Academic Mixtape 33

A paper in Integrative and Comparative Biology has perspectives from a bunch of scientists about getting research done in Primarily Undergraduate Institutions. Lots of stuff about time management, naturally, though I think these challenges apply to all faculty at any kind of university who are doing research. It’s skewed towards folks from small liberal arts colleges, but in my experience much of this translates well to other kinds of PUIs. The question where they answer “what advice would you give” offers the most wisdom. I could go on and on about a lot of the things that are raised in the article, but hey, I already have!

The em-dash responds to the AI allegations.

A recent paper estimates a shockingly high frequency of generative AI being used to write biomedical research articles.

Here’s a review of the new book The Omnivore’s Deception, which is a “brilliantly argued dismantling” of a bunch of Michael Pollan’s work and folks who have made similar arguments.

The most influential moment in hip-hop history

On reviewing grant proposals while the system is burning. There are a lot of complicated and mixed feelings about being involved in reviews for federal agencies while funding is being trimmed to tiny numbers and there are Elon Musk’s teenagers who do a secondary review of everything before it gets funded, and I think this provides good perspective on how and why to stay involved.

I don’t follow American Football at all and didn’t read/watch this, but I know folks who do and think that this is absolutely stunning, earthshaking, spectacular piece of independent journalism. So if NFL is your thing, check this out?

Have you been to the Save NSF site and signed up yet? Also here’s a blog post by Prosanta Chakrabarty about Save the NSF.

There are a few perspectives I’m finding myself routinely seeking out when I want to contextualize what’s going on in the US, and one is Rebecca Solnit’s blog/newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency. Good stuff.

A nice perspective piece in Science from Agustín Fuentes, “This is not the time to step back from DEI.” I hope you’ll join him and me a lots of others in leaning into the use of this term. In the past, I used to not be such a fan of “DEI” terminology because I think emphasizing diversity and inclusion is weak sauce compared to justice, access, and representation, but now that this is the terminology the bad guys have chosen to vilify, then this is the one we need to take up.

Context about Columbia capitulating to the absurd demands of the Trump regime. This is from Moira Donegan, columnist for The Guardian US and also one of the voices I look to for broader perspective at this particularly difficult moment. Check out her stuff.

A clear-eyed perspective on journalism in the US: The oligarch’s coup against the free press is now.

Here’s an interesting piece of journalism following up the outcomes of the fires in Altadena, six months later. It’s tracking who is buying up the available lots that had burnt down. Are they all going to global REIT conglomerates that are going to destroy whatever community remains? One very interesting thing is a local who won the lottery recently has set up an LLC to buy properties and if we take their word at face value, it’s to protect the community from outside predatory influences. But they’re rather mum about it all. I doubt he’s planning on taking a financial loss on this, but how are they going to develop the property that will be eventually sold or turned into rental units, well, how’s that going to work out? This is of interest to me in particular because this is my community, I live just south of the area that was totally devastated and have many friends who have lost everything, either by losing their home or by having their place subjected to so much smoke damage, they are compelled to throw everything out and either tear the place down or go though so much remediation they might as well tear it down. (Essentially the people who got smoked out are losing their homes, but in slow motion rather than all at once. They need to toss everything, can’t live there, and need to rebuild, but their insurance is less cooperative than if the place burnt down.)

“I’m a biologist, here’s why I wrote about US history (1929-1939)”

Oh and BTW I spoke to our local public radio station about how our campus is trying to protect students from the federal kidnapping goon squad.

Some good news: solar power is hugely on the upswing. Here’s a good piece in The New Yorker.