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Dean Eckles

@eckles.bsky.social

9.4K followers 1.2K following 300 posts

networks, contagion, causality faculty at MIT

Videos

Mathematics 19%

Physics 19%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Tim Bale, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 8 more Lisa W. Fazio, Tim Bale, Rosemary A. Joyce, Efrén O. Pérez, Daniel W. Drezner, Aaron Sojourner, Caroline Fohlin, Michael D. McDonald, Dean Eckles, Simon Lester, David Darmofal

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 15h

What if the unidentified masked men with guns don't accept the validity of your papers?

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Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Aaron Sojourner, Dean Eckles

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 17h

Our public money to support research at our universities is mandated by our Congress.

It is not the personal slush fund of the president, to withhold at will or dole out as largesse, rewarding those who please him.

Those who seek reform of universities can use laws, not arbitrary extortion.

Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 18h

After getting zero firm commitments to this point from the first nine invitees, the Trump administration is extending its proposed compact to all colleges. Expect some red-state publics to say yes.

Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT

The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in re...

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Scott A. Imberman, Dean Eckles

Jake Wertz @jakewertz.bsky.social · 18h

“Or knows someone who has” doing a lot of heavy lifting in this survey finding

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

Ari Cohn @aricohn.com · 1d

And if you think you're safe on the left, you're not.

The right has been pushing that calling them "fascist" should be illegal / somehow punished.

With SB 771 they'll be able to sue platforms for aiding & abetting intimidation/violence based on political affiliation for allowing you to post that.

California Code, Civil Code - CIV § 51.7
Current as of January 01, 2024 | Updated by FindLaw Staff

(a) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976.

(b)(1) All persons within the jurisdiction of this state have the right to be free from any violence, or intimidation by threat of violence, committed against their persons or property because of political affiliation, or on account of any characteristic listed or defined in subdivision (b) or (e) of Section 51, or position in a labor dispute, or because another person perceives them to have one or more of those characteristics. The identification in this subdivision of particular bases of discrimination is illustrative rather than restrictive.

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Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 1d

cf. www.quantamagazine.org/statistician...

A Long-Sought Proof, Found and Almost Lost | Quanta Magazine

When a German retiree proved a famous long-standing mathematical conjecture, the response was underwhelming.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Reposted by Joe R. Feagin, Brendan Nyhan, Gavin A. Schmidt , and 23 more Joe R. Feagin, Brendan Nyhan, Gavin A. Schmidt, Steve Peers, Christopher Wright, Rosemary A. Joyce, Jane E. Fountain, Sanford F. Schram, Janet Murray, Aaron Sojourner, Lesley Bartlett, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Scott A. Imberman, Dean Eckles, Brian Keegan, Kent Johnson, Tom Stoppard, Ann Bartow, Nicole Guenther Discenza, Pádua Fernandes, Charles T. Mathewes, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Prakash Kashwan, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Élisabeth Vallet, David Darmofal

Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 1d

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

David Marx @digthatdata.bsky.social · 1d

arxiv.org/abs/2502.00873

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Reposted by Robert C. Richards, Dean Eckles

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2d

"It should be an easy decision for college presidents not to stick their institution’s neck into this retroactive push-button guillotine."

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 3d

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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Reposted by David Lazer, Will Jennings, Jacob Montgomery , and 3 more David Lazer, Will Jennings, Jacob Montgomery, David R. Miller, Dean Eckles, Henrik Skaug Sætra

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2d

Unprecedented corruption

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 3d

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Reposted by Will Jennings, David R. Miller, Dean Eckles , and 1 more Will Jennings, David R. Miller, Dean Eckles, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2d

If you're going to write headlines like this, why even have newspapers?

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 2d

Should the New York Times be sold to Pennysaver and its editors sent to work in Amazon warehouses? It depends on who you ask.

