Scott K. Johnson
@sjonearth.bsky.social
sci comm person, controversially anti-nazi
Pinned
the great thing about black box systems is that they do exactly whatever you think they do
"Furthermore, he put his hand in front of his face and briefly disappeared from this plane of reality. Therefore, I am reinstating the Salem Witch Trials, which were stupidly ended by Barack Obama."
November 25, 2025 at 2:43 PM
"Furthermore, he put his hand in front of his face and briefly disappeared from this plane of reality. Therefore, I am reinstating the Salem Witch Trials, which were stupidly ended by Barack Obama."
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
I whipped up a new post/newsletter extra for the Hayli Gubbi eruption. First time I've had to post an extra edition! #volcano #eruption eruptions.beehiiv.com/p/eruptions-...
Eruptions Newsletter Extra for November 23, 2025
Unexpected eruption from Hayli Gubbi in Ethiopia.
eruptions.beehiiv.com
November 23, 2025 at 7:16 PM
I whipped up a new post/newsletter extra for the Hayli Gubbi eruption. First time I've had to post an extra edition! #volcano #eruption eruptions.beehiiv.com/p/eruptions-...
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Said to be starting December 1st, so less than 2 weeks before the start of the AGU Fall Meeting. 🫠
New Orleans, the laid-back city known as the Big Easy, where lavish parades, bead-throwing debauchery and Creole cuisine attract tourists from around the globe, is about to become the next staging ground for the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. https://to.pbs.org/4oZRBfu
Multicultural New Orleans is the next battleground in Trump's immigration crackdown
New Orleans, the laid-back city known as the Big Easy and the birthplace of jazz, is about to become the next staging ground for the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
www.pbs.org
November 21, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Said to be starting December 1st, so less than 2 weeks before the start of the AGU Fall Meeting. 🫠
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Many have asked for the LLM Survey paper. The release was bungled a bit by PNAS, but it is live now: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research | PNAS
The advancement of large language models poses a severe, potentially existential threat
to online survey research, a fundamental tool for data coll...
www.pnas.org
November 20, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Many have asked for the LLM Survey paper. The release was bungled a bit by PNAS, but it is live now: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Via Underpants Gnomes?
No one seemed to notice or make a fuss about it, but the International Energy Agency's latest World Energy Outlook estimates that AI will save ~6 to 7 times more energy than it consumes by 2035.
November 20, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Via Underpants Gnomes?
Welp, the first example I've seen of an "agentic" LLM functioning like at all is... completing an entire course's quizzes for you with a single prompt.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4qN...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4qN...
Perplexity Comet completes quizzes
YouTube video by Anna Mills
www.youtube.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Welp, the first example I've seen of an "agentic" LLM functioning like at all is... completing an entire course's quizzes for you with a single prompt.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4qN...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4qN...
Daily Mail stories may have made a prominent appearance in a video I recently did on Yellowstone...
youtu.be/xPN8h3NEbKU?...
youtu.be/xPN8h3NEbKU?...
November 19, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Daily Mail stories may have made a prominent appearance in a video I recently did on Yellowstone...
youtu.be/xPN8h3NEbKU?...
youtu.be/xPN8h3NEbKU?...
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory plans to cut nearly all its research funding and reduce the number of paid science staff to just two positions next year.
Lowell Observatory slashes research funding in the midst of financial struggle
Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory plans to cut nearly all its research funding and reduce the number of paid science staff to just two positions next year.
buff.ly
November 10, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory plans to cut nearly all its research funding and reduce the number of paid science staff to just two positions next year.
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
X and TikTok accounts are dedicated to posting AI-generated videos of women being strangled.
OpenAI’s Sora 2 Floods Social Media With Videos of Women Being Strangled
X and TikTok accounts are dedicated to posting AI-generated videos of women being strangled.
www.404media.co
November 7, 2025 at 3:58 PM
X and TikTok accounts are dedicated to posting AI-generated videos of women being strangled.
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions rise again in 2024, up 2.3%.
This is our collective progress, 10 years after the Paris Agreement.
www.unep.org/resources/em...
1/
This is our collective progress, 10 years after the Paris Agreement.
www.unep.org/resources/em...
1/
November 5, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions rise again in 2024, up 2.3%.
This is our collective progress, 10 years after the Paris Agreement.
www.unep.org/resources/em...
