Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
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Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
@ostara13.bsky.social
Science, education, and rational thought. SWWLDS Community.
'Hey MAGA, get mad at the shiny thing over there and stop paying attention to selling out America's legacy."
If Europe is so bad, why does Putin want to invade it?
March 3, 2025 at 3:46 AM
"We're about to do damaging stuff that rational people would want to stop."
Hegseth says firing of top military lawyers was about making sure "they don't exist to be roadblocks to anything that happens."
February 23, 2025 at 8:57 PM
This is devastating.
"The “west”, in any coherent sense, is over.

...there is no unbreaking what is now shattered. Not just domestically, but internationally. The US is unpredictable. A future “friendly” administration would be incapable of making any long-term commitments beyond its own stint in power."
The ‘west’ is over. In the Trumpian era, Europe is on its own | Alexander Hurst
February 21, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Attributed to Napoleon and an ideology cited by such infamous persons as Hitler, Mousolini, and terrorist Anders Breivik.

Not that his sycophants will ever hear. Instead, I wonder how many of his followers will assume the phrasing means it's a Bible verse without ever cracking open the Bible?
Yesterday I read Napoleon. Today it reads like an updated “Stand Back and Stand By” to me
February 16, 2025 at 5:52 PM
We all know money talks. Want to quit the tech bros?

Other social media
1. Snap
2. Bluesky
3. Diaspora
4. Mastodon
5. Substack

Other shopping platforms
1. Capital One Shopping
2. Discount apps: Rakuten, Ibotta, BeFrugal, Upside, Honey, etc.
3. eBay
4. Etsy
February 16, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Nothing about gutting biomedical research is great for anyone.
asm.org ASM @asm.org · Feb 15
Read ASM’s statement on the sweeping removal of federal health agency staff, which will be catastrophic for American science and technology. asm.org/Press-Releas...
ASM Statement on Sweeping Removal of Federal Agency Staff
ASM's statement on the recent Executive Orders and compulsory and voluntary federal agency staff reductions.
asm.org
February 15, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Haven't been to the Kennedy Center in a while. Definitely not going back any time soon.
Trump elected chairman of Kennedy Center board: President Trump was unanimously elected chairman of the Kennedy Center board of trustees on Wednesday, the president said on Truth Social.

Why it matters: Trump, who had a tense relationship with the arts organization during his first term, removed…
Trump elected chairman of Kennedy Center board
President Trump was unanimously elected chairman of the Kennedy Center board of trustees on Wednesday, the president said on Truth Social. Why it matters: Trump, who had a tense relationship with the arts organization during his first term, removed…
www.axios.com
February 13, 2025 at 3:50 AM
This is why expertise matters. It gives you the ability to critically evaluate publications in a meaningful way. Not being stupidly biased helps, too.
NEW: RFK Jr. said a new study linked vaccines to autism in his confirmation hearing. We found that the study's author had a hard time getting it published.

Then he got help from Andrew Wakefield, who is famous for the first debunked study linking the the two.

GIFT: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/u...
Behind Kennedy’s Vow to ‘Follow the Science’ on Vaccines
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited a disputed study from a close network of fellow vaccine skeptics during his confirmation hearings. His critics say it is part of a pattern that raises concerns about whose ...
www.nytimes.com
February 13, 2025 at 3:27 AM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
See that gap between the United States of America and those other countries?

That gap… that gulf…

That’s profit.

Profit at the expense of health.
An update with latest data available for graph of life expectancy vs health care expenditures per capita for 20 countries and one outlier.
February 3, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
UPDATE: 14th batch now up.

Everything from a Spanish page on people with disabilities to information about lab testing for patients with viral hemorrhagic fevers.

acasignups.net/25/02/03/lin...
Links to archived versions of every CDC.gov page available pre-purge (Part 14 of 15)
Note: All 15 pages can be found here. As horrific as it is that the Trump/Musk Administration is purging data from federal websites, it's good to know that the Internet Archive has been archiving much...
acasignups.net
February 3, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Unfortunately, I agree. I hope the rest of the world sees that many Americans oppose these reckless and dangerous policies.
He’s got it 💯 right and it’s so sad to watch.
February 1, 2025 at 6:00 PM
A perfect demonstration of the importance of being qualified for a job. (Also a pathetic demonstration of how unqualified they are.)

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
White House revokes spending freeze in face of legal challenges
Move come after federal judge blocked freeze that disrupted payments to medical and childcare providers
www.theguardian.com
January 29, 2025 at 6:46 PM
The officers involved in this were probably in unnecessary danger just because of the pardons. Not to mention the toll of taking a life in the line of duty.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
January 6 rioter pardoned by Trump is killed by police in traffic stop
Indiana state police say Matthew Huttle, who was given six months in prison, was shot after allegedly resisting arrest
www.theguardian.com
January 28, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
do you enjoy knowing that when you deposit money in a US bank, you won't lose that money? nice, right?

it's because bank deposits are insured by FDIC.

i don't know what FDIC ever did to these people, but apparently it too is now on their blow-it-up list:

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Banking regulator rescinds more than 200 job offers for examiners it needs
A government-wide hiring freeze is adding to a staffing shortage at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., complicating the agency’s efforts to oversee thousands of banks across the country.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 27, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
Our system allows uninformed peer reviewers to publish lab leak agitprop for H5N1 and furthering anti-science animus. The person who wrote the manuscript is a known bad faith entity. This is obvious.

We desperately need to reform peer review in so many ways.
January 28, 2025 at 2:24 AM
One horrible decision after another.
January 28, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬

"This has never been seen before...the fusion of the state and tech power and business elites."

The rise of the tech oligarchs in new #Trump government with @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social @peterjukes.bsky.social @goldbergradio.bsky.social

From @bylinetimes.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/2a34f9
Byline Podcast: Trump and the Tech Bros
This time, the chance for a long listen, with Byline Times editor Hardeep Matharu and Byline times co-founder Peter Jukes, reflecting on the inauguration of Donald Trump and the farewell address of...
pod.fo
January 26, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
“That a second bout of infections would produce milder symptoms in cattle is unsurprising, experts said, &could be welcome news to farmers. But reinfections suggest that the virus, called H5N1, could circulate on farms indefinitely, creating opportunities for it to evolve into a more dangerous form”
‘This Is a Dangerous Virus’
A bird-flu pandemic is far from inevitable. But health experts are closely monitoring an outbreak that could quickly escalate among people.
www.nytimes.com
January 27, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
As expected, the Trump team is already deleting climate info from government websites. In anticipation, our team at Urban Ocean Lab created a permanent archive of 100+ key resources and published a permanent archive: www.urbanoceanlab.org/resource-hub 👩🏽‍💻
January 24, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
January 19, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
January 5, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Reposted by Heather R, Ph.D. 🧬🔬
While we’re banning books…

Finland is teaching children in school how to recognize fake news and propaganda as part of critical thinking and civic responsibility. Some of this will seem very familiar.

Be. Like. Finland.
January 4, 2025 at 6:01 PM
"As long as they control the purse strings, there will be no meaningful response to the failure of most people’s paychecks to rise, nor to climate change, nor racism, nor the soaring costs of health insurance, pharmaceuticals, college, and housing..."
December 22, 2024 at 3:16 PM