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Reposted by Will Jennings, Rosemary A. Joyce, David R. Miller , and 2 more Will Jennings, Rosemary A. Joyce, David R. Miller, Dean Eckles, Manisha Sinha

Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 2d

Trump straight up murdering people in the Caribbean and the NYT writes this

The Trump Split Screen: A Peacemaker Abroad, a Retribution Campaign at Home

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Reposted by Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Cas Mudde , and 51 more Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Cas Mudde, Ben H. Ansell, Jan W. Mueller, Guntram B. Wolff, Christian Odendahl, Richard S.J. Tol, Colin F. Camerer, Robbert Sanderman, David Brady, Gabriel Felbermayr, Steven Van de Walle, Tomasz Mickiewicz, Alistair Munro, Michael A. Clemens, Cyrus Samii, Lucas Leemann, Francesco Saraceno, Laia Balcells, Andrew Curry, Paul Lehmann, Guy Grossman, John Mullahy, Joshua Goodman, David Dorn, Ingo Rohlfing, Daniel W. Drezner, Iikka Korhonen, Robert C. Richards, Aaron Sojourner, Daniel Huppmann, Julia Lynch, Rita Hamad, Stephen D. Murphy, Nazita Lajevardi, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Miguel Á. Malo, Henry Farrell, Dean Eckles, Maria Abreu, Dana R. Fisher, Jason Lyall, Brian Weatherson, Brooke Harrington, Bård Harstad, Christina Pagel, Jürgen Janger, Nicolai von Ondarza, Karsten Mäuse, Dietmar Fehr, Bartosz Bartkowski, Adam Tooze, Anita Gohdes

Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 4d

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

🧵 1/7

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

Cllr. Burhan Azeem @burhanazeem.bsky.social · 6d

During this election season, lots of groups and people have been supportive (Sierra club, UAW, …) but this new on definitely means the most to me!

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 6d

Super cool science: Parachutes are expensive and delicate to manufacture, which limits their use for humanitarian airdrops or drone delivery. Laser cutting a closed-loop kirigami pattern in a disc induces porosity and flexibility into an easily fabricated parachute. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kirigami-inspired parachutes with programmable reconfiguration - Nature

A thin planar disc designed with appropriately patterned cuts transforms itself, due to air flow effects, into an effective parachute exhibiting good positional stability, regardless of its initial orientation.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Anna O. Law, Christian Odendahl, David Levinson , and 12 more Anna O. Law, Christian Odendahl, David Levinson, Rafael H. M. Pereira, Elizabeth Stokoe, Richard Waite, Valerie Mueller, Justin Lewis, James Goodwin, Dean Eckles, Tom Stoppard, Robert Proctor, Brian L. Frye, Nicolai von Ondarza, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 6d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Norbert Schwarz , and 10 more Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Norbert Schwarz, Stephan Lewandowsky, Patrick Dunleavy, Rosemary A. Joyce, Laurent Pech, Robert C. Richards, David R. Miller, Dean Eckles, Judith Beyer, Nathan P. Kalmoe, David Darmofal

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 6d

Monstrous.

"federal agents detained nearly every resident of the 130-unit building—including children and babies—placing them in zip ties and separating them by race into vans for more than two hours early Tuesday morning."

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 6d

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Tom Clark, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 6 more Brendan Nyhan, Tom Clark, Rosemary A. Joyce, Daniel W. Drezner, R. M. Wilson, Dean Eckles, Paul Gronke, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Robert Mackey @robertmackey.bsky.social · 7d

The Oregon Republican Party tried to help Donald Trump make the case for military intervention in Portland with an image of a fiery protest — but since Portland is calm, they had to fabricate one by merging old photos of police in Ecuador and protesters in Brazil www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America

A federal judge had blocked Trump’s request to deploy California national guard to Portland

www.theguardian.com

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 7d

My new op-ed with @lkfazio.bsky.social:

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.
Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

Reposted by Berk Özler, Dean Eckles, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 8d

Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/06/1...

