foucaultwelles.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Hey, artists, in case you were wondering if your work matters: I'm a scientist working on climate change and biodiversity, and I would not be who I am today without The Lorax, The Secret of NIMH, Watership Down, The Last Unicorn, and The X-Files. I know I'm not alone. Thank you for all you do.

submitted 1 day ago • 626 comments

For decades, the US government has painstakingly kept American science #1 globally—and every facet of American life has improved because of it. The internet? Flu shot? Ozempic? All grew out of federally-funded research. Now all that's being dismantled. 1/ www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/21/1...

submitted 6 days ago • 83 comments

Crockett: "Down in Alabama, who's broke. Down in Louisiana, who's broke. I can go through pretty much the entire south and tell you that they're broke and rely on a lot of welfare from the government. To be perfectly honest, it is tax dollars from these big blue states...we're in the find out phase"

submitted 8 days ago • 1352 comments

Listen, university research isn’t perfect, but it is absolutely astonishing to me that anyone believes that the way to balance a federal budget is to cut spending on the folks who get paid a smidge more than minimum wage to bring us things like computing, clean air, and the cure for cancer.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

part of me simply cannot believe, finds it literally unbelievable, that there are people whose main thing is bringing back deadly plague diseases that we have basically eradicated

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Boston University is building a database of datasets that have been scrubbed from agency's sites: findlostdata.org

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

I planned this workshop and second everything that Milo said.

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

Got outside and fed some birds from our hands this weekend. It was a very nice change of pace.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Interested in using data on human behaviour to understand and predict epidemics? Come do a PhD with us! Deadline 7 March – please get in touch if interested! www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

US higher education had become a world-class sector, one of the greatest strengths of this country, even with the amount of work still to be done in making it more just and equitable. But a cabal of mediocre whites, out of pure spite and belligerent stupidity, have decided to choke it to death.

submitted 21 days ago • 13 comments

If you oppose DEI you should have to use the full phrase, “I oppose diversity, equity and inclusion.” Bonus points if you add your points, “I oppose disabled veterans equal access to employment.” “I oppose mothers having jobs.” Making it an acronym turns it into a thought-terminating cliche.

submitted 22 days ago • 51 comments

Shoutout to Noodle the Cat for making me take breaks from this nonsense.

submitted 21 days ago • 4 comments

What, this brick of yeast and 20lb bag of flour? Just supporting the local Costco, my love.

submitted 23 days ago • 1 comment

Apropos of everything, resharing my favorite essay on children and politics, “The Innocent Child and Other Modern Myths.” Children have rights and political agency too. web.mit.edu/~21fms/Peopl...

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

Apply to the "Software and Data for Supporting Network Science" satellite workshop at @netsciconf.bsky.social before Feb. 7th! Got some cool network data or software to share? This is the satellite for you! Submission form at netsci.nascol.net/cfa

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

I don’t have a definitive source on this yet but it looks like NSF review panels have been canceled. Sixty-some years ago, Eisenhower transformed higher education because he viewed a science education gap as the single greatest threat to national security. This is absolutely an act of sabotage.

submitted 31 days ago • 158 comments

Spoke with a very empathetic staffer at @markey.senate.gov’s office today, offered to help in any way I can. I’m sure she had a very long day listening to very sad stories, but I am grateful folks are still picking up the phone.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

My occasional reminder to folks on tenure and promotion committees that there will be a cohort of people whose early careers were defined entirely by the pandemic and waves vaguely this nonsense, and it will impact their productivity. It can't not.

submitted 30 days ago • 16 comments

There is simply no plausible argument that the president has the constitutional authority to refuse to spend appropriated funds because he doesn’t like how the money is being spent. The legality of policy impoundments is just not a close question.

submitted 30 days ago • 276 comments

I don't know if people who haven't worked in the public sector are aware that the category "things substantially funded by federal grant money" includes more or less everything

submitted 31 days ago • 5 comments

If you're struggling financially due to government fuckery or for any reason really and you need infant formula talk to your pediatrician we can hook you up and don't like to ask questions.

submitted 30 days ago • 230 comments

Worried about college costs? Fun fact: all the “broader impacts” of my NSF-funded research have always included providing low- or no-cost access to higher ed classes. The accounting of who is hurt by executive orders continues.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

I think some people hear “grants” and think that without them, scientists and government workers just have less stuff to play with at work. But grants fund salaries for students, academics, researchers, and people who work in all areas of public service. “Pausing” grants means people don’t eat.

submitted 31 days ago • 1664 comments

And here we go! First position on my ERC grant is officially open. Fully funded 3.5 years PhD position at NetSI London working with me and the @nplab.bsky.social on modeling and reconstructing higher-order systems. Application deadline: 16th February 2025. Bring your A game!

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

I'm so tired of it. Neil Gaiman claiming autism. Musk claiming autism. Autism doesn't make you do terrible, terrible things. Stop. Blaming. Autism.

submitted 36 days ago • 95 comments

I had honestly forgotten the slow burn anxiety of listening to the news each morning, waiting to hear what fresh hell had been unleashed the day before.

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

The price of eggs in the US is spiking, mostly due to #H5N1 bird flu. Solving the problem requires urgent, important communications from the CDC & FDA* and rapid development of research by the NIH** * Currently paused by Executive Order ** Grant reviews now all canceled www.kcur.org/news/2025-01...

submitted 35 days ago • 2539 comments

A small sample of populations served by NIH proposals that I personally know are stalled in review right now: kids with concussions, people with Alzheimer’s, caregivers of people with disabilities, adults ages 60+ Just keeping a record of who’s on the losing end of executive orders.

submitted 35 days ago • 2 comments

SHARE WIDELY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one. (1/3)

submitted 37 days ago • 941 comments

The Association for Computers and the Humanities is offering $1K start-your-project awards for folx "facing barriers in initiating digital scholarship." Applications due 1/27! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

8th grader is playing a strategy game in class and turns out she is uncannily good at US politics. She got fired as the import officer for accepting bribes (gummy worms). Mad, she staged a revolution to overthrow the teacher king. Now she’s class president and owns a fleet of ships.

submitted 41 days ago • 2 comments

How are public health messaging frames shaped during an emergency? @yaassakka.bsky.social presenting their work on how the US media interacted and framed the 2022 Mpox PHEIC at #netscix2025. Sharaj is the first joint @nunetsi.bsky.social x @foucaultwelles.bsky.social x me PhD student!

submitted 41 days ago • 1 comment

With everything so seemingly terrible these days & no sign of anything remotely hopeful in the near future, I thought you might need this photo of a baby giraffe.

submitted 42 days ago • 4156 comments

Hey, so not to be a downer, but if you see this go check your carbon monoxide detector. If you don’t have one, get one - they’re cheap and easy to install. My husband just attended the funeral of his soccer buddy and his whole family who were wiped out by CO on Christmas Day and it’s so damn sad.

submitted 42 days ago • 2 comments

Pretty good showing for my lab for #ICA25. Get excited, Denver - the #CoMMLab will be there with stickers!

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Oh, that's convenient: if you have a bipartite network and want a unipartite network, you can just drag and drop with this tool the-project-project.glitch.me (from @jrladd.com, I think)

submitted 43 days ago • 3 comments

Announcing the "Software and Data for Supporting Network Science" satellite workshop at NetSci 2025!! Apply at netsci.nascol.net/cfa before Feb. 7th! Organized with @zpneal.bsky.social, @vtraag.bsky.social, @foucaultwelles.bsky.social, and @illegaldaydream.bsky.social!

submitted 59 days ago • 1 comment

Preprint alert! "Words and Action: Modeling Linguistic Leadership in #BlackLivesMatter Communities," led by two amazing undergrads in my lab. A short 🧵 on its implications and findings: arxiv.org/abs/2412.02637 1/

submitted 73 days ago • 1 comment

Students should study the humanities not because it makes them better workers but because it rips you open and breaks your brain and changes everything you thought you knew. I promise you this. I promise it has this ability, no matter how smart you think you are. I have seen it countless times.

submitted 84 days ago • 24 comments