Angela Cassidy
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angecass.bsky.social
Angela Cassidy
@angecass.bsky.social
Undisciplined scholar. Researching science, society+policy; humans-animals-environments; #OneHealth #microbes #STS #HistSTM #scicomm.
Author, 'Vermin, Victims and Disease: British Debates over Badgers and Bovine TB'
Pinned
Please please, GIVE ME A SIGN YOU'RE REAL!
"1. Fill out your profile BEFORE you start following people: issue is that accounts with generic avatars and no biography or introductory text are perceived as likely to be bots, so users not only eschew following back but they may even automatically block"
We've written a Researcher's Guide to Bluesky!

It's a bit like all those other useful guides to Bluesky, but with several useful insights from University of York academics about using the platform, and we'd love it if it was reposted far and wide...

>> blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024...

🧵 below
The Researcher’s Guide to Bluesky – The Library, Learning, Archives and Wellbeing Blog
blogs.york.ac.uk
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Are you in UK and want to hear about my book Ghosts Behind Glass? 3 public talks in Feb:
Cambridge Museum of Zoology, 11 Feb www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/events/talk-...
M Shed Bristol, 12 Feb  www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/m-s...
Oxford NatHist Museum, 13 Feb www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk/event/dead-a...
Ghosts Behind Glass
How museums display extinct species—and what these exhibits say about us.   While it’s no longer possible to encounter a dodo in the wild, we can still come face-to-face with them in museums. The rema...
press.uchicago.edu
January 12, 2026 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.

Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
February 1, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
This!! Too many things in the us are dependent on a charity economy (feeding the poor, educating our youth, university research, etc!) and that feeds all these fucked up incentives.
Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich
February 1, 2026 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Academics vying for a spot in Epstein‘s world. There are so many. I feel the need to make a thread, so I don’t keep confusing them. 1/
January 31, 2026 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Oh. My. God. Chomsky talking about the 'hysteria' that has developed about the abuse of women and giving Epstein advice on how to handle the media. In 2019. The Media studies discipline and much of the left should reflect on the power given to this one flawed man to shape generations of thought.
Cool thoughts from Noam Chomsky
January 31, 2026 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
In 1973, NASA launched spiders into space.

One of them was called Anita.

This is her story.

🧵 (1/8)

Image: Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

#astronomy #history
January 31, 2026 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
SO SO GLAD to see a PROPER rebuttal against Silvia Federici's very wrong scholarship in the latest Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft! Thank you, Rita Voltmer!

muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...
January 31, 2026 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
How do we take a place sensitive approach to environmental sustainability? Our latest report identifies four key features
- knowledge
- language
- participation
- partnership

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...
December 11, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
What's that? You'd prefer a one page visualisation of what an academic & professional publisher needs to see in your book proposal? Here's one I made earlier.
September 18, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
One of the largest figures in global public health is in the files.

It's hard to overstate the impact the Gates Foundation has had on public health over the last 25 years
Bill Gates allegedly caught an STD when he cheated on then-wife Melinda Gates, newly released emails in the Jeffrey Epstein files revealed.
Bill Gates Shocker! Billionaire Got an STD After Cheating on His Wife With 'Russian Girls,' Jeffrey Epstein Files Claim
okmagazine.com
January 31, 2026 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
"Data is not growing, because we have but one internet ... data is the fossil fuel of AI. It was like created somehow, and now we use it, and we’ve achieved peak data, and there’ll be no more." share.google/4EkXwYfGYz6r...
Donald MacKenzie · AI’s Scale
AI’s scale doesn’t matter just to specialists. The rest of us are being taken on a ride along the logarithmic curve...
share.google
January 31, 2026 at 11:34 AM
Donald MacKenzie on visions of infinite scaling in tech: "AI’s scale doesn’t matter just to specialists. The rest of us are being taken on a ride along the logarithmic curve too." (NB Mackenzie seems to have taken the hint from Shapin and is now writing essays for LRB, hurrah!) #sts #envhums #envsoc
"Data is not growing, because we have but one internet ... data is the fossil fuel of AI. It was like created somehow, and now we use it, and we’ve achieved peak data, and there’ll be no more." share.google/4EkXwYfGYz6r...
Donald MacKenzie · AI’s Scale
AI’s scale doesn’t matter just to specialists. The rest of us are being taken on a ride along the logarithmic curve...
share.google
January 31, 2026 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
'the science is now crystal clear that winters are getting wetter in the UK due to global heating, hitting damp regions like the south-west hardest.'

