Steph likes native plants

One day of spring cleaning the yard and my back is wrecked. Heeelllllloooo 50 😭😩😂

there's so much bad in the world but there's also people who lift up and carry an elderly bat around every day so he can pretend he's flying again, and that's the part of the world I think is worth fighting for

Homelessness is a policy choice

Thank you! At an event last night I said "If the word hope doesn't work for you try, 'Never fucking surrender.'" The word hope seems too sunny to a lot of people, but the heart of it as I'm interested in it is: we make the future in the present, if we show up, and that never surrender part.

Just tell them you let Word autocorrect your spelling. Boom. AI.

I can’t believe they included that scene. I am pretty sure they never watched the actual movie…

Weird chart. What happened in 2025 in the US? Did political leadership change and then start systematically dismantling education, science, health care, and government, levying arbitrary tariffs, randomly attacking major US cities, and destroying the economy?

Just asking.

7/ In reality, my colleagues still inside NIH tell me that their assessments are largely ignored.

Once a grant or application is picked up by the tool, they are almost never able to move the grant forward as is - regardless of the scientific justification.

Current NIH leadership want you to think they are using rigorous, consistent & scientific processes to screen studies to align them with agency priorities.

But the process that they have put down on paper is a sham.

It’s important to know NIH is not following its own guidance. Here’s why:

🧵1/

Not every action is public. I feel this in my soul.

Thanks for the nudge to make a public comment.

NCAR Information and Support The AMS is a global community committed to advancing weather, water, and climate science and service.

There is still time for you, too, to submit your feedback to the January "Dear Colleague Letter" (see link below for context and instructions). The deadline for email submissions (directly to NSF_NCAR@nsf.gov) is March 13 (next week!). [2/4]

Page 2 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: constructive suggestions regarding how the already remarkable institutional efficiency and societal impact of NCAR could be further enhanced through increased (not decreased) federal support in the years to come. Please note: To ensure the highest level of technical rigor, this response focuses exclusively on the core atmospheric and natural hazard science topics within the author’s primary domain of expertise; for this reason, I have omitted a response to Topic 4 (Space Weather)." NCAR weather modeling and atmospheric observing capabilities a) Management and operations of weather-related observational platforms, modeling and science as a stand-alone activity. The proposed management of weather-related research as a stand-alone activity is a scientifically regressive path that ignores the fundamental physical reality of the Earth system. Modern atmospheric science has demonstrated (largely, it is worth noting, due to groundbreaking researc

Page 3 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: b) Management and operations of weather-related observational platforms, modeling and science as combined with other NSF investments/facilities. The highly specialized nature of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) infrastructure represents an extraordinary value proposition that cannot be replicated by combining it with more generalized NSF programs. The NWSC is not a generic high-performance computing (HPC) facility; it is a laboratory uniquely optimized for atmospheric science workflows, with a hardware and storage architecture specifically designed to handle the massive, high-bandwidth data demands of Earth system modeling. Furthermore, its model of providing an excellent, free-at-point-of-use technical support team ensures that the focus remains on the science rather than the overhead of systems administration. This centralized expertise allows individual researchers, smaller labs, and even entire universities—who would otherwi

Page 4 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: NCAR Mesa Lab (located in Boulder, Colorado) a/b) Ownership of the NSF NCAR Mesa Lab building for public and private use. Far more than just an office building, NSF NCAR Mesa Lab is an iconic and purpose-built facility designed specifically for the study of atmospheric science. Its position at the physical interface of the Rocky Mountain foothills and the Great Plains is a deliberate reflection of its mission, serving as a visible symbol—in an iconically American setting—of the federal government's enduring commitment to science in service of society. For many in the field, including myself, the Mesa Lab holds singular importance as a focal gathering point for the global atmospheric science community. My own early career exposure to weather and Earth system modeling, in fact, occurred within these walls, and I have long felt that the facility’s architecture and location inspire a necessary sense of awe regarding the atmosphere’s complexity a

Page 1 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: Dear Acting Director Stone and the NSF NCAR restructuring team: I am writing to provide a formal response to the Request for Information (RFI) regarding the proposed restructuring of the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and its critical weather science infrastructure contained within the January 23, 2026 Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) entitled “NSF Intent to Restructure Critical Weather Infrastructure.” I submit these comments in my professional capacity as an atmospheric research scientist within the University of California, where my research focuses on the physics and dynamics of atmospheric processes related to extreme weather events and their role in shifting natural hazard and disaster risk. My perspective is informed by a public-sector career dedicated to bridging the gap between fundamental atmospheric research and real-world application in an academic context, with a particular focus on understanding and mitigating

I just submitted my letter to NSF responding to its proposal to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). I argue that doing so would be an astonishing and avoidable misstep, and that federal support for the institution should in fact be *increased.* [1/4]

Gonna do our best!

🙏🏻

Muffin tires, then

We are in Reno Nevada, and the planting site is in the Humboldt Toiyabe NF near Markleeville, CA. I think I might have found a solution at UNR though—thanks for checking in on that!!!

I had a very different experience on my bike commute a few days ago. I got stuck behind a street sweeper and as I sucked dust, all I could think about was that in Reno the sweepers just push the debris right into bike lanes (should they actually exist).

Amy Goldberg, PhD - Join The Goldberg lab is moving to UCLA summer 2025, and recruiting postdocs and graduate students. We are a computational lab with occasional wet lab or field collaborators. We will be located in the Depa...

The Goldberg lab at UCLA is hiring one or more postdocs. Flexible start date.

We develop methods to study population genetics of humans, our primate relatives, and our pathogens.

www.goldberglab.org/join

Itʻs so sad that Toyota does not make the Matrix anymore. I could fit so much stuff in the back of that little hatchback. Surfboards. Camping gear. 300 trees. Everything. In the quest to battle against the steady increasing size of American cars, we should petition its return to the market.

Those are all Metrosideros polymorpha (ʻōhiʻa) in the back of my Toyota Matrix hatchback. So they are also in the Myrtaceae!

In 2018, when Kilauea went bonkers and they closed Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, we rescued our tree seedlings from their shade house and I just stuck them in my backyard until they were ready to plant. Still had 80% survival lol

I am scrambling to find a tree seedling cooler because the local USFS one is broken. We have a big outplanting experiment going in this spring and apparently you have to keep seedlings in a cooler between the nursery and planting. Folks, this is not something I dealt with in the tropics!

A traffic violence story doesn't get more American than this.

A man whose wife was killed crossing the street advocated for a signal and was later killed at the same intersection himself.

Neighbors have been asking for a traffic signal there for 40(!) years.

I love the KEXP morning show. It’s always wonderfully eclectic.

Its BLM right? I think you can dispersed camp as well.

Global sea levels have been underestimated due to poor modelling, research suggests Analysis shows average levels are 30cm higher than thought, and up to 150cm in south-east Asia and Indo-Pacific

It’s worse than we think.

It is not controversial for me, personally. This is not something that I would do. I am fairly anti-AI. But as a handling editor, my personal feelings on AI don't matter, and I am supposed to be unbiased. Ultimately I sent it out for review but I did not love doing that.

My understanding is that they used AI to find the papers that fit certain keywords (how is this different than a web of science search? not sure), and also used AI to find which of these papers actually measured specific response variables. Then they actually read through to fact check.

USFS is the only agency where fewer people show up for wildlife webinars than plant webinars. No judgement, just an observation.

It is terrible but also likely shock plays a big role.