Department of Homeland Security agents are proud of their mission, which is to carry out mass deportations. They might as well start wearing death’s heads on their belt buckles, except that w…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

11.07.2025

Planet of the Flies

In my state of limited mobility, the best I can do is roam around my yard looking for spiders. I’m not seeing any, other than a few Parasteatoda in the garage and compost, despite the fact th…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

10.07.2025

Don’t waste your time on this graph, or this essay, or Patrick Dodd

Here’s a provocative essay: AI is driving down the price of knowledge – universities have to rethink what they offer. The title alone irritated me: it proposes that AI is a competing source o…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

10.07.2025

The kids are coming to visit

This biologist does not complain about larval infestations. My son Connlann, his wife Ji, and our grandson Knut are making the long drive from Tacoma to Morris, traversing the long, long road of I9…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

10.07.2025

Fascism in, fascism out

Elon Musk has a pet chatbot called Grok. He recently gave it some personal attention and updated it. Yes. People noticed the difference immediately. The posts ranged from alleging “patterns&#…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

10.07.2025

The MRI results are in

My prize is a lateral meniscus tear. I talked to the doctor today, and she didn’t express any urgency. I have an appointment for a consultation two weeks from today, and until then I’m …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

09.07.2025

Bigotry and ignorance kill

Over 100 dead, and the toll is still climbing. The deadly floods in Texas swept through an area full of camping sites and Christian youth camps, and people died because they didn’t get any wa…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

09.07.2025

Escaped, briefly

I got out of the house this morning on my way to get an MRI. I saw an arthropod! As for the MRI, I don’t know. I fell asleep during it, in spite of the obnoxiously loud industrial music hamme…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

09.07.2025

Worth reiterating

Ted Cruz had killed weather forecasting funds in the Big Beautiful Bill, and then zoomed off to vacation in Greece while his constituents died. The Texas senator was spotted visiting the Parthenon …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

07.07.2025

I’m arachnophobic?

This was fun. I found a paper about developing an arachnophobia scale, a questionnaire that someone could use to evaluate a person for arachnophobic tendencies, title Questionnaire Dimensions of Sp…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

07.07.2025

They don’t make ’em like this anymore

A sudden, vivid flash of memory: It’s summertime. I’m 9 years old, I’m clutching a couple of quarters in my hand, every day I’m checking the posters outside the Vale Theater…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

06.07.2025

Birds are OK, I guess

After all, one of the virtues of bird is that they can be used to motivate research into insects. That’s nice. We couldn’t possibly get the general public interested in arthropods when …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

06.07.2025

Going to have a conversation on YouTube. Let’s see how it goes

Let’s try a livestream on Sunday. Sunday at 3pm Central I’ll be answering questions…and if nobody has any questions, I’ll just talk about neurodevelopment.

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

06.07.2025

May all these anti-woke crusaders sink without a trace

Did you know that Dr Phil, that old fraud, had put together a media company called Merit Street Media to combat the “Woke Mind Virus”? And that he partnered with Trinity Broadcasting Ne…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

05.07.2025

I’m cancelling the Fourth of July at my house

Hey, y’all remember when Game of Thrones was a hot show? It had dragons, and zombies, and bloody destructive wars, and gratuitous nudity, and engaging characters, and multiple plot lines that…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

05.07.2025

Dreading 2026

I’m starting to hear all about a major celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary next year, and it’s clear that the Trump administration is planning to use it for more propag…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

04.07.2025

The family of antique names

I recently bumped into another archaic photo from the family collection. It’s from sometime in the 1920s, and the attractive woman shepherding her kids is my great-grandmother, Nellie Berg, i…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

04.07.2025

I have an appointment with the Machine

Yay! I have an appointment for an MRI next Tuesday! My insurance company finally approved it. Cool. This means that it only takes two weeks to get an informed diagnosis of a catastrophically debili…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

03.07.2025

Murderbot

I have been confined to my bed or a chair for the past week. I have consumed a lot of media. The media of choice has been a science-fiction serial called Murderbot. The story is set in the distant …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

03.07.2025

I’m just an old fuddy-duddy, I guess

My university gives “guidance” on the use of generative AI in student work. It’s not really guidance, because it simply doesn’t care — you can allow it or prohibit it.…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

03.07.2025

Infinite Thread XXXVI

Everyone needs a home to come back to, even us space pirates. Chatter among yourselves, tell us a few tales of interstellar adventure. Previous Thread

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

02.07.2025

I saw the sunshine!

My nurse let me out on an adventure! I got to see a bit of the prairie garden at the university — I saw it for a long time because I was moving at a snail’s pace past this little patch.…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

01.07.2025

My self-critique

Yesterday, I published a video. Looking at it after the fact, I got worried about myself — even though I don’t appear in it, I could see myself clearly, and in particular, the effects o…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

01.07.2025

Keep your AI slop out of my scientific tools!