1/
This is our collective progress, 10 years after the Paris Agreement.
www.unep.org/resources/em...
1/
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
New video: A glacier on Antarctica’s Eastern Peninsula experienced the fastest retreat recorded in modern history—in just two months, nearly 50 percent of the glacier disintegrated. Watch this video to understand what happened. Study by @ciresnews #Antarctica #glaciermelt
November 3, 2025 at 8:17 PM
New video: A glacier on Antarctica’s Eastern Peninsula experienced the fastest retreat recorded in modern history—in just two months, nearly 50 percent of the glacier disintegrated. Watch this video to understand what happened. Study by @ciresnews #Antarctica #glaciermelt
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
This is quite a story: the US employed every strongarm tactic available, including personal threats against delegates and their families, to derail an agreement on reducing shipping emissions that was almost finalized. on.ft.com/47lq3dZ
November 3, 2025 at 2:11 PM
This is quite a story: the US employed every strongarm tactic available, including personal threats against delegates and their families, to derail an agreement on reducing shipping emissions that was almost finalized. on.ft.com/47lq3dZ
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
NOAA’s National Weather Service holds the federal responsibility for tsunami warnings, and has historically been a primary supporter of seismic data collection in Alaska
NOAA cancels longstanding funding for seismic data collection crucial to tsunami warning systems
The Alaska Earthquake Center has long provided NOAA with seismic data for tsunami monitoring and warning purposes. That work will wind down in November, after the federal agency said it can no longer fund the contract.
akpub.io
November 1, 2025 at 2:50 AM
NOAA’s National Weather Service holds the federal responsibility for tsunami warnings, and has historically been a primary supporter of seismic data collection in Alaska
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Interested in science writing degree programs? Here’s a list of more than 50 in the U.S. that offer specialized undergraduate or graduate degree programs or individual courses in science, health, or environmental writing. 🧪
Science Writing Resources (Elsewhere) That We Like - The Open Notebook
We aren't the only show in town when it comes to supporting high-quality science journalism! On this page, you’ll find lots of other resources (elsewhere) that center on science journalism craft, incl...
www.theopennotebook.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Interested in science writing degree programs? Here’s a list of more than 50 in the U.S. that offer specialized undergraduate or graduate degree programs or individual courses in science, health, or environmental writing. 🧪
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
I don’t think I have ever been this burnt out and demoralized and part of this is because institutions are not taking our concerns about the pedagogical harms of widespread and uncritical adoption of LLMs in higher education seriously.
It’s exhausting to do this without any support.
It’s exhausting to do this without any support.
I had 9 meetings about students using Chat GPT/LLMs on their papers today.
If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
October 27, 2025 at 9:07 PM
I don’t think I have ever been this burnt out and demoralized and part of this is because institutions are not taking our concerns about the pedagogical harms of widespread and uncritical adoption of LLMs in higher education seriously.
It’s exhausting to do this without any support.
It’s exhausting to do this without any support.
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
This document is … insane? Incredible?
In it the USG shakes down a university for $1.17 BILLION “to avoid legal action” and dictates how hiring, promotion, admissions, scholarships, and CURRICULA REVIEW will be conducted. It stipulates how and when students can protest on campus.
It is un-American
In it the USG shakes down a university for $1.17 BILLION “to avoid legal action” and dictates how hiring, promotion, admissions, scholarships, and CURRICULA REVIEW will be conducted. It stipulates how and when students can protest on campus.
It is un-American
Here is the proposed agreement the Trump admin sent to UCLA, which administrators fought tooth and claw to keep secret ucop.edu/communicatio...
ucop.edu
October 25, 2025 at 10:19 AM
This document is … insane? Incredible?
In it the USG shakes down a university for $1.17 BILLION “to avoid legal action” and dictates how hiring, promotion, admissions, scholarships, and CURRICULA REVIEW will be conducted. It stipulates how and when students can protest on campus.
It is un-American
In it the USG shakes down a university for $1.17 BILLION “to avoid legal action” and dictates how hiring, promotion, admissions, scholarships, and CURRICULA REVIEW will be conducted. It stipulates how and when students can protest on campus.
