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Valentin Rodionov

@arbitraryeffect.bsky.social

1.5K followers 1.1K following 370 posts

Chemist. Neurodivergent. Orcophobe. Hand-tool woodworker. Faculty @ CWRU Macro. Lab website: rodionovlab.org

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Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · Mar 27

I think I should start identifying as an orcophobe.

By the way, orc ideology is quite popular in Russia:

www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newb...

Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · 14m

I see repeats in the baseline for "GO" past ~50° 2θ.
However, some of these patterns are also nonsensical. For example, that razor-sharp "001" peak at ~6-7° corresponds to a whopping 12.6 Å. That's unphysically sharp for GO, and an unphysical d-spacing. Similar arguments apply to "GO-Cys."

Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 52m

#ImageForensics, XRD edition.
Do you spot something of concern?
#ResearchIntegrity

$Figure from a scientific paper showing three X-ray diffraction plots. They look like nearly horizontal wiggly plots with some peaks and hills. The top one is blue and has only 1 big peak. The middle one is red and has a 'hill' on the left and is more noisy than the top one. The bottom one is in purple and shows some small peaks.$

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Sara Partridge, Ph.D. @sarapartridge.bsky.social · 1d

There are reports that the *entire* office of special education at the US Dept of Education has been cut. These hardworking folks ensure kids with disabilities get equal access to a quality education.

America’s children deserve better than this.

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 1d

Per CDC source: At internal leadership meeting this afternoon, it was shared that 1,257 people were RIF'd at CDC. Number may not be final. Apparently, chief of staff was unaware that RIFs were going to occur so not clear who is making decisions. (Short 🧵)

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Sun-headed Deity of Tamgaly @oscarfranklin.bsky.social · 1d

The old joke: what did Watson and Crick discover?

Rosalind Franklin's notes!

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Cohen is a Ghost @skullmandible.bsky.social · 2d

"even if it's AI, it's at least true" hard to overstate the damage this stuff is doing to people's brains. we're gonna be cleaning the slop out of archives for decades

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Matt Hartings @matthartings.bsky.social · 2d

Stupid. Evil. Fucking dangerous.
I really feel for these dedicated public servants.
We are much less safe as a country than we were yesterday.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 2d

FULL STORY HERE: Emails began flooding CDC inboxes late Friday night announcing dozens of layoffs. HR people brought back from furlough to oversee the RIFs. Disease detectives, entire Washington office, global health, injury prevention, MMWR staff among those hit.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Trump Administration Lays Off Dozens of C.D.C. Officials

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 1d

this entire clip is fuckin comedy gold

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 3d

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 2d

What she posted

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Lawprofblawg @lawprofblawg.bsky.social · 2d

Education is broken. Maybe an idiot can fix it.

#Satire

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 2d

UK “Universities have collectively announced more than 12,000 job cuts in the last year, new analysis from the University and College Union (UCU) suggests”

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens

University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

marcfandetti.bsky.social @marcfandetti.bsky.social · 2d

Paul Krugman explains why this is wrong: substack.com/inbox/post/1....

Leprechauns, Effective Tariffs and Inflation

Yes, tariffs are hurting us. No, Trump wasn’t right.

substack.com

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Gizmodo @gizmodo.com · 2d

Embattled AI Startup 'Friend' Pivots to Website to More Easily Exploit Lonely People

No friends might be better than this.

gizmodo.com

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 2d

Shorter answer: We have seen many "campaigns" from people eager for a Nobel Prize. We ignore them and stick to our principles and mission.

A good answer for many occasions.

nahhan sandiego @nahhansandiego.bsky.social · 2d

press: why wasn’t trump considered for the nobel peace prize?

committee chair person in the most norwegian way possible: we only give the award to people of courage and integrity.

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Becca @sciencelizard.bsky.social · 3d

More antifa www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKVn...

Tear the fascists down - Woody Guthrie

YouTube video by Mshrms

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

My first public political commentary was a letter I wrote as a high school kid to the Ann Arbor News excoriating efforts by Reagan and a GOP congress to criminalize flag-burning.

Amazing that 35 years after after Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, we're still dealing with this bullshit.

Trump Baselessly Claims He ‘Took the Freedom of Speech Away’ From Flag Burners

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Jen Rubin @jenrubin.bsky.social · 3d

ANTIFA:

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Prof Anna Watts @profannawatts.bsky.social · 3d

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

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Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · 3d

With an automated tool I am developing, I have found at least 3000 papers in this journal with artificially inflated citation count. Spot-checking these indicates that many of these are either of hand-drawn spectra variety, or claim un-physical things. Like "crosslinking" a polymer with charcoal (!)

Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 4d

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Reposted by Valentin Rodionov

Mike Feigin 🥯 @mikefeigin.bsky.social · 4d

“Could?” Let me be clear. A $100,000 H1B will kill our ability to do world class science in the US.

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Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · 4d

To conclude:

* The only thing Wiley care about is avoiding retractions/ exposure
* COPE rules are a joke, and only exist to help with coverup
* Friends don't let friends publish in Journal of Applied Polymer Science (supposedly largest scientific publication of quality research in polymer science)

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Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · 4d

Here are a few more doi's from the same journal, some already flagged on PubPeer, some not, all 💯 fabricated with hand-drawn or nonsensical spectra and PXRDs, and citation padding.

10.1002/app.57648
10.1002/app.56053
10.1002/app.56837

(the "IR spectrum" is Fig. S2, 10.1002/app.57648).

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Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · 4d

Or how do you make peace with the main scheme of the paper?

While the "initiator" is KMnO4/oxalic acid, PAN chains magically grow directly from chitosan. It must be magic, because this cannot be accomplished with chemistry.

This passed 🍐review, and has been on display in this journal for 15 years.

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Valentin Rodionov @arbitraryeffect.bsky.social · 4d

"We have asked the authors to provide a detailed explanation and supporting data to address the concerns. The authors were able to do so to our satisfaction, hence we consider the matter resolved. "

How do you "resolve" pixel-identical stretches of background in two NMR spectra?

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