I’m a huge fan of iNaturalist — I use it all the time for my own interests, and I’ve also incorporated it into an assignment in introductory biology. Students are all walking arou…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

30.06.2025

A conserved genetic signal for building neuronal pathways

A new video! This one is just science, a cool paper I read way back when I was doing my post-doc. It left a strong impression on me, so I thought it would be worthwhile introducing it to all of you…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

28.06.2025

Worse than I thought

This knee gets worse and worse — now swollen and very painful. It is agony to get up out of bed, and once out, it’s painful to get up again, so I’m spending most of my time taking…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

27.06.2025

Prognosis: boredom

I have seen a doctor. I was x-rayed. I was informed that I have lovely knees, with no signs of arthritic degeneration. I got a blood test for my uric acid levels — they’re normal. I got…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

26.06.2025

I done gone did it again

I was doing so well this summer! Regular light exercise, joints working smoothly, no aches or pains…and then last night, something went bad in my right knee, with no warning, no sudden snap, nothin…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

26.06.2025

Lobsters, OK — but please don’t boil the bison

You wouldn’t want to take a bath in 70°C water. That would be painful. That’s the temperature of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone. We had a dramatic demonstration of how awful …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

25.06.2025

Truth Social is nothing but self-serving lies

Late last night, I got an alert with the good news that Iran and Israel were going to stop shooting missiles at each other. US president Donald Trump has announced in a social media post that Iran …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

25.06.2025

Learning a bit about neurodivergence

A person named Elise has compiled a spreadsheet of responses from neurodivergent people about their jobs and careers. I learned something from browsing through it. Most of the respondents seen to f…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

24.06.2025

So much effort spiraling down the drain of AI

Google has come up with a new tool for generating video called Veo — feed it some detailed prompts, and it will spit back realistic video and audio. David Gerard and Aron Peterson decided to …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

24.06.2025

Put yourself in their shoes

There may be little point to these comments, because the people who need to hear them most are incapable of empathy. Our bombing of Iran was a surprise attack, and the initial missiles flung at the…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

24.06.2025

“our nation’s reputation abroad is plummeting”

The World Humanist Conference was scheduled for next year in Washington DC. I’ve been to this conference in Oxford in the past — it’s a good meeting, and I would have planned on a…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

24.06.2025

This cartoon is entirely false

You can ask my wife what it’s like being married to a biologist, and she’ll tell you. There is zero roadkill in our house. I like my captured organisms alive and breeding.

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

23.06.2025

Found a bee

It happened to be right there as I walked into the house. It’s too hot to go looking for them.

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

23.06.2025

America is a zombie nation infected with the rage virus

Two days ago, Donald Trump was whining that he wasn’t going to win a Nobel Peace Prize, despite the fact that he had been so great at negotiating peace in the world. He really, really wants a…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

22.06.2025

A proud ally of Morris Pride

I walked to the Morris Pride celebration at Eastside Park this afternoon, wearing my Biology is Bigger than Binaries t-shirt. I’m not wearing it now, because as soon as I got home I stripped …

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

22.06.2025

Microbial evolution…in spaaaace!

China has a space station named Tiangong that we don’t hear much about in US media, which is a shame. The station was launched in part because “Congress passed a law prohibiting NASA fr…

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula

22.06.2025

Celebrate today!

We’re having a Pride celebration here in little ol’ Morris, Minnesota this afternoon, 2-5pm at Eastside Park. I might stroll by this afternoon.

home›Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula›Science

Free Thought Blogs Pharyngula - Science

They are the baddies

Planet of the Flies

Don’t waste your time on this graph, or this essay, or Patrick Dodd

The kids are coming to visit

Fascism in, fascism out

The MRI results are in

Bigotry and ignorance kill

Escaped, briefly

Worth reiterating

I’m arachnophobic?

They don’t make ’em like this anymore

Birds are OK, I guess

Going to have a conversation on YouTube. Let’s see how it goes

May all these anti-woke crusaders sink without a trace

I’m cancelling the Fourth of July at my house

Dreading 2026

The family of antique names

I have an appointment with the Machine

Murderbot

I’m just an old fuddy-duddy, I guess

Infinite Thread XXXVI

I saw the sunshine!

My self-critique

Keep your AI slop out of my scientific tools!

A conserved genetic signal for building neuronal pathways

Worse than I thought

Prognosis: boredom

I done gone did it again

Lobsters, OK — but please don’t boil the bison

Truth Social is nothing but self-serving lies

Learning a bit about neurodivergence

So much effort spiraling down the drain of AI

Put yourself in their shoes

“our nation’s reputation abroad is plummeting”

This cartoon is entirely false

Found a bee

America is a zombie nation infected with the rage virus

A proud ally of Morris Pride

Microbial evolution…in spaaaace!

Celebrate today!

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