Shan Kothari

@shankothari.bsky.social

1.1K followers 1.6K following 160 posts

Assistant professor at University of Alberta. Forest ecology + tree physiology. he/il

Videos

Environmental science 59%

Agriculture 16%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Shan Kothari

Katherine Drotos @spiritofcavalia.bsky.social · 5d

Quality of life in Gaza has not improved since the "ceasefire". Most are still displaced and without food. Many are still dodging violence from Israeli attacks. Aid is still not being allowed in at anywhere near the levels required to help the population.

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Fundraisers warn of ‘catastrophic’ drop in donations to Gaza since ceasefire

‘The world thinks Palestinians don’t need help any more,’ aid organiser says, despite desperate need as winter nears

www.theguardian.com

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 7d

I suspect that as long as there are human drivers, some of them will be tired, distracted, angry, or drunk

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 7d

there's a @dsquareddigest.bsky.social post about this: backofmind.substack.com/p/another-gu...

another guy in India

songs the outsourcing industry taught me

backofmind.substack.com

Reposted by Shan Kothari

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 9d

my interview for the Digital Theory Lab with Karen Hao @karenhao.bsky.social at the Remarque Institute
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZpH...

Karen Hao on Empire of AI

YouTube video by Remarque NYU

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Brian Doucet, Evan Roberts, Shan Kothari

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 11d

Almost everywhere in the City of Toronto has fewer people that it did 50 years ago

Map showing Toronto change in population density 1971 to 2021, courtesy of Jens von Bergmann

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 14d

every once in a while, just for fun, I take a passage I admire and write a paragraph describing its contents and tone to produce an LLM pastiche. the results often impress on a first read-through—which again, I think reflects a mastery of affect—but after that I start to notice everything that's off

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 14d

often the first thing (sometimes the only thing) people appreciate about a poem is the affect it cultivates, and I've seen LLMs do a great job at replicating that, at least within some limited range! but beyond that I haven't been convinced so far

Reposted by Shan Kothari

Elizabeth Alsop @elizabethalsop.bsky.social · 16d

For the Monday morning crowd! My take on THE MASTERMIND and the politics of the heist film for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/rebe...

Rebel Without a Clue | Los Angeles Review of Books

Elizabeth Alsop picks up the trail of Kelly Reichardt’s alienated art thief in “The Mastermind.”

lareviewofbooks.org

Reposted by Shan Kothari

Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 17d

BREAKING

The 1st Circuit REJECTS Trump DOJ's request to pause a judge's order to pay up Nov's SNAP funds to the states.

The SCOTUS stay will expire within 48 hours absent further action from the justices, per its terms.

Doc ecf.ca1.uscourts.gov/n/beam/servl...

Reposted by Shan Kothari

Keaton H @keaton-hawk.bsky.social · 17d

CBC posted a video talking about a building losing its on street parking due to bike lanes. Somehow they failed to mention the building’s TWO visitor parking lots. One of which you can even see in the video. #yegbike

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 17d

A big part of the issue is that Edmontonians and new arrivals (for a mix of cultural and job market reasons) don't see a ton of value in living centrally, so development at Century Park, Blatchford, etc is slow. But it is happening!

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 17d

Three out of four of these were also part of the original LRT line in 1978, so I don't think they reflect on the choices in current transit expansions

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 17d

Yeah, so two of those (Belvedere and Stadium) have big ongoing TOD buildouts, and a third (Coliseum) will once the Coliseum comes down. But also, this has nothing to do with the original contention about building restrictions!

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 17d

I... don't think Alberta's cities have done that? Certainly Edmonton hasn't. We have tons of residential construction downtown and big TOD buildouts around Century Park and the NE stations, and a lot of land around the in-progress VLW has just been blanket-upzoned

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 17d

it's definitely something to work up to, though, I would not recommend it to a first-timer

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 17d

being a mildly precocious anti-war 10-year-old in 2003 and seeing the lust for war from every responsible grown-up institution is a feeling I've never quite managed to shake

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 18d

on the one hand, sure, TOD development has been really sluggish in Edmonton, but on the other hand it's fairly easy and affordable to live in neighborhoods like Wihkwentowin, Downtown, Garneau, or Strathcona with good transit connectivity

Reposted by Jason Mittell, Michael Barnett, Michael S. Rosenberg , and 30 more Jason Mittell, Michael Barnett, Michael S. Rosenberg, Jesse M. Shapiro, Delphine K. Farmer, Joshua S. Weitz, John R. Hutchinson, Scott L. Greer, Stacie B. Dusetzina, Steven French, Megan L. Ranney, Rosemary A. Joyce, Mark E. Schaffer, Amir Attaran, Dawn J. Wright, Paul E. Smaldino, Kevin Carey, Bonnie Honig, Smith, Rebecca Tushnet, Michael W. Kraus, David Merrett, W. Andy Knight, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Brian Keegan, Sarah Roberts, Lisa Diedrich, Ann Bartow, Catherine J. Frieman, Michael Larkin, Aviel Roshwald, Carly D. Ziter, Shan Kothari

Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 18d

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers

James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.

www.statnews.com

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 19d

honestly more offended as an ecologist