Liz Renner, Ph.D.
@lizrenner.bsky.social
🐟 Freshwater fish biologist. 🔬Postdoc @unl-snr.bsky.social post-DOGE. 🧠 IIH survivor, 🏳️🌈 queer poet, 📖 avid reader, quilter, and 🎣 outdoorswoman.
📈Born at 358 ppm
📍on the water in South Dakota or Nebraska
https://linktr.ee/LizRennerPhD
📱🔒 @drlizardshad.67
📈Born at 358 ppm
📍on the water in South Dakota or Nebraska
https://linktr.ee/LizRennerPhD
📱🔒 @drlizardshad.67
Pinned
📢 NEW POEM FRESH OFF THE BRAIN GRIDDLE
Here's a new poem I wrote about AI and the enshittification of the Internet.
We're talking about some 100% certified USDA Prime, grass-fed, anthropogenically-generated word vomit. Eager to hear your feedback. Enjoy!
Here's a new poem I wrote about AI and the enshittification of the Internet.
We're talking about some 100% certified USDA Prime, grass-fed, anthropogenically-generated word vomit. Eager to hear your feedback. Enjoy!
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Come with me to Lander, Wyo. to meet Bill, Lee and Barb. They were supposed to be retired from the Forest Service. But they're back as volunteers — driving 100s of miles a week, cleaning 5 bathrooms a day — determined to protect forests Trump abandoned. wapo.st/4r4727z
They retired from the government. Now they’re back, protecting forests Trump abandoned.
The U.S. Forest Service lost thousands of workers under Trump. Volunteers and retirees are trying to help — but things are breaking.
wapo.st
November 24, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Come with me to Lander, Wyo. to meet Bill, Lee and Barb. They were supposed to be retired from the Forest Service. But they're back as volunteers — driving 100s of miles a week, cleaning 5 bathrooms a day — determined to protect forests Trump abandoned. wapo.st/4r4727z
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
This account of how the Trump admin carried out a once-unthinkable overhaul of government in 2025 is based on a year’s worth of messages and interviews with more than 1,200 current and former federal workers. Please read from me and @merylkornfield.bsky.social. wapo.st/4b14KAy
The year Trump broke the federal government
How DOGE and the White House carried out a once-unthinkable transformation of the nation’s sprawling bureaucracy.
wapo.st
December 21, 2025 at 2:26 PM
This account of how the Trump admin carried out a once-unthinkable overhaul of government in 2025 is based on a year’s worth of messages and interviews with more than 1,200 current and former federal workers. Please read from me and @merylkornfield.bsky.social. wapo.st/4b14KAy
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
What if I told you that you have a large language model sitting right in your head that’s completely free to use, runs on renewable energy, has virtually infinite capacity, and actually improves the more you use it
December 21, 2025 at 4:17 PM
What if I told you that you have a large language model sitting right in your head that’s completely free to use, runs on renewable energy, has virtually infinite capacity, and actually improves the more you use it
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.
AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
www.rollingstone.com
December 17, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
I feel like "academic hiring" discourse is always kind of downstream of the fact that in the 50s we started building a giant public system to make a college education almost universally available and in the 80s and 90s we started taking it apart to go back to the only-the-rich model
December 20, 2025 at 2:22 PM
I feel like "academic hiring" discourse is always kind of downstream of the fact that in the 50s we started building a giant public system to make a college education almost universally available and in the 80s and 90s we started taking it apart to go back to the only-the-rich model
You are all cordially invited to join me for a cozy session in which I finish top stitching a baby quilt while yapping about the sheer insanity of current events in America right now. Stay sane out there. 🐟🧵🪡
youtu.be/iHRzvPrhkFY
youtu.be/iHRzvPrhkFY
STITCH & BITCH WITH THE FISH WITCH - EPISODE 1
YouTube video by Dr. Lizard Shad
youtu.be
December 20, 2025 at 6:53 AM
You are all cordially invited to join me for a cozy session in which I finish top stitching a baby quilt while yapping about the sheer insanity of current events in America right now. Stay sane out there. 🐟🧵🪡
youtu.be/iHRzvPrhkFY
youtu.be/iHRzvPrhkFY
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Not this againnnnnnn
Pentagon says it fails eighth audit, targets 2028 to pass reut.rs/4s7T594
Pentagon says it fails eighth audit, targets 2028 to pass
For the eighth year in a row, the Pentagon has failed an annual audit, the Department of Defense said on Friday, continuing a pattern of financial accountability problems that have drawn bipartisan criticism and emerged as a campaign issue.