It is un-American
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
New Nature paper from recent Rutgers postdoc Yucheng Lin (now at CSIRO in Australia) updates the global sea level curve for the last several millennia and places modern Chinese relative sea level rise in historic context
Modern sea-level rise breaks 4,000-year stability in southeastern China - Nature
Spatiotemporal hierarchical modelling of geological sea-level proxies and tide gauge data suggest that the modern global mean sea-level rise rate since 1900 has exceeded any century over at least...
www.nature.com
October 16, 2025 at 12:55 AM
New Nature paper from recent Rutgers postdoc Yucheng Lin (now at CSIRO in Australia) updates the global sea level curve for the last several millennia and places modern Chinese relative sea level rise in historic context
No king.
Trump: "The funding for New York, and for every place, comes through the White House. And I'm very generous, and I was always very generous with New York. But I wouldn't be generous to a communist that's gonna take the money and throw it out the window."
October 14, 2025 at 7:53 PM
No king.
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
NEW: 53 participants involved in the Vyvgart trial for Long COVID are calling on the government to fund research for the drug after they saw significant improvements that the study didn’t capture.
thesicktimes.org/2025/10/10/v...
thesicktimes.org/2025/10/10/v...
Vyvgart brought us back to life, but the Long COVID trial was canceled. We are calling on the NIH and HHS to study the drug. - The Sick Times
We are a group of 53 individuals with Long COVID from across the U.S. In 2023, we joined a Long COVID clinical trial for Vyvgart (efgartigimod), a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FD...
thesicktimes.org
October 10, 2025 at 5:05 PM
NEW: 53 participants involved in the Vyvgart trial for Long COVID are calling on the government to fund research for the drug after they saw significant improvements that the study didn’t capture.
thesicktimes.org/2025/10/10/v...
thesicktimes.org/2025/10/10/v...
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
NEW: In May, a Texas police department said they used the powerful Flock surveillance network against a woman who had an abortion "for her safety"
Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime
www.404media.co/police-said-...
Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime
www.404media.co/police-said-...
Police Said They Surveilled Woman Who Had an Abortion for Her 'Safety.' Court Records Show They Considered Charging Her With a Crime
Court records show that the narrative Flock and a Texas Sheriff's Office has told the public isn't the whole story, and that police were conducting a 'death investigation' into the abortion.
www.404media.co
October 7, 2025 at 1:04 PM
NEW: In May, a Texas police department said they used the powerful Flock surveillance network against a woman who had an abortion "for her safety"
Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime
www.404media.co/police-said-...
Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime
www.404media.co/police-said-...
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN
trib.al/9Sxu9IN
Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting
Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.
trib.al
October 6, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN
trib.al/9Sxu9IN
Actually, my peers all seem to be overlooking the fact that the smart move would be to do something incredibly stupid--my column:
October 6, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Actually, my peers all seem to be overlooking the fact that the smart move would be to do something incredibly stupid--my column:
Reposted by Scott K. Johnson
My sense is that the press has so deeply absorbed the idea of "just present the facts, lest you be accused of bias" that it's getting in the way of the whole purpose of journalism, which is to help your readership understand the world.
(See also @jayrosen.bsky.social's view from nowhere argument)
(See also @jayrosen.bsky.social's view from nowhere argument)
October 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM
My sense is that the press has so deeply absorbed the idea of "just present the facts, lest you be accused of bias" that it's getting in the way of the whole purpose of journalism, which is to help your readership understand the world.
(See also @jayrosen.bsky.social's view from nowhere argument)
(See also @jayrosen.bsky.social's view from nowhere argument)
This might have been the biggest disillusionment of my grad school to career transition. I came out all "tag me in, hoss, I've been training."
In a couple years you realize your opponent is a cardboard cutout with a walkman taped to it. Some dickhead just has a warehouse full of them.
In a couple years you realize your opponent is a cardboard cutout with a walkman taped to it. Some dickhead just has a warehouse full of them.
There really is something darkly funny about the fact that, after 3 decades of efforts by scientists & journalists, thousands of work hours, millions of words, explainers, videos, models, charts, after all of it ...
Republican climate denialism is exactly as crude & stupid as it was in the '90s.
Republican climate denialism is exactly as crude & stupid as it was in the '90s.
October 2, 2025 at 8:53 PM
This might have been the biggest disillusionment of my grad school to career transition. I came out all "tag me in, hoss, I've been training."
In a couple years you realize your opponent is a cardboard cutout with a walkman taped to it. Some dickhead just has a warehouse full of them.
In a couple years you realize your opponent is a cardboard cutout with a walkman taped to it. Some dickhead just has a warehouse full of them.