Another effort to track ICE raids was just taken offline

People over Papers was removed by Padlet, the platform it was built on, yesterday.

www.technologyreview.com

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

Michael Szell @mszll.datasci.social.ap.brid.gy · 8d

Nice project: A computational framework for quantifying route diversification in road networks
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02582

Interactive: https://divercitymaps.github.io/

Overview of DiverCity and global patterns in urban road networks. (a) Example of a trip with low
DiverCity (2.18) in Mumbai. Near-shortest routes significantly overlap, leading to low route diversity. (b) Example of
a trip with high DiverCity (9) in Tokyo, characterized by multiple spatially diverse near-shortest routes. For panels
(a) and (b), inset bar plots show the travel time of each alternative route, with NSRs in blue and non-feasible routes
(exceeding the near-shortest threshold, shown as a dashed line) in red.

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Reposted by Stephen M. Walt, Jonathan A. Eisen, Tom Clark , and 6 more Stephen M. Walt, Jonathan A. Eisen, Tom Clark, David R. Miller, Michael D. McDonald, Dean Eckles, Michael Jones‐Correa, Mark Rice, David Darmofal

Anil Kalhan @akalhan.bsky.social · 8d

"[A]gents engulfed my car in tear gas, smashed my driver-side window, and pepper-sprayed my face.... I spent three nights and three days in federal custody. No explanation. No charges. No apology. One day, I was just told, 'you’re free to go.'" #KavanaughStop

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.

Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 9d

Are you a scientist, journalist, or civil society researcher studying New York State's distraction-free school policy, the one that bans internet-enabled devices in schools from bell to bell?

If so, I want to hear from you, as I refine a project to archive & classify published school policies.

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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 9d

I visited the apartment building ICE raided on Tuesday today. Story to come, but you can walk right in. Half of the apartments have no doors on them. Children's stuff abandoned in some flats. *Citizen* residents told me they were arrested and held for hours in zipties. This is America

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Reposted by Aaron Sojourner, Scott A. Imberman, Dean Eckles , and 3 more Aaron Sojourner, Scott A. Imberman, Dean Eckles, Georg Weizsäcker, Alexandra Cirone, Rüdiger Bachmann

Itai Sher @itaisher.bsky.social · 9d

This op-ed is excellent and I encourage everyone to read it.

Universities must reject the Trump compact.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

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Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 10d

boxd.it/beN8Br
Thematically related...

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Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Lisa W. Fazio, Jacob Montgomery , and 3 more Joanna Bryson, Lisa W. Fazio, Jacob Montgomery, David R. Miller, Dean Eckles, Henrik Skaug Sætra

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 10d

This is what authoritarians do - use the powers of the state to humiliate and degrade their opponents in public so that others will not challenge them

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 10d

“The source told CBS News that [Kash Patel and Dan Bongino] asked for "large, beefy" agents to conduct an arrest of Comey "in full kit," including Kevlar vests and exterior wear emblazoned with the FBI logo.” The leadership of the FBI is now in the hands of infantile psychopaths.

The FBI is weighing an arrest and perp walk for Comey — and suspended an agent for refusing to help, sources say

The FBI is considering carrying out a "showy" arrest and perp walk of the agency's now-indicted ex-Director James Comey, sources tell CBS News.

www.cbsnews.com

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Reposted by Dean Eckles, Dana R. Fisher, Josh Pasek

Emily Guskin @emgusk.bsky.social · 10d

Most American Jews say Israel has committed war crimes

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

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Reposted by Mark Bray, Brendan Nyhan, Trevon D. Logan , and 3 more Mark Bray, Brendan Nyhan, Trevon D. Logan, Michael Zimmer, Dean Eckles, Rebecca Zorach

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 10d

*A Republican lawmaker objected to reference to Charlie Kirk holding “often racist and controversial views” in local Alaska news
*The corporate owner took down the story and edited it
*The journalists resigned

This feels like more and more of our media now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/u...

Journalists at 3 Newspapers Quit Over Edits to a Charlie Kirk Story

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Dean Eckles

Wolfgang Blau @wblau.bsky.social · 10d

Spot the North-American anomaly: only region where social media use is still growing.
Great work by the FT’s @jburnmurdoch.ft.com
www.ft.com/content/a072... “Have we passed peak social media?”

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