

@dukepress.bsky.social
@UofGlasgow
@hannobrankamp.bsky.social

Crested Caracara flies past a giant Saguaro

Flying into the week like… 🪶

They all do this. And it feels like a reflection on the humans behind them, whose inflated careers are built on never admitting they don’t know the answer. The ‘smartest people in the room’ if ‘smart’ just means glib and facile, turning out lies with complete conviction.

“My ‘methodology’ was a series of errors”: Gemini generates false records and fake screenshots of TNA website | Who Do You Think You Are Magazine The Gemini LLM generates fake records and screenshots from the UK National Archives, a family historian has revealed

Gemini: 'I deeply regret the time and effort you spent searching for references that I fabricated. My ‘methodology’ was a series of errors and an attempt to cover those errors with more artificial information.'

www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/gemini-...

Knowledge Is Power. France Is Bacon. • The Habit Last week my friend and nemesis John Barber posted a very funny story that first appeared on Reddit ten years ago, posted by a Lard_Baron in response to the question,Read More

Found this great piece on misheard words and phrases while looking up the old “knowledge is power, France is bacon” story (after a Grauniad article today mentioned “times in memorial”). The videos at the end are really worth watching too. thehabit.co/knowledge-is...

😂 😂 😂

My writing technique

Big strike week ahead. Imagine if we win!

Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

So-called 'nudify' apps. Smart glasses that secretly record video. An explosion in sexualised deepfakes.

Tech has turned against women, and it's time to regulate it properly, says author and gender equality campaigner Laura Bates.

Read more: ft.trib.al/Z3gd5bP

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.