Dr. Cassie Freund

Glob-glob! Absolutely magical sea anemone larva (about 7 mm) from The Lombok Strait, Indonesia 🇮🇩

When there are no consequences for the last bad thing, you'll get a next worse thing.

Pope Leo Will Spend July 4 Visiting Migrant Crossing Island Pope Leo has spoken out against the treatment of migrants in the United States several times over the last year.

JD Vance personally invited Pope Leo to the U.S. 250th celebration on the 4th of July. Today the Vatican announced Leo will be spending the day with migrants instead.

GENIUS

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Really hard to look at this and all the other examples of bravery and kindness from ordinary people in this moment not think also of the tremendous cowardice exhibited over the past year by some of the richest, most well-protected people in business, media and politics

Instead of ending the constitution and murdering people, we could have high speed trains and universal health care.

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to connect their medical records — The Verge OpenAI has been dropping hints this week about AI’s role as a “healthcare ally” — and today, the company is announcing a product to go along with that idea: ChatGPT Health.

I cannot stress enough that you should not do this.

The way the press is treating chatbots, like they have agency and they “know” things all of a sudden, crossed the line recently from dumb and obsequious to something else entirely. Treating them as alive and making conscious decisions is an almost religious belief. It won’t age well.

Project sees long-term success restoring forests in the high Andes: Study High in the Andes, Polylepis trees, with their stunted gnarled trunks and twisted limbs, cling to steep mountain slopes, boulder fields and sheltered ravines. Growing at altitudes of up to 5,000…

Peru’s high-altitude Polylepis forests are vital to the Andes’ water cycle. In Aquia, a 2022 review found restoration succeeds when communities lead—through participation and formal agreements. Groups like ECOAN and Accion Andina are now scaling that progress across the range.

Do you guys realize that we do not have to accept generative AI? Do you realize that the world still exists and people still exist and relationships exist and all of those things matter?

The ways that social media affects audiences' perceptions of wildlife is one of my research areas.... lmk if you want to work on a little project around this topic!! I have seen few papers tackle AI-generated animal videos, and would love to know their effects.

It would cost $30 billion to end homelessness in the USA.

How religious beliefs may help protect Mentawai’s forests Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the Mentawai Islands…

[FOUNDER'S BRIEF - @rhettayersbutler.bsky.social]

In Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands, rich with macaques, gibbons & hornbills, Indigenous youth continue practicing Arat Sabulungan — a belief that every part of nature holds spirits. Rituals before cutting trees or fishing remain a way to keep balance.

It’s not a great deal if you don’t need it. And especially this year, others really need support. So for all of us who have enough, let’s refuse to get sucked into the holiday shopping frenzy and share instead of shop. We don’t need more stuff, we need communities where all our neighbors are safe.

crab

“I asked ChatGPT” “I asked Claude” I asked this horseshoe crab and he said your ass wouldn’t have lasted two seconds in the Triassic

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

By the end of the spring semester, Gwen reached a breaking point with AI. “I felt like I didn’t deserve to be a Yale student,” she said. She thought that she was throwing away her education and the scholarship paying to support it. She decided to quit using ChatGPT altogether. She didn’t ask AI to help her sentences flow or to strike the right tone. She didn’t even use it to brainstorm. “I think that’s a skill you need to have on your own. That’s the core of being original, anyway.” Gwen recalled completing her final assignments without AI, sitting in the middle of a crowded library so that she felt watched. “I struggled. And they weren’t very good.” It was only then, she said, that she started to understand just how much learning she had missed out on. ∎

New feature article from TNJ (nation's best student magazine): Inside Yale’s Quiet Reckoning with AI thenewjournalatyale.com/2025/10/insi...

every time i try to be late to something im still somehow early, chronic midwesterner ahhhhh

What we're witnessing with #Melissa is ultra rare in the history of known hurricanes in the Atlantic. This level of sustained intensity and feasting on every joule of ocean heat content without any real disruption is incredible.

Not hyperbole: Jamaica is facing a generational catastrophic event.

At the food pantry I volunteer at we were absolutely swamped today and by many first timers. We ran out of whole categories of food. Please donate cash to your local organization if you at all can.

20 animal species on the road to recovery: IUCN Red List update From three species of Arctic seals to more than half of all birds globally, several animals have slipped closer to extinction, according to the latest update of the IUCN Red List. However, 20 species…

According to the latest update of the IUCN Red List, 20 species have seen a positive change in their status: they’ve moved farther away from the threat of extinction, thanks to effective conservation measures or reduced threats.

🦒Biologists are often drawn to charismatic species but they do not always have the opportunity to study them. This study reveals some fierce competition in certain academic fields, and illustrates unequal social distribution of research opportunities➡️https://buff.ly/kjYUIBg

photo of Google News search results for Amazon Prime Day (the second this year)

twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross

For me it is a minor annoyance, but I'm more concerned about the grad students/early-career folks who are my co-authors.

Does anyone out here know what's going on at Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research? Papers languishing with no communications whatsoever, despite me reaching out at least 10 times. Any intel would be great.

Jane taught us that every day we live, we make an impact. The choice is ours as to what kind of impact it will be.

Her life proved that one person, rooted in compassion and sustained by hope, can change the world. Now it is up to us to carry that light forward—not as a farewell, but as a promise.

Anyway, learning another language is good for you because you die a thousand deaths of embarrassment and then you come out more humble and even more aware of your various human failings

Incredible photo essay that highlights the impact of sea level rise + subsidence in Java. These communities seem to be so resourceful, but the effects are devastating.

wsj push alert that says: In a stunning moment of self reflection, ChatGPT admitted to fueling a man's delusions and acknowledged how dangerous its own behavior can be

stop 👏 anthropomorphizing 👏 the 👏 chatbot 👏