Whatever you might say about mental health support to your students in your syllabus, the tone of your overall document appears to be more important.

“Attracting Diverse Students to Field Experiences Requires Adequate Pay, Flexibility, and Inclusion” is the title of this article in BioScience. Yup.

“Don’t call it [academic] integrity when you really mean compliance“

“Revising evaluation metrics for graduate admissions and faculty advancement to dismantle privilege” Yup.

What the heck is the deal with MDPI? Is it a predatory publisher, or perfectly fine, or something else? Here’s a relatively deep dive into how MDPI works that is really illuminating, if you’re trying to understand the academic publishing landscape I think this is an interesting and important piece.

In memory of John Schade.

Some thoughts about the Sierra Club, “wilderness,” and John Muir’s racism.

Who are the best muppets? Before you click through to the top 25, have your faves in mind. And this is a sensu lato list, including Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and anything muppety in the Hensonsphere. And I’ll give you an advance warning that, sadly, Robin is not on this list.

While I am taxonomically biased, I do think this new episode might be one of the best True Facts. (And I’d like to point out that something as magical as this could never have become a thing if it weren’t for the outstanding science communication efforts of Dr. Adrian Smith, whose videography is foundational for this.)