reut.rs
December 19, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Not this againnnnnnn
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Starting in January, I will be amping up activity at @beyondxandy.bsky.social, including writing articles, recording video explainers, and working on a book about how studying genetics helped me accept that I was trans
Please give it a follow to stay up to date 🏳️⚧️🧬
Please give it a follow to stay up to date 🏳️⚧️🧬
It's the scientific community's duty to fight misinformation, bioessentialism, and eugenics
That's why we're launching Beyond X&Y, an educational campaign combating the rise of unscientific political propaganda used to attack trans and intersex people
Subscribe to our newsletter at beyondxandy.org
That's why we're launching Beyond X&Y, an educational campaign combating the rise of unscientific political propaganda used to attack trans and intersex people
Subscribe to our newsletter at beyondxandy.org
December 18, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Starting in January, I will be amping up activity at @beyondxandy.bsky.social, including writing articles, recording video explainers, and working on a book about how studying genetics helped me accept that I was trans
Please give it a follow to stay up to date 🏳️⚧️🧬
Please give it a follow to stay up to date 🏳️⚧️🧬
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Not to naysay, but I'd be willing to bet that crunchy cheetos perform much better than wonder bread
The most recent population abundance estimate for Borax Lake Chub in 2019 found that the population was ~80,267 individuals, a record high since 1986. The preferred bait for the traps used to sample Borax Lake chub? Wonder Bread #25DaysofFishmas odfwnfi.forestry.oregonstate.edu/borax-lake-c...
December 18, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Not to naysay, but I'd be willing to bet that crunchy cheetos perform much better than wonder bread
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
The past few years I've given my students assignments to create Wikipedia pages on various topics. This semester's Fisheries Management students were assigned to write about an ichthyologist/fisheries manager that didn't have a page, with emphasis on women or POC encouraged. I'm sharing them here:
December 19, 2025 at 4:19 PM
The past few years I've given my students assignments to create Wikipedia pages on various topics. This semester's Fisheries Management students were assigned to write about an ichthyologist/fisheries manager that didn't have a page, with emphasis on women or POC encouraged. I'm sharing them here:
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Before we head off for the holiday season we wanted to wish you all a Merry Fishmas 🐟 and a Happy New Year 🎆
📷PCU1.3: A festive postcard from Joseph Thomas Cunningham, a marine biologist known for his work on flatfish, to an unknown recipient
📷PCU1.3: A festive postcard from Joseph Thomas Cunningham, a marine biologist known for his work on flatfish, to an unknown recipient
December 19, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Before we head off for the holiday season we wanted to wish you all a Merry Fishmas 🐟 and a Happy New Year 🎆
📷PCU1.3: A festive postcard from Joseph Thomas Cunningham, a marine biologist known for his work on flatfish, to an unknown recipient
📷PCU1.3: A festive postcard from Joseph Thomas Cunningham, a marine biologist known for his work on flatfish, to an unknown recipient
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Y'all, I just got out of the NSF-BIO webinar where they explained changes to peer review. It's not good. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/changes-to-n...
Changes to NSF peer review
They're not good. At all.
scienceforeveryone.science
December 18, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Y'all, I just got out of the NSF-BIO webinar where they explained changes to peer review. It's not good. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/changes-to-n...
