Fayth Tan

mostly I learned that when you receive a diagnosis, there are always people absolutely chomping at the bit to tell you that you don't have it, actually 🤪

also as someone who has dealt with Title IX for disability, I can promise you that there are no cushy incentives for declaring one lmao

I wonder what happened between now and 2015 that might've caused disabilities in young people 🤔 oh there was a global pandemic?? that explains it. they all got anxiety from that and definitely not any other long term health effects from the known-long-term-health-effect-having virus 😌

My new favorite Bluesky account

If you're looking for a way to be helpful and feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the attacks on basic rights, there are so many things you can advocate for at the local level that are incredibly impactful. Here's a great example!

he always has such beautiful fruit too but seems so annoyed after eating. like there's so much vitriol when he throws the rinds away! at least litter with some joie de vivre man

There's this squirrel that shows up on my patio and he 1) always leaves fruit rinds/seeds behind and 2) sometimes knocks my plants over by throwing the leftovers at them...just witnessed him eat a whole persimmon and just fling the rind right into my christmas cactus 😱

Part of this week’s newsletter was inspired by the post below. Was there a way to show the distance between normal Americans and the super wealthy?
1/8
www.howtoreadthisch.art/putting-the-...

About a year ago I wrote a bunch of longform nature documentary scripts for a youtube channel and I thought my decidedly un-algo friendly interests wouldn't result in a ton of pickup but they have like >1.5M views collectively now??? damn

This really gets at what rubs me the wrong way with this description. Clearly Altman and others think "PhD level" just means "really smart" rather than what it actually means, dedicating time and effort to push the boundaries of our current body of knowledge. LLMs are antithetical to "PhD level"

Purple and teal gradient background with a purple starburst shape with white text that says “ICYMI.” There are three white text boxes with black text that says: A project by The Sick Times x Long COVID Justice. 30+resource sheets for patients & doctors. Designed by & for people living with Long COVID and associated conditions.” Below this is a blue illustration of a link and a blue oval with white text that says: “tiny.cc/LCE.”

ICYMI: Did you know that Long COVID Justice and The Sick Times worked together to create a series of 30+ resource sheets about Long COVID and associated diseases (LCAC)?
‪
@longcovidjustice.org‬ x @thesicktimes.bsky.social

Check out our Long COVID Essential series: www.tiny.cc/LCE

On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls. That evening, however, Ms. Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents sho

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/c...

If we regularly help the rest of the public feel some of the feelings that we feel -- which means admitting that science makes us feel things -- then that helps them understand why science matters so much to us scientists and see that they are key partners in the work that we do.

!! congratulations 💖

"De-extinction" is to the biodiversity crisis as geoengineering/carbon capture are to climate change.

The false promise of magical techno fixes undermines the actions needed to actually address these problems - and will be exploited by bad actors to do just that.

hi, cis folks!

the comment period for the proposed rule to remove trans care from the ACA as an essential health benefit is open til april 11. it'd strip care from DACA recipients, too.

context & guidance in the thread. do it while you’re still fired up from/about protests.

only 4.5 days left!

Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story.

Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.

ME/CFS research program shuts down at Columbia after Trump cuts ME/CFS, which affects millions of Americans, has few dedicated research centers. Now the one at Columbia has been shut down over Trump funding cuts.

A large research program into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, has been forced to shut down because of Trump administration cuts earlier this month to Columbia University’s funding.

I say this gently and with love: I hope my colleagues at Ivy League and elite private universities understand that public universities (who rely heavily on public funding and typically lack the endowments of our private siblings) deserve solidarity, too. Because it often feels like we're invisible.

getting singled out for "random inspection" bc you didn't walk backwards through the checkpoint in a straight enough line 😔

If you think Colossal can turn an elephant into a mammoth, let alone whether they should, then you really need to read this ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development meme text: It's one genetically-edited elephant embryo, Michael. What could it take, one year?

there's the woolly mice but also the assertion that going from woolly mice to genetically edited large mammals with one of the longest gestation times on earth will take like a year 😭

Indeed. I sent a couple of the news pieces to my macroevolution and science communication class by 9 am this morning. I hope they don't hurt their eyes.

A Study of Mint Plants. A Device to Stop Bleeding. This Is the Scientific Research Ted Cruz Calls “Woke.” The senator flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude meth...

“We are really trying very, very hard ... to move our world forward" through "foundational, sometimes groundbreaking research, and then you get flagged and blacklisted because there is a word like ‘female’ in your project.”

My latest, w/the brilliant Agnel Philip

www.propublica.org/article/ted-...

The absolute best part of this award was getting to meet so many incredibly talented and thoughtful journalists, academics, and science communicators, who you can follow on bluesky here! go.bsky.app/R3WZmxy 2/2

NAS Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Scicomm are open now! Any work published in 2024 is eligible:
www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excel...
The application's straightforward and can be done in a day (ask me how I know 🫠...but actually feel free to ask me about applying!) 1/2

‘The Interview’: Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer talks about burnout from covering the pandemic and how bird-watching gave him a new sense of hope.

The most achingly beautiful explanation of what science is, from @edyong209.bsky.social: “the idea that much of the world is hidden from us, that we don’t perceive it and don’t understand it, and that it is worth understanding and it is necessary to understand.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...