Christina Pikas
@cpikas.bsky.social
Sci/tech librarian at a research lab. BS Physics, PhD Information Studies (specifically scholarly communication in science and how information and communication technologies impact it). I also sew, knit, ... ?
Reposted by Christina Pikas
My thanks to the generous people at Scientific American, who asked for a piece on the overturning of scientific paradigms and didn't blink when they got a piece about relativity, malaria, surveys of the Great Plains, mammograms, LLMs, climatology, COVID, Back to the Future, and some other stuff.
What Happens When an Entire Scientific Field Changes Its Mind
Total reversals in scientific thinking are rare—but earth-shattering
www.scientificamerican.com
August 21, 2025 at 4:43 PM
My thanks to the generous people at Scientific American, who asked for a piece on the overturning of scientific paradigms and didn't blink when they got a piece about relativity, malaria, surveys of the Great Plains, mammograms, LLMs, climatology, COVID, Back to the Future, and some other stuff.
Reposted by Christina Pikas
AI slop spotters--we have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it. Have you found AI slop in a library collection? Report it here!
nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
August 12, 2025 at 9:46 PM
AI slop spotters--we have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it. Have you found AI slop in a library collection? Report it here!
nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Whew!
Never read it. ;)
Looking at the summary on Wikipedia, though, I'm confident the answer is no. There are literally a million craters on the Moon of the size that we think YR4-sized objects would make if they hit the Moon. There's nothing to worry about here on Earth.
Looking at the summary on Wikipedia, though, I'm confident the answer is no. There are literally a million craters on the Moon of the size that we think YR4-sized objects would make if they hit the Moon. There's nothing to worry about here on Earth.
June 11, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Whew!
I hope this isn't a Seveneves type situation www.space.com/astronomy/as...
NASA raises the odds that an asteroid could hit the moon in 2032
"2024 YR4 is a tailor-made asteroid for planetary defense efforts — it has everything it takes to get our attention."
www.space.com
June 11, 2025 at 11:35 AM
I hope this isn't a Seveneves type situation www.space.com/astronomy/as...
This is fun as someone interested in social studies of science and science history. Also as someone who works with AI researchers and works with some (over) exuberant technologists www.quantamagazine.org/when-chatgpt...
When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field: An Oral History | Quanta Magazine
Researchers in “natural language processing” tried to tame human language. Then came the transformer.
www.quantamagazine.org
May 2, 2025 at 12:20 PM
This is fun as someone interested in social studies of science and science history. Also as someone who works with AI researchers and works with some (over) exuberant technologists www.quantamagazine.org/when-chatgpt...
This: go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2025/03/ai-b... I need everyone who is considering "scraping" or siccing a bot on a library, scholarly publishing, or museum site to understand they are ruining things for everyone.
AI bots are destroying Open Access
There's a war going on on the Internet. AI companies with billions to burn are hard at work destroying the websites of libraries, archives, ...
go-to-hellman.blogspot.com
March 22, 2025 at 2:54 PM
This: go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2025/03/ai-b... I need everyone who is considering "scraping" or siccing a bot on a library, scholarly publishing, or museum site to understand they are ruining things for everyone.
If they had the rule that no females could use facilities designed/built for males, I would not have been able to go on any ship as a midshipman or officer. That wasn't that long ago, there are still ships in the fleet that were not designed for female crew. What stupidity.
February 27, 2025 at 1:06 PM
If they had the rule that no females could use facilities designed/built for males, I would not have been able to go on any ship as a midshipman or officer. That wasn't that long ago, there are still ships in the fleet that were not designed for female crew. What stupidity.
Reposted by Christina Pikas
It has been brought to my attention that my article has been censored to exclude certain terms:
asm.org/Articles/202...
web.archive.org/web/20250114...
#MicroSky
asm.org/Articles/202...
web.archive.org/web/20250114...
#MicroSky
February 4, 2025 at 3:59 PM
It has been brought to my attention that my article has been censored to exclude certain terms:
asm.org/Articles/202...
web.archive.org/web/20250114...
#MicroSky
asm.org/Articles/202...
web.archive.org/web/20250114...
#MicroSky
Reposted by Christina Pikas
New paper alert! 🧪⛏️
Led by the amazing @spacequakes.bsky.social, here's a seismologically ordinary earthquake that got outsized attention due to some misinformation. It was cool to be a small part of this work!
Open access in @weareseismica.bsky.social :
seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view...
Led by the amazing @spacequakes.bsky.social, here's a seismologically ordinary earthquake that got outsized attention due to some misinformation. It was cool to be a small part of this work!