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
It is hard to overstate how critical @ncar-ucar.bsky.social is to climate science in the US and around the world. It's the beating heart of our field. Generations of scientists have trained there, and almost everyone I know relies on deep collaborations with NCAR scientists. It's end is unthinkable.
Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
bit.ly
December 17, 2025 at 2:50 AM
It is hard to overstate how critical @ncar-ucar.bsky.social is to climate science in the US and around the world. It's the beating heart of our field. Generations of scientists have trained there, and almost everyone I know relies on deep collaborations with NCAR scientists. It's end is unthinkable.
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
I'm my 90-year-old grandmother's caregiver. She was born on a South Dakota farm during the Dust Bowl in 1935 and remembers the horrors of WWII from newsreels & radio broadcasts. Her reaction to tonight's presidential address?
"This Nazi windbag has lost his marbles. He's gaslighting Americans."
"This Nazi windbag has lost his marbles. He's gaslighting Americans."
December 18, 2025 at 2:18 AM
I'm my 90-year-old grandmother's caregiver. She was born on a South Dakota farm during the Dust Bowl in 1935 and remembers the horrors of WWII from newsreels & radio broadcasts. Her reaction to tonight's presidential address?
"This Nazi windbag has lost his marbles. He's gaslighting Americans."
"This Nazi windbag has lost his marbles. He's gaslighting Americans."
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
For your collective delectation this holiday season:
Quite possibly the silliest thing I've ever written (and definitely the most ridiculous graph I've ever made!)
loreandordure.com/2025/12/16/j...
Quite possibly the silliest thing I've ever written (and definitely the most ridiculous graph I've ever made!)
loreandordure.com/2025/12/16/j...
Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): an incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy
Gather round the fire, everyone, and let me tell you a story. It has everything you could want in a Christmas blockbuster: superheroes and villains, a car crash, children singing, a mystery to solv…
loreandordure.com
December 16, 2025 at 5:06 PM
For your collective delectation this holiday season:
Quite possibly the silliest thing I've ever written (and definitely the most ridiculous graph I've ever made!)
loreandordure.com/2025/12/16/j...
Quite possibly the silliest thing I've ever written (and definitely the most ridiculous graph I've ever made!)
loreandordure.com/2025/12/16/j...
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
🎶I’m dreaming of a white(fish)-mas🎶
No need to just dream it! On Day 16 of #25DaysofFishmas, our road trip heads to the high country for the Bonneville Cisco (Prosopium gemmifer), a species of freshwater whitefish found only in Bear Lake on the border of southeast Idaho and northern Utah.
No need to just dream it! On Day 16 of #25DaysofFishmas, our road trip heads to the high country for the Bonneville Cisco (Prosopium gemmifer), a species of freshwater whitefish found only in Bear Lake on the border of southeast Idaho and northern Utah.
December 16, 2025 at 4:58 PM
GRANT FULLY FUNDED!! 🥳
December 16, 2025 at 6:45 PM
GRANT FULLY FUNDED!! 🥳
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
A new study of the last 50 years of US pop music shows “a significant increase in stress-related language, alongside declines in positive sentiment and lyrical complexity.”
Societal crises disrupt long-term increases in stress, negativity, and simplicity in US Billboard song lyrics from 1973 to 2023 - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Societal crises disrupt long-term increases in stress, negativity, and simplicity in US Billboard song lyrics from 1973 to 2023
www.nature.com
December 13, 2025 at 12:32 AM
A new study of the last 50 years of US pop music shows “a significant increase in stress-related language, alongside declines in positive sentiment and lyrical complexity.”
