Non-cooperation

SUNY Geneseo researchers and their collaborators have described three new species of snailfish, including the bumpy snailfish (Careproctus colliculi) discovered using Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts. Photo Credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

As I type, another shelter in place alert just pinged on my phone, the third such threat just this week on this campus. Many campuses across the US are targeted, but historically Black colleges have experienced an alarming increase in terrorist threats this week alone. While sheltering in place, I cannot help but think that everything is interconnected. Violence is increasingly infused into political speech, weaponized by the Trump administration to advance their authoritarian agenda, emboldening far-right extremists because apparently there is no accountability for their actions. Even with that backdrop, the past week seems outside the new norm. 

This quote from a recent article in The Nation encapsulates the current moment: “I do not believe anyone should be murdered because of their views, but that is because I don’t believe people should be murdered generally, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done. I am against the death penalty, pro-gun control, and believe war is a failure of humanity, not a necessary byproduct of it. Kirk was fine with murder as long as the right people were dying.”

Whose pain matters? Whose life? Who gets to be human? Who is mourned and avenged? These questions at the very core of what is playing out today in the US and across the world. 

If political violence only matters if its perpetrated by the left, if the only lives worth mourning are the lives of far-right extremists, if the people calling for violence and retribution would shoot into a crowd that includes their family, friends, and neighbors, then we are cooked. 

But we must remember that their tactics only work if we allow them to and if we do not actively push back against the dehumanization that is the foundation of fascism. It only works if there are no consequences for lying (check out Olúfémi O. Táíwó’s writing on the subject). 

Lets bring the consequences. Lets start by calling out lies, consistently and with gusto.

Take action

  • Write to your representatives and encourage them to sign onto the RESEARCHER Act to support fair wages for early career researchers (thanks AGU!)

  • Call your Senators and tell them to vote against the SAVE act, which would strip millions of people of their right to vote. 

  • Submit a comment to protect the Roadless Rule, which safeguards our National Forests. Your voice matters!

  • Check out and add to Grant Witness, a project to track the impacts of grant cancellations across the US.

  • And check out the tracker of trackers from Unbreaking (and why public documentation of the harms and impacts is so important).

bookmark this

  • Unbreaking is a collective effort to understand and track how the US government is being decimated and what that means for the rest of us.

weekly win

weekly wonder

  • Xenoparity what?!?! Two species of ants birthed by the same mother. Read about it and/or watch a short video, and try to answer the question “What does it mean to call something a species?”

  • Three new species discovered in the deep sea in the Pacific Ocean, a bumpy, dark, and sleek snailfish. The world is full of wonder.

check it out

  • Speaking of natural wonders worth conserving, the impacts of Trump’s cuts to international programs are hitting wildlife conservation efforts especially hard. 

  • A grant from Open Philanthropy funds project to map and quantify the impacts of cuts to scientific funding. 

  • We’ve entered the phase of authoritarianism when academics are being fired for teaching inconvenient truths. A professor at Texas A&M has been recently fired for teaching that there are more than two genders. 

  • The recent oil plant explosion in Roseland, Louisiana reminds us that the environmental and economic costs of regulatory rollbacks are often levied on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.

  • The Global Sumud Flotilla, currently docked at the port of Tunisia, will continue its journey to deliver aid to Gaza despite at least two drone strikes on ships in the last week. Yes, there is still genocide and forced starvation in Gaza.

More of this please

perennial reads

book nook

all ears

  • A few years old, but check out the podcast This Land, Season 2, which focused on how the far right is using Native children to quietly dismantle American Indian tribes and advance a conservative agenda

watch this

  • Watch this episode of “Why is this happening” from May 2025, Chris Hayes interviews Dr. Erica Chenoweth about tactics needed to counter democracy backsliding and authoritarian regime entrenchment, based on research, which we always love.

…by the way

  • There is a Darwin award for the dumbest use of AI, because of course there is.

🙃 America is a Gun (a poem by Brian Bristol, perpetually timely)

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