Paul Selmants

Sticker showing a frog with a whistle around its neck and the words Chinga la Migra in large letters

Sticker on electrical junction box, Caltrain station, Mountain View, CA

WHAT ARE THOSE?? Can’t wait, googling furiously …

Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review The process of peer review is vital to contemporary science, but is also under enormous strain. This study uses mathematical models to dissect the threats to the long-term viability of peer review, su...

1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology.

We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.

bar bathroom walls covered in graffiti

Men’s room, Zeitgeist, SF

Yes! 👇

Slightly, yeah - but their profit margins are still obscene.

We need to convince society journals to use independent, non-profit publishing platforms.

Other societies I belong to publish with Wiley (Ecological Society of America, American Geophysical Union). Not quite as bad as throwing money at Elsevier but still harmful to science, scientists, and universities.

I work at Moffett Field, a former Naval air base ~5 miles from the site of Super Bowl 60. We’ve been advised to work from home next week because DHS is using Moffett to fly in & “stage equipment”. Not sure if ya’ll already knew this, but sounds like they’re gonna show up in force on game day.

What Americans Lose If Their National Center for Atmospheric Research Is Dismantled - Eos Five ways dismantling NCAR will cost the American people, and two ways to save it.

eos.org/opinions/wha...

10,000! That’s the answer - 10,000 STEM PhDs have been lost from federal service.

Map of water table depth across the continental United States at 30-meter resolution, with inset panels showing detail at 100km, 10km, and 1km scales in both eastern and western US locations. Color scale shows depth from shallow (blue) to deep (yellow) on a log scale.

New work from our team: we mapped water table depth at 30-meter resolution across the entire continental US.
That's ~8 billion grid cells, trained on over 1 million well observations. Highest-resolution estimate to date.

There are good things happening the world. This is one of them.

Neither is time, so …

Please repost! The LOC Lab @UCSB is recruiting a #PostdoctoralScholar in forest ecology and data science to
develop data-driven models of forest resilience to compound disturbances (e.g., fire, drought, insects). 🌱🍁🌏🧪🌐

Applications due Feb 5
Apply here: www.landscapesofchangelab.com/were-hiring-1

Four figurines representing characters from the 1960s TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. From left to right: Yukon Cornelius (prospector), Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster (Yeti), Hermey (Elf, wannabe dentist), Rudolph (red-nosed reindeer).

It’s a sunny day, the gang’s all here …

Grateful to MacKenzie Scott for her $38 million gift ... the largest in UC Merced's history, surpassing even her own record-setting donation to our campus in 2021.
She continues to be one of the few doing billionairing right.
news.ucmerced.edu/news/2025/uc...

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild:

Moose
Black bear
Green sea turtle
Sea otter
Hammerhead shark

One could write a similar piece substituting “source” with “access”…

Yeah, more fuel for @sevier.io‘s fire:

And you’re not alone - there are so many of us poorer, happier, funnier than Musk bros.

Email from Dept of Interior telling employees the “Democratic shutdown” is nearly over.

OK, looks like I can go back to work tomorrow. Also, whoever wrote the text for this email violated the Hatch Act.

Land change, fire, and climate weaken carbon sink in the conterminous United States The United States has experienced rising carbon sources driven by land use, fire, and climate factors.

Just out: more evidence for a weakening land carbon sink across the contiguous U.S. Proud to be part of this collaborative effort among (mostly) federal scientists! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Best abstract ever.

This thread encapsulates why I have zero regrets about escaping academia - the culture is just so low key toxic. I have nothing but respect for those of you inside shining a light on it and fighting to make it better (like Colin), but I had to get out.

I mean, why was timothee chalamet on the mound in the first place?

I was on a bus in Honolulu when this alert went out. Bus driver pulled over and told us we were supposed to “take shelter” in a nearby Safeway, but we all just stood around on the sidewalk and talked story.

Thank you!!

I’m a furloughed federal scientist. Under normal circumstances I’d be stoked so many fed agencies (finally) came over to bluesky - but these ain’t normal times. Block and move on.

No shade, I’m a proud plant person myself.