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
‘Homes may have to be abandoned’: how climate crisis has reshaped Britain’s flood risk
As rivers swell and homes are cut off, scientists say UK winter rainfall is already 20 years ahead of predictions
www.theguardian.com
January 31, 2026 at 6:58 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Lichen- paper sculpture
August 26, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
New work- aquatic plants- mostly invasive. These are paper sculptures.
October 26, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
My first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press on 11 August (UK) and 8 September (US). Please help spread the word! 🙏

UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social 🏳️‍🌈📚🐵

US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social 🏳️‍⚧️ 🗃️🦋
January 30, 2026 at 10:21 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
The research guide on Environmental History that I wrote for The National Archives, UK is now live! Includes research advice and resources on colonial environments, pollution, agriculture, and animal histories.

Available here: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-yo...

#envhist #envhum
January 30, 2026 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
*IF* Goldsmith does work with Reform (note how much work that 'has been approached' is doing in this story), will pour salt on Labour govts peculiar hostility to wildlife, widen fissures in green politics between climate/green transition & conservation agendas. Not good news, to put it mildly.
This is very savvy from Reform. It really could build support with policies on bottom trawling and the green belt, especially when so few media outlets will make the point that the biggest threat to nature is the climate crisis that Reform would exacerbate.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reform UK enlists Boris Johnson ally to write party nature policies
Exclusive: Ben Goldsmith will work on issues including fishing and green belt preservation to attract green Tories
www.theguardian.com
January 30, 2026 at 8:13 AM
*IF* Goldsmith does work with Reform (note how much work that 'has been approached' is doing in this story), will pour salt on Labour govts peculiar hostility to wildlife, widen fissures in green politics between climate/green transition & conservation agendas. Not good news, to put it mildly.
This is very savvy from Reform. It really could build support with policies on bottom trawling and the green belt, especially when so few media outlets will make the point that the biggest threat to nature is the climate crisis that Reform would exacerbate.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reform UK enlists Boris Johnson ally to write party nature policies
Exclusive: Ben Goldsmith will work on issues including fishing and green belt preservation to attract green Tories
www.theguardian.com
January 30, 2026 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Physics is under the cosh, Astronomy and Chemistry in peril, Geography is losing territory, English, Modern Languages and History are among the many shrinking UK disciplines.

Surely it's time to have a concerted, structured conversation about universities and the national research base.
UK physics research and science facilities face ‘substantial’ cuts.

Major cuts will hit UK science facilities and government research grants for physics and astronomy over the next four years, Research Professional News can reveal.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
UK physics research and science facilities face ‘substantial’ cuts - Research Professional News
Exclusive: Science and Technology Facilities Council seeks £162m cost savings, with existing projects facing axe
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
January 29, 2026 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Experimenting with qualitative-first approaches to environmental challenges - if you have fond memories (or not so fond!) with cicadas or fireflies, tell us about them here
We (@sabinaleonelli.bsky.social, @elisj.bsky.social, Emma Cavazzoni & I) are collecting stories (voice notes/text) and images (drawings/photos) of Cicadas and Fireflies for an upcoming Pianeta Lab event.

If you have any, we welcome you to share them via our website->
pianeta-lab-storia.vercel.app
Storie di Insetti · Cicala o Lucciola
pianeta-lab-storia.vercel.app
January 29, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Great new paper! A similar study in the U.K. is long overdue. A lot of elite employers in the U.K. have begun to take class background seriously, but universities remain woefully behind
📢now forthcoming in ECMA!

The Class Gap in Career Progression: Evidence from US Academia

Class is rarely a focus of research or DEI in elite US occupations.

Evidence suggests it should be: we find a large class gap in at least one occupation - tenure-track academia...🧵
January 29, 2026 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
the government paid £4 million for a website that simply links out to AI training courses from other companies rather than using that money to make something actually bespoke

which I guess is actually a pretty accurate representation of this whole damn thing 🥲
January 29, 2026 at 10:21 AM