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
Mele kalikimaka! 🌴🐟
On Day 12 of #25DaysofFishmas, we head to the land where palm trees sway and the season's always green and bright to find the Nopili rockclimbing goby / ‘o‘opu nōpili (Sicyopterus stimpsoni), one of only a few freshwater fish species native to the islands of Hawai‘i
On Day 12 of #25DaysofFishmas, we head to the land where palm trees sway and the season's always green and bright to find the Nopili rockclimbing goby / ‘o‘opu nōpili (Sicyopterus stimpsoni), one of only a few freshwater fish species native to the islands of Hawai‘i
December 12, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Mele kalikimaka! 🌴🐟
On Day 12 of #25DaysofFishmas, we head to the land where palm trees sway and the season's always green and bright to find the Nopili rockclimbing goby / ‘o‘opu nōpili (Sicyopterus stimpsoni), one of only a few freshwater fish species native to the islands of Hawai‘i
On Day 12 of #25DaysofFishmas, we head to the land where palm trees sway and the season's always green and bright to find the Nopili rockclimbing goby / ‘o‘opu nōpili (Sicyopterus stimpsoni), one of only a few freshwater fish species native to the islands of Hawai‘i
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
It is also grossly ironic to use faulty data to cut the statistics program.
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/unl-use...
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/unl-use...
UNL used bad data to make $27.5 million cuts, faculty say
UNL's faculty takes issue with the data used by the university to propose program budget cuts. The eliminations are partially financial, but all of the programs up for elimination made more money in s...
www.dailynebraskan.com
December 6, 2025 at 5:38 PM
It is also grossly ironic to use faulty data to cut the statistics program.
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/unl-use...
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/unl-use...
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
It's over.
Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut.
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...
Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut.
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...
BREAKING: ‘This hurts’: UNL eliminates 4 programs despite faculty, student pleas
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln eliminates the Earth and atmospheric sciences 8-0, educational administration 7-1, statistics 7-1, textiles, merchandising and fashion design 7-1 programs.
www.dailynebraskan.com
December 6, 2025 at 5:35 PM
It's over.
Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut.
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...
Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut.
www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...
Reposted by Liz Renner, Ph.D.
One of my neighbors has been putting up these fish facts posters. All kinds of different fish, marine, freshwater, deep, shallow, all kinds. This is a good one. “Stg this real fish” took me out. Good work, neighbor.
December 7, 2025 at 3:39 PM
One of my neighbors has been putting up these fish facts posters. All kinds of different fish, marine, freshwater, deep, shallow, all kinds. This is a good one. “Stg this real fish” took me out. Good work, neighbor.
📢 NEW POEM FRESH OFF THE BRAIN GRIDDLE
Here's a new poem I wrote about AI and the enshittification of the Internet.
We're talking about some 100% certified USDA Prime, grass-fed, anthropogenically-generated word vomit. Eager to hear your feedback. Enjoy!
Here's a new poem I wrote about AI and the enshittification of the Internet.
We're talking about some 100% certified USDA Prime, grass-fed, anthropogenically-generated word vomit. Eager to hear your feedback. Enjoy!
December 11, 2025 at 8:08 PM
📢 NEW POEM FRESH OFF THE BRAIN GRIDDLE
Here's a new poem I wrote about AI and the enshittification of the Internet.
We're talking about some 100% certified USDA Prime, grass-fed, anthropogenically-generated word vomit. Eager to hear your feedback. Enjoy!
Here's a new poem I wrote about AI and the enshittification of the Internet.
We're talking about some 100% certified USDA Prime, grass-fed, anthropogenically-generated word vomit. Eager to hear your feedback. Enjoy!
I was driving through Sioux Falls on I-29S on Sunday when an SD state trooper going 10 mph over zoomed past me and changed lanes twice without signaling. He then slowed way down and tucked in behind an SUV with Manitoba plates. I followed them for ~1.5 miles before the trooper pulled him over. 🧵
December 9, 2025 at 1:19 PM
I was driving through Sioux Falls on I-29S on Sunday when an SD state trooper going 10 mph over zoomed past me and changed lanes twice without signaling. He then slowed way down and tucked in behind an SUV with Manitoba plates. I followed them for ~1.5 miles before the trooper pulled him over. 🧵