Open access in @weareseismica.bsky.social :
seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view...
February 4, 2025 at 5:28 PM
New paper alert! 🧪⛏️
Led by the amazing @spacequakes.bsky.social, here's a seismologically ordinary earthquake that got outsized attention due to some misinformation. It was cool to be a small part of this work!
Open access in @weareseismica.bsky.social :
seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view...
Led by the amazing @spacequakes.bsky.social, here's a seismologically ordinary earthquake that got outsized attention due to some misinformation. It was cool to be a small part of this work!
Open access in @weareseismica.bsky.social :
seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view...
That's my new senator and former county executive. I'll leave it to many others who have done a great job refuting the reply to her question.
Bravo to Sen. Alsobrooks for her question.
“We should not be giving Black people the same vaccine schedule as Whites because their immune system is better than ours.” — RFK Jr
This is the deadlier version of the racist myth that Black people feel less pain, leading to denied pain meds.
“We should not be giving Black people the same vaccine schedule as Whites because their immune system is better than ours.” — RFK Jr
This is the deadlier version of the racist myth that Black people feel less pain, leading to denied pain meds.
January 31, 2025 at 2:24 PM
That's my new senator and former county executive. I'll leave it to many others who have done a great job refuting the reply to her question.
A bunch of my sewing peeps are coming over - hi! I am actually pretty quiet here and now will have context collapse, lol. It's good.
January 28, 2025 at 2:21 AM
A bunch of my sewing peeps are coming over - hi! I am actually pretty quiet here and now will have context collapse, lol. It's good.
Reposted by Christina Pikas
If you feel that BlueSky is “different“ from X, the data supports you :)
Using a network of 15M users (56% of the platform) we find that the probability that the log-normal law is wrong wrt to the power-law is just ~7%
Why that matters? Pop 🧵 follows!
1/
#scaling #NetSky #ComplexSystems 🧪
Using a network of 15M users (56% of the platform) we find that the probability that the log-normal law is wrong wrt to the power-law is just ~7%
Why that matters? Pop 🧵 follows!
1/
#scaling #NetSky #ComplexSystems 🧪
January 8, 2025 at 9:55 AM
If you feel that BlueSky is “different“ from X, the data supports you :)
Using a network of 15M users (56% of the platform) we find that the probability that the log-normal law is wrong wrt to the power-law is just ~7%
Why that matters? Pop 🧵 follows!
1/
#scaling #NetSky #ComplexSystems 🧪
Using a network of 15M users (56% of the platform) we find that the probability that the log-normal law is wrong wrt to the power-law is just ~7%
Why that matters? Pop 🧵 follows!
1/
#scaling #NetSky #ComplexSystems 🧪
Reposted by Christina Pikas
Resignation of the Journal of Human Evolution Editorial Board: We are saddened to announce the resignations of The Joint Editors-in-Chief, all Emeritus Editors retired or active in the field, and all but one Associate Editor. Press release below.
December 26, 2024 at 4:52 PM
Resignation of the Journal of Human Evolution Editorial Board: We are saddened to announce the resignations of The Joint Editors-in-Chief, all Emeritus Editors retired or active in the field, and all but one Associate Editor. Press release below.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh
August 27, 2024 at 4:49 PM
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh
It's so peculiar that this vendor e-mails us at my place of work starting with Dear Jon, .... like... huh?
June 17, 2024 at 12:36 PM
It's so peculiar that this vendor e-mails us at my place of work starting with Dear Jon, .... like... huh?
Nature has a special supplement this month about the state of science in China with data from the Nature Index: www.nature.com/collections/...
China
China's status at the summit of the Nature Index remains unrivalled as the gap between it and the United States grows.
www.nature.com
June 6, 2024 at 10:46 AM
Nature has a special supplement this month about the state of science in China with data from the Nature Index: www.nature.com/collections/...
So, um, are the weird random men from i-gram coming here now? I only usually block them if they try to talk to me but SIGH.
May 29, 2024 at 2:43 PM
So, um, are the weird random men from i-gram coming here now? I only usually block them if they try to talk to me but SIGH.
Via a work colleague who noted some of the error comes from a bug in a Python library (Seaborn 0.11.2) arxiv.org/pdf/2402.145... ... the decline of "disruptiveness" reported in a Nature paper is due to including papers with zero references (which should have a cd of "undefined")
arxiv.org
March 13, 2024 at 1:02 PM
Via a work colleague who noted some of the error comes from a bug in a Python library (Seaborn 0.11.2) arxiv.org/pdf/2402.145... ... the decline of "disruptiveness" reported in a Nature paper is due to including papers with zero references (which should have a cd of "undefined")
Reposted by Christina Pikas
New blog post: My Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics colloquium at APL!
skullsinthestars.com/2024/03/06/m...
skullsinthestars.com/2024/03/06/m...
My Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics colloquium at APL!
Back in January of this year, I gave a talk about Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and it was one of my favorite presentations on the subject, n...
skullsinthestars.com
March 7, 2024 at 3:00 AM
New blog post: My Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics colloquium at APL!
skullsinthestars.com/2024/03/06/m...
skullsinthestars.com/2024/03/06/m...
A fun and informative site on e-book licenses in libraries ebooksforus.com
E-Books for Us
Demand for e-books is at an all-time high, but library collections are being hijacked by corporations.
ebooksforus.com
February 15, 2024 at 3:25 PM
A fun and informative site on e-book licenses in libraries ebooksforus.com
We have a really nice copier. It's a small thing (well physically isn't isn't) but you only have to set the book down once per spread and it perfectly separates pages. Scans are pretty and in my e-mail super quickly. 😍
January 12, 2024 at 1:05 PM
We have a really nice copier. It's a small thing (well physically isn't isn't) but you only have to set the book down once per spread and it perfectly separates pages. Scans are pretty and in my e-mail super quickly. 😍
Hopkins Medicine resumes universal masking in Maryland locations due to increasing cases and guidance from state dept of health www.hopkinsmedicine.org/coronavirus/...
For Johns Hopkins Patients
Information for Johns Hopkins patients on coronavirus regarding vaccines, treatment and care.
www.hopkinsmedicine.org
January 11, 2024 at 7:43 PM
Hopkins Medicine resumes universal masking in Maryland locations due to increasing cases and guidance from state dept of health www.hopkinsmedicine.org/coronavirus/...
So excited @drskyskull.bsky.social is coming to the
@jhuapl.bsky.social Colloquium on Jan 12, 2-3pm! jhuapl.edu/colloquium/A... If you're in the area, it's open! Falling cats, fundamental physics... what better way to spend a Friday afternoon
@jhuapl.bsky.social Colloquium on Jan 12, 2-3pm! jhuapl.edu/colloquium/A... If you're in the area, it's open! Falling cats, fundamental physics... what better way to spend a Friday afternoon
Colloquium Detail
https://jhuapl.edu/colloquium/Archive/Detail?colloqid=2985#topic…
January 5, 2024 at 12:16 PM
So excited @drskyskull.bsky.social is coming to the
@jhuapl.bsky.social Colloquium on Jan 12, 2-3pm! jhuapl.edu/colloquium/A... If you're in the area, it's open! Falling cats, fundamental physics... what better way to spend a Friday afternoon
@jhuapl.bsky.social Colloquium on Jan 12, 2-3pm! jhuapl.edu/colloquium/A... If you're in the area, it's open! Falling cats, fundamental physics... what better way to spend a Friday afternoon
Reposted by Christina Pikas
On 12/4/23, Code4Lib Journal released the 3rd article in 4 years with major patron privacy and ethics issues -- this one with an actual data breach. 📚
Please consider signing this open letter calling for the editorial board to make transparent and significant changes.
Please consider signing this open letter calling for the editorial board to make transparent and significant changes.
Open Letter to the Code4Lib Journal Editorial Board
docs.google.com
December 8, 2023 at 3:11 PM
On 12/4/23, Code4Lib Journal released the 3rd article in 4 years with major patron privacy and ethics issues -- this one with an actual data breach. 📚
Please consider signing this open letter calling for the editorial board to make transparent and significant changes.
Please consider signing this open letter calling for the editorial board to make transparent and significant changes.
This paper annoys me: www.nature.com/articles/s41... It's using citation patterns of articles from 1960-2020 to say that if managers want innovation, they should require people to be on site. That's just the sort of thing leadership at MPOW like to see but it's far from the whole story.
Remote collaboration fuses fewer breakthrough ideas - Nature
Analysis of research articles and patent applications shows that members of teams that collaborate remotely are less likely to make breakthrough discoveries than members of on-site teams.
www.nature.com
December 1, 2023 at 7:45 PM
This paper annoys me: www.nature.com/articles/s41... It's using citation patterns of articles from 1960-2020 to say that if managers want innovation, they should require people to be on site. That's just the sort of thing leadership at MPOW like to see but it's far from the whole story.