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Minnesota doesn’t like students

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/15/minnesota-doesnt-like-students/

Published: March 15, 2025 14:56

Yesterday, I left my coat at home and went for a brisk walk downtown, which left me sweating. It felt like a nice warm spring. Tomorrow, all the students will be returning from spring break, all tanned and rested and ready to work. So what happens today? I…

It always turns into a grift with these people

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/15/it-always-turns-into-a-grift-with-these-people/

Published: March 15, 2025 11:54

Bryan Johnson — you know, the Bryan Johnson who wants to achieve eternal youth by turning himself into a plasticine android — has taken the next inevitable step. It’s not a bold new medical innovation. It’s turning his lifestyle and his weird recipes and…

MAGA hates science

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/14/maga-hates-science/

Published: March 14, 2025 19:23

It’s true: they literally hate science. Warning, though: they will also lie to you. For example, look at Answers in Genesis, which claims to love science, while redefining it to include claims that the earth is 6,000 years old and that there was a…

A hopeful historical story

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/14/a-hopeful-historical-story/

Published: March 14, 2025 18:18

Republicans may seem unstoppable, and the MAGA movement has energized a racist, nativist, nationalist mob. But you know what else seemed unstoppable? The Ku Klux Klan. A hundred years ago, the KKK was marching by the thousands in parades across the…

The word of the day is Gleichschaltung

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/14/the-word-of-the-day-is-gleichschaltung/

Published: March 14, 2025 13:23

It’s very useful to read some Nazi history nowadays. In particular, here in America it’s 1933 all over again; Mark Greif explains what phase of fascism we’re in. In historical terms, the event we are witnessing is an attempt at Gleichschaltung. The Nazi…

Crap. Now Elizabeth Vrba has died.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/13/crap-now-elizabeth-vrba-has-died/

Published: March 13, 2025 15:50

It’s not a great time to be in the sciences, is it? Read Niles Eldredge’s obituary for Elizabeth Vrba if you don’t know who she is. Vrba argued that the width of the niche that a species can occupy drives rates of both speciation and extinction, with the…

Flooding the zone works!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/13/flooding-the-zone-works/

Published: March 13, 2025 13:10

Lately, I’ve been getting up in the morning and glancing briefly at the news. More tariffs; we’re in an unnecessary trade war with our allies. The US is breaking climate agreements right and left. The Trump administration is unconstitutionally throwing out…

Blue has molted!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/12/blue-has-molted/

Published: March 12, 2025 18:18

Today I’m catching up with lab work, and the first thing I spotted after coming through the door was that our tarantula, Blue, had molted overnight. I’ve been keeping their molts as a record of their growth. Top left is the molt from this past summer; top…

My sister Lisa

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/11/my-sister-lisa/

Published: March 11, 2025 23:48

I had my birthday the other day, and my birthday brings sadness and depression with it. Not because I’m getting older, that I’m used to, but because every year around this time I think of my sister, Lisa. We had almost the same birthday, the 9th of March…

The line goes down?

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/11/the-line-goes-down-2/

Published: March 11, 2025 13:12

I know absolutely nothing about stocks. My eyes glaze over if you try to explain the stock market to me. I could be wrong, but isn’t it bad when the line goes down? I also suspect that it is bad when prices at the grocery store go up, as they’ve been doing…

Oh no! Our school is failing!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/11/oh-no-our-school-is-failing/

Published: March 11, 2025 12:50

We got another memo from the president of the University of Minnesota, Rebecca Cunningham. We’re failing! I am writing to you today, as our Twin Cities campus is now the subject of two federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism: a U.S.…

Priorities!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/10/priorities-3/

Published: March 10, 2025 14:03

It’s a simple point.

Florida is taking pride in what they’re good at

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/10/florida-is-taking-pride-in-what-theyre-good-at/

Published: March 10, 2025 13:51

I guess that’s good, to put a positive spin on what you have a demonstrable skill in doing, even if it is something most of us would be embarrassed by. There’s a company putting on what they call Florida Man games, a series of competitions where Floridians…

A musical interlude

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/10/a-musical-interlude-3/

Published: March 10, 2025 13:35

At the Stand Up for Science rally, they were playing a lot of old protest songs before the program started. We’re going to need a lot more songs before this is over.

Don’t listen to RFK jr

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/10/dont-listen-to-rfk-jr/

Published: March 10, 2025 13:17

The latest “health” craze is all about condemning “seed oils”. I’m a guy with a family history of heart disease, so I pay attention to doctors’ dietary recommendations, and I never heard anything about “seed oils” until recently, and the complaints were…