Lauren Frankel
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laufran.bsky.social
Lauren Frankel
@laufran.bsky.social
1.4K followers 580 following 120 posts
evolutionary biologist (phylogenetic network methods, plant systematics) | postdoc @ University of Washington | PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison | 🏃🏻‍♀️✨🌈🌻🧬 she/her
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Reposted by Lauren Frankel
jcollins.bsky.social
In a dog walk around my Minneapolis neighborhood, 14 degrees but feels like 7, I encountered three people in high viz vests patrolling, 2 people heading to a meeting of local businesses, too many anti-ICE signs to count and children happily sliding down a steep hill of pure ice.
January 15, 2026 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
tropicalbotany.bsky.social
Happy #SSB2026 from the #LagoLab and #ZeFeLab, descendants & friends!
@tribblelab.bsky.social @laymonstera.bsky.social @racheljabaily.bsky.social @oschwery.bsky.social @evoyeyo.bsky.social @nicolas-cr.bsky.social @justkathe.bsky.social @laufran.bsky.social @ixchelgr.bsky.social @roszenil.bsky.social
Bunch of people smile at a table with two king cakes in the front and a yellow lab smiling at the camera.
January 10, 2026 at 6:51 AM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
stevehaddock.bsky.social
The re-analysis of this #sponge #ctenophore study made me realize how important it is to really *look* at your data.
Their filtering pipeline was meant to retain "strong" genes, but many of them had NO ctenophores and most had polyphyletic sponges.
Time to put down the pitchforks for a while.
caseywdunn.bsky.social Casey Dunn @caseywdunn.bsky.social · 13d
Our eLetter github.com/caseywdunn/s... responding to a recent Science paper was just posted. The paper found more genes with consistent support for sponge-sister than ctenophore-sister. We found several technical issues that, when corrected, reverse the conclusions and recover ctenophore-sister.
January 9, 2026 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
bencollins.bsky.social
It appears ICE murdered someone in cold blood today and their plan is — per usual — to create a fog of lies so the killer does not face justice. We simply can't let that happen. The shooter has to be arrested and so does Bovino. They can't just kill people on the street.
January 7, 2026 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
socialistdogmom.bsky.social
they’re abducting our neighbors and putting them in concentration camps and they’ll shoot you in the fucking face if you don’t cheer them on while they’re doing it.
January 7, 2026 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
nick-mason.bsky.social
LSU Museum of Natural Sciences is hiring a postdoc! Come join our very active and supportive museum community. Applicants can work with any of the major divisions: 🐀🦜🦎🐸🐠

Review begins February 15th, please share!

lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/LSU/job/0119...
Postdoctoral Researcher
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
landismj.bsky.social
New preprint modeling biogeo diversification of Hawaiian Kadua 🌱🏝️🌋

w/ @ca-naturalist.bsky.social @sswiston.bsky.social @fabiology.bsky.social @phylogeny.bsky.social Warren Wagner, Bruce Baldwin, Ken Wood @ninaronsted.bsky.social @fzapata.bsky.social

biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.16.694722
Cartoon of paleogeographic, biogeographic, and phylogenetic history of an island plant radiation, and plots of hypothesized relationships between regional features and biogeographic rates.
December 31, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
anzaborrego.bsky.social
Desert lily flowering on a dune at sunrise on Sunday (Photo: Sicco Rood).
Desert lily flowering on a dune at sunrise on Sunday with clouds lit up overhead.
December 30, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
edzitron.com
I covered this in my premium last week, it’s laughable!

www.wheresyoured.at/ai-mythbuste...
"You Need Al Skills Today To Be Ready For The Future"/"The Future Belongs To Those Who Know AI" So, you've probably seen a lot of stuff — maybe even in your own workplace! — about how you're gonna need Al skills in the future, because, uh. Well, you're gonna need them, and you're gonna get left behind if you don't have them. If anybody ever says this to you, please ask them to be specific, because at this point I'm not even confident I can make up a task that Al can do for me. In fact, here's a simple one: please name me somebody who has gotten significantly better at their job using Al. One person you know. One. Just one. Try it. I am, in theory, exactly the person who should be getting the most out of Al. I write a lot. I research a lot. I constantly have to keep an eye on stuff. I pull stuff out of large piles of data. I think I make like 500 searches a week, I'm a complete animal. I talk back and forth with my editor Matt Hughes constantly to brainstorm ideas. So why don't I use Al? Surely it would be perfect, right? Nope! Al is a terrible researcher. I've used everything from Al mode on Google to the most expensive generative search engines available for large hedge funds, and in 99.9% of cases I've found nothing new or interesting or novel. That edge case was one time when a search engine pulled up a single quote from an earnings statement. Once. One time. So, what do people mean by "Al skills"? Prompt engineering. They mean "how can you get this product that's sold and hyped as a panacea for every informational problem to do the thing that it's meant to do," and the answer is usually "it can't do it, but the way to get it close is to find nuanced ways to ask it to do stuff." In a very real sense, "Al skills training" is actually Al training you - making you fill in the gaps, making you do the work that this alleged "intelligence" does.
December 23, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
mariapopova.bsky.social
Emily Dickinson's herbarium – a forgotten treasure at the intersection of poetry and science www.themarginalian.org/2017/05/23/e...
Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Forgotten Treasure at the Intersection of Science and Poetry
An elegy for time and the mortality of beauty, composed with passionate patience and a sensuous cadence.
www.themarginalian.org
December 8, 2025 at 8:02 PM
laufran.bsky.social
ahhhh, nothing like the excitement of setting up your bash (or I guess zsh now) profile & prompt on a new work laptop
December 5, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
oceanfilly.bsky.social
More journals should do this! Art is inherently a part of science and this helps to normalize that. Also... IT LOOKS SO COOL.
evolletters.bsky.social Evolution Letters @evolletters.bsky.social · Dec 4
Check out our cover article by @timjanicke.bsky.social and colleagues about the role of sexual selection in animal speciation. academic.oup.com/evlett/artic.... The beautiful illustration is by Katharina Bóth.
December 4, 2025 at 5:04 PM
laufran.bsky.social
it's official: UW-Madison will no longer have a department of Botany as of summer 2026, and will be in a new department of Biology.

ls.wisc.edu/news/science...
Science Brought to Life: UW–Madison to Launch New Department of…
Combining the forces of the current integrative biology and botany departments, the University’s Department of Biology within the College of Letters &…
ls.wisc.edu
December 2, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
ecologyofgavin.bsky.social
Should ecologists be worried about the carbon footprint of their own use of “AI” and LLMs?

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
The role of AI in ecology’s computational carbon footprint
Click on the article title to read more.
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
derek.bike
when we say we want more streets to be pedestrianized, this is what we mean
November 25, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
once again joining the many people who have observed how much of a world-historical problem it is that Trump is so fucking funny
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Nov 21
Q: Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?

MAMDANI: I've spoken about--

TRUMP: That's okay. You can just say yes. I don't mind.
November 21, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
kentremendous.bsky.social
A guy makes ONE tiny mistake (has a years-long friendship with the world's worst sex trafficker; brags about sexually harassing colleagues; is racist; says women are stupid) and his whole LIFE is blown up (does slightly fewer speaking engagements; keeps teaching at #1 university)??!?!?!?!?!
karenattiah.bsky.social Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · Nov 18
So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism.

Got it.
rimaanabtawi.bsky.social Rima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social · Nov 18
Larry Summers tells @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social
he’s stepping back from all public commitments in light of his messages with Epstein, saying he is “deeply ashamed” and hopes “to rebuild trust and repair relationships.”

He will continue teaching.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
November 18, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
jackjenkins.me
Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
“Faith leader, Michael Woolf, minister at Lake Street Church of Evanston, is detained by Illinois State Police during a protest against immigration actions, outside the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., November 14, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska”
November 14, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
smaldo.bsky.social
Inbox— next cover of the New Yorker: “Mayor Mamdani,” by Edel Rodriguez
November 5, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
rincewind.run
Zohran is cool and awesome and I’m thrilled for him and all of us

but at my core this is who I am: the Jewish guy who shows up to be a world class hater in support of his friend
luriethereal.bsky.social Stephen Lurie @luriethereal.bsky.social · Nov 5
Brad Lander is at the victory party and, folks, he has the custom one-of-one “GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE” shirt.
November 5, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
hadas.bsky.social
not to brag but i can generate slop with natural intelligence
October 28, 2025 at 4:15 PM
laufran.bsky.social
i fear coffee may not be as effective for increasing my productivity as compared to a Bruce Springsteen live album... i am a living, breathing raised in New Jersey stereotype
October 22, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Lauren Frankel
metaomicsnerd.bsky.social
that abstract
Abstract: Recent self-reported and cross-sectional survey evidence documents high levels of mental health problems among PhD students. We study the relationship between PhD studies and mental health care utilization using Swedish administrative records of prescriptions for psychiatric medication for the full population of PhD students. We find that prior to starting their PhD studies, prospective students use psychiatric medication at a rate similar to a matched sample of individuals with a master’s degree. However, following the start of their PhD studies, psychiatric medication use among PhD students increases substantially. This upward trend continues throughout the course of PhD studies, and by the fifth year medication use has increased by 40 percent compared to pre-PhD levels. After the fifth year, when most students in our sample graduate, the psychiatric medication use declines notably. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the increase in medication use occurs broadly across different student subgroups and academic disciplines, with the exception of students in the medical and health sciences.
October 16, 2025 at 8:20 PM