Aysha Prather
alprather.bsky.social
Aysha Prather
@alprather.bsky.social
Free-range entomologist, gardener, precarious biology instructor, advocate for all things creepy-crawly, slithery, or slimy. In a complicated relationship with Oklahoma.
I wouldn't let him do even that. Dude would make the lemonade with toilet water or add an actual poison and call it a supplement.
January 16, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
The $70 Billion supplement, peptide, and other unregulated stuff business and RFK Jr
Gift link
www.wsj.com/health/rfk-j...
Supplements Are a $70 Billion Industry. RFK Jr. Is Good for Business.
Secretary Kennedy has vowed to ‘end the war on vitamins,’ surrounding himself with advocates for pills, powders, tinctures and IV drips that aren’t subject to FDA approval.
www.wsj.com
January 11, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
From my new @TIME piece: we should tell the full story about trust and vaccines. Black communities are not outsiders to immunization history.

Sharing an excerpt on Onesimus and what it teaches us about power and whose expertise counts.

Link: time.com/7344423/dang...
January 10, 2026 at 9:39 PM
Is there any reason folks shouldn't just call their congressperson's office with their complaint?
Reminder:

The Trump admin has made it basically impossible to file complaints against an immigration agents.

It's gutted the DHS oversight office that took complaints -- going from 150 employees to about nine.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
January 10, 2026 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
The economic disruption/sabotage of deporting millions of workers at time of near full employment is only just beginning to be felt.

“Construction can’t continue”: South Texas builders say ICE arrests have upended industry
www.texastribune.org/2025/12/24/s...
South Texas homebuilders say ICE arrests have slowed work
More than 380 people attended an impromptu meeting that industry leaders in the Rio Grande Valley hosted to draw attention to the chilling effect ICE arrests have had on construction.
www.texastribune.org
December 28, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
There is actual racial discrimination occurring and people are suffering but sure, let’s focus on the musings of a bunch of elite white men posting from their elite positions about how they are the primary victims of racial discrimination in this country. www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Monkey Sounds, “White Power” and the N-Word: Racial Harassment Against Black Students Ignored Under Trump
Since Trump returned to office, the Education Department’s civil rights office has not resolved a single racial harassment investigation. It sends a message that “people impacted by racial discriminat...
www.propublica.org
December 19, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
OPINION: "The deliberate act of using a transgender or nonbinary person’s birth name after they’ve chosen a new one ... is more than just an insult to one nationally recognized medical leader. It’s a signal about what our health system is becoming." — Arthur Lazarus
‘Deadnaming’ Rachel Levine is not a small act. It’s a warning to the medical profession. | Opinion
www.inquirer.com
December 17, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
“Employees with driver’s license offices across the state, from El Paso to Paris to Plano, reported the names and license numbers of these people to a special agency email account.“
Texas is making a list of transgender Texans. It’s using the DMV to help.
A year after the state blocked transgender Texans from updating their state IDs, it has collected information on more than 100 people who have tried. Officials won’t say what they’re using the list fo...
www.kut.org
December 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
A really good analysis of why the vaccine injury compensation program is important to public health and how RFK Jr. and his minions are trying to undermine it (with some explicit Kennedy family drama thrown in). www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore...
The Law That Saved America’s Vaccines—And That Secretary Kennedy Is Trying To Destroy | Health Affairs Forefront
The American system for developing, delivering, and ensuring the safety of vaccines is a landmark public health achievement. Reforms should strengthen this achievement—faster adjudication, clearer sci...
www.healthaffairs.org
December 14, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Hobbes is an irredeemable asshole, but he does love his little Zorro.
December 12, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
"The Donald Trump administration has changed which holidays qualify for free entrance to national parks, removing two holidays celebrating Black people and adding the president’s birthday."
National parks change prioritizes Trump birthday over days honoring Black people
Free entrance days at national parks no longer include MLK Day and Juneteenth.
www.sfgate.com
December 5, 2025 at 4:10 AM
For centuries, cities have been planned by and for able-bodied, gainfully-employed men.

Feminist urban planning isn’t proposing the opposite, but a model that considers all stages of human life, from infancy to old age, without giving greater importance to the productive-work stage.

bit.ly/49uev9N
November 30, 2025 at 2:45 PM
If you're not browning bacon in butter, is it really a holiday meal?
November 27, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
Happy Thanksgiving from the City of Boston and one of its adorable bike lane sweepers!
November 27, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
Periodic reminder: the vaccine efficacy of the pertussis vaccine drops below 50% at 4.5 years. You should be getting a Tdap booster every 5 years, not every 10. It is especially vital if you have contact with pregnant people or infants too young to be vaccinated.
After two infants died, the Louisiana Dept of Health under the leadership of the new incoming deputy director of the CDC, delayed notifying the public for months of a whooping cough outbreak. Instead, he ordered DOH to stop promoting vaccines. Pertussis is currently a national health crisis.
Louisiana officials waited months to warn public of whooping cough outbreak
After a whooping cough outbreak killed two infants, Louisiana health officials waited months to officially alert physicians or do public outreach. That's not the typical public health response.
www.npr.org
November 26, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
There is a post circulating on Bluesky encouraging the moving of a frozen turkey straight into a pot of hot oil. We are combating this misinformation the best way we know how - through the power of dance music.
November 23, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
Texas A&M Was Wrong to Fire Professor Over Gender Lesson, Panel Rules

The firing put the school at the center of national debates over gender identity and academic freedom. A faculty panel ruled unanimously against the termination.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/u...
Texas A&M Was Wrong to Fire Professor Over Gender Lesson, Panel Rules
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Hear me out. What if rock star (Brian May aside) scientists are a mistake?
I don't know exactly how we stop them, but I'm going to brainstorm mid- and late-career humbling rituals, and other means of taking big-heads down a peg.
Mainstream news covered the Jeffrey Epstein emails related to ppl like Trump. Today, I want to take a look at Epstein's correspondence with prominent atheist and physicist Lawrence Krauss, who asked the pedophile's advice on responding to accusations of sexual assault skepchick.org/2025/11/so-i...
So I’m in the Epstein Files
Transcript: Look. I know that on this channel, I often criticize prominent people for actions that I find detestable: accepting dark money and failing to disclose it, producing propaganda for Big O…
skepchick.org
November 20, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
This is such a cool study. A parasitic ant queen tricks worker ants into murdering their own queen, so the parasite can take over the colony.
This parasitic ant tricks workers into committing matricide
Newly mated parasitic queen ants invade colonies and spray their victims with a chemical irritant that provokes the workers to kill their mother.
www.sciencenews.org
November 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
Important thread from our reporter @melissa-sanchez.bsky.social ⤵️
1/ The night of the raid, Jonahyker López awoke to the sound of a helicopter over his building and federal agents yelling, “Open the door!” López told me he sat on the edge of his bed, wishing that his own door would become invisible. But the door came down and agents burst in. 🧵
November 17, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Aysha Prather
Texas A&M reinventing "prior restraints"

www.texastribune.org/2025/11/10/t...
November 10, 2025 at 10:56 PM