Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
banner
diygeochemist.bsky.social
Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
@diygeochemist.bsky.social
Ace/autistic biracial biogeochemist. I study life + trace metal cycling + reactive oxygen species & teach analytical chem. Also union gal, bookworm, Youtuber, DV survivor w/ PTSD. She/they. My views are my own and not those of my institution.
Pinned
Quick summary of who I am for new followers:

(1) I'm a prof at a PUI. I teach analytical chemistry (have taught environmental chemistry in the past, hope to revive that soon).

(2) I currently live & work in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I love seeing Lake Superior every day.
My original plan was to spend a couple hours on campus tomorrow doing some more catch-up labwork. But the blizzard warning made me change my mind.

I work in Marquette, but I live in what the weather service calls "the terrain of western Marquette county" so...up to 22 inches?
November 26, 2025 at 1:15 AM
My son sent me this video essay and I love it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ed...
How to do anything (without AI)
YouTube video by Reject Convenience
www.youtube.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Olivia Dade's books are always must-reads for me. And since I am only working a half-day today, I dived right in. This book is a treasure.

Hero: Cadbury creme egg: "Hard shell, gooey innards, very sweet"
Heroine: chocolate lava cake: "cool on the outside, warm and gooey inside where no one can see"
SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE is warm, cozy, & out today. I hope you love it! 💗

The story: A cranky baker's erroneous obituary brings the woman who got away back into his life--& now he needs to convince her to stay.
The heat level: steamy!
The baked goods: plentiful!

www.harpercollins.com/products/sec...
November 25, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Fish biologists! My colleague, the incredible Liz Mandeville, is looking for a master's student. Please pass on this opportunity to any interested students.
I'm recruiting a new master's student for fall 2026 in my lab at Northern Michigan University @bionmu.bsky.social ! Students with interests in evolution of freshwater fish are encouraged to apply. Please see our lab website lizmandeville.github.io and the attached advertisement for more information.
Mandeville Lab
Fish are so delightfully weird. We study the evolutionary genetics and ecology of freshwater fishes, plus a few more things, at Northern Michigan University
lizmandeville.github.io
November 24, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Both my high school chem teacher and my gen chem TA in freshman year told me I had a talent for chemistry and that I should be a chemist.

I told them both, "Chemistry is kinda cool but it's really not my thing." (1/)
What’s the lore behind choosing your career path ?
November 24, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
[email protected] has the right of it.
November 24, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Just a friendly reminder as we go into the holidays:

Folks don't have to explain to you why they don't drink.

If you offer them a drink and they decline, don't ask them why. It's not your business.

Just offer them something without alcohol to drink instead. And move on.
November 23, 2025 at 8:04 PM
OMG, we are getting Indian food in Marquette!!!!

limited menu, but I'll take it
November 23, 2025 at 9:48 PM
I did something like this when I was teaching upper-division classes. But I asked students what it got right and what it got wrong.
November 23, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Every regional public university should be blasting this message in every possible medium.
Trying to get us to advertise as: "No AI, small classes, people-first." Or something similar.
Who invests in critical thinking and who invests in an AI chatbot to help you think will be really telling.
November 23, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.

Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.

Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
If you’re a journalist who’s still on Twitter, from now on in your writing you have to replace “the American people want” with “troll bots in Eastern Europe demand”

Being there makes your judgment suspect. I don’t care how savvy you think you are, you’re marinating in a disinformation campaign.
November 23, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Yikes.

I wonder how much of this kind of thing will be happening over the next century or so - not just peoples on the move, but towns & cities too.
'Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain'

#Iran 🇮🇷
Iran president says capital move now a necessity as water crisis deepens
Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has mad...
www.iranintl.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
A lot of folks, including kids, who saw my speech on Tuesday really liked it and thought it was helpful, so I thought I'd post it online - it's an overview of just how nonlinear my path to science was. Maybe it'll help you or someone you know too: medium.com/@adeene.dent...
A Planetary Scientist’s Guide to Finding Your Momentum
This essay is adapted from a speech I gave at my local high school on November 18, 2025. If you’re a kid, have a kid, or just need a…
medium.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
There is not a single large platform that has taken feminists’ demands seriously and met them on survivors’ terms. Not one.

They’re literally using a “look what she made me do” defense to breakdown solidarity and convince everyone to look the other way as their platforms get more violent.
November 21, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
We can teach people things that they aren't ever going to have any use for later in life! That's an okay thing to do!
November 20, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
🫡
November 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
*people they define as Americans

See: most of American history/Native folks, Black folks, Mexican Americans, Japanese Americans, &etc
a lot of you are probably too young to remember this but presidents dont normally wage war against americans
November 20, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Vilifying vaccines (despite all evidence to the contrary) is a calculated move for MAGA.

Because one of the quickest ways to undermine political solidarity among women is to pit them against each other in a fight over who's the "better mom."
November 20, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Unfortunately, fear is stronger than reason. Which means that those who believed his lies will likely reject these new findings (if they even see them at all).
November 20, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Speaking of bad science in media (and I am using the term "media" pretty loosely here), allow me to use The Daily Mail as evidence of why you should get your science information from reputable agencies rather than crap websites. I'm not going to link the article, but it looks like this:

1/n
November 19, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
Analytical chemistry has become extremely automated in the last 25 years, and yet shit continues to break in new and befuddling ways that AI can’t possibly parse. The “datasets” for it to learn instrument repairs from exist in the minds of experts and are significantly vibes-based.
A fair question is how much of a day's work could be outsourced to a machine? As I've become proficient with AI tools, I find that much of what takes me time (but not deep cognitive effort) can be automated. PhDs are hired, at least in part, for their thinking skills. Not all jobs require them.
November 20, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
This is a thing of beauty.
Fish have committed credit card fraud
November 20, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Reposted by Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪
It's that time again: @cenmag.bsky.social 's molecule of the year poll is now OPEN! Check out the contenders, lovingly curated by yours truly from past C&EN stories, and vote for your favorite by Dec. 11
#chemsky #scisky #moty2025
cen.acs.org/synthesis/Mo...
Meet the molecules of the year 2025
C&EN editors’ annual round-up of spectacular molecules we’ve covered in the past year
cen.acs.org
November 19, 2025 at 4:28 PM