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

WE JUST GOT DOGE’D no funding for this year. We have to cancel the program and email 450 applicants there will be no REU program in physics at MSU. First time in 20+ years. I’m fucking livid, y’all.

submitted 2 days ago • 45 comments

it turns out knowing and understanding why you are sad does not speed up getting through feeling sad

submitted 1 day ago • 20 comments

Heck. Yes!

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

The first measles death in the US in a decade -- the tragic, preventable death of a child whose parents chose not to protect them with vaccination -- should spark an immediate nation-wide campaign to ensure all children are protected against preventable diseases. Anything less is unconscionable.

submitted 2 days ago • 1184 comments

thank you, @hankgreen.bsky.social

submitted 15 days ago • 22 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 32 days ago • 1663 comments

Need an acronym (akin to SAD) for the way my wanderlust, ambition, and generalized ambient longing go into hyperdrive the second the weather hits 60 degrees

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Extremely into this!!!

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Today is the feast of St. Victor of Arcis, who was maybe 7th century? We know pretty nothing about him, but Bernard of Clairvaux was asked to write about him by the Abbey of Montiéramey. I have a 12th-c. MS for you with a letter and two sermons on Victor by Bernard. More details... 🧵 #medievalsky

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Undergraduate research opportunities are incredibly valuable, both for the students and for the progress of the work. And having undergraduate research experience is a massive help for grad school admission. REU cancellations harm students’ preparedness & career prospects, and slow research progress

submitted 4 days ago • 14 comments

Have been thinking about the myth of Persephone as the flowers in my yard begin to open, and what a gift she brings to Hades. What a beautiful thought for all of us that through her we are allowed to share the Spring with our beloved dead. I hope our Winters warm their bones.

submitted 4 days ago • 20 comments

The response of the science community to the last month is not about one statement or action. It's about all of us with our different frames. For Science's part, we are doing what we have always done and have no plans to change. My thoughts on what we can do. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

I had one professor in a grad program who wore only shades of purple, every day, & another with a fake British accent. It's our duty as academics to develop an affectation to nurse our whole career. I don't know what mine is, which means I need one assigned or I have a weird one I don't know about.

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

Graduating during the pandemic slowed down my process and is part of why I did two postdocs. Now as a first year faculty, all the federal grants are frozen. I love the work I do but this has all of us questioning how much www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 4 days ago • 77 comments

Tomorrow (Tuesday), there's a vote in Congress on a budget bill that would make 800 billion dollars in cuts to the 800 billion dollar program that keeps me dressed, clean, and working -- that paid for the lift that got me out of bed this morning.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

I could never have kids because I would say things like "the bread crust you reject is continuous with the bread flesh that you desire" and they would become so wise that they kill me in my sleep

submitted 50 days ago • 2 comments

Boosting for Madison folks!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

I’ve been in the same D&D game for 3 1/2 years and at some point early on we picked up a NPC friend who was a man cursed to be a talking crab. We were meant to find out how to break the curse. In our most recent game our DM had the crab come clean — he’d never been a man. T’was just a talking crab.

submitted 505 days ago • 23 comments

If you're trying to figure out what to do right now, my advice is to just pick a thing that you think might be useful in some way, however small, and do it. Doing a thing leads you to doing another, bigger thing, and prepares you for that next thing.

submitted 8 days ago • 72 comments

Thinking a lot these days about what good engineering/technical approaches for protecting civil rights might look like. It feels like making things worse has a strong technical component (facial recognition, surveillance, etc.) but that a lot of making things better is often a social/legal fight

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Neat mini-🧵 on the #BeneventanScript! #MedievalSky

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

forsooth homie

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

“a bird in the hand is worth..” — let me stop you there. comparison is the thief of joy. enjoy your bird

submitted 15 days ago • 11 comments

It’s great out there. Look at this moss

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

A beef (as someone who is married to a professional poet and friends with several more): March's "Physics for Poets" (and Lederman's follow-up) aren't really "for poets", they're for non-physics majors. I really want to write/teach/etc. a book that covers stuff the poets in my life ask me about.

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

What kind of research do they consider "wasteful DEI"? Reading through the project descriptions (column N) and it's project grants studying: -fentanyl overdose prevention -earthquake disaster preparedness -renewable energy -kidney disease (and other healthcare topics) -disability aid product design

submitted 16 days ago • 12 comments

[guy who made a billion dollars secretly feeding you lizard meat] I think I speak for all honest hard-working Americans when I say we need to shut down the Department of Checking What Kind of Meat That Is

submitted 19 days ago • 11 comments

of course my favorite poem about the Super Bowl is actually about mortality and the absurdity of being alive

submitted 19 days ago • 2 comments

Statement from my university, @uwmadison.bsky.social, on the horrible impact the slashing of NIH indirect costs will have on biomedical research. news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-r... I don't think people understand that university overhead is paying for necesary research services at a truly reduced rate.

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Happy Superb Owl Sunday! Here I am with Zeus, a truly Superb Eurasian Eagle Owl.

submitted 19 days ago • 110 comments

about this time of year seven years ago i started writing. it was my third year of grad school and i had just finished classes and i didn’t know what to do with the homework vacuum. the sunday scaries were very real. the year before i had googled “good sci-fi” and started reading.

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

Proud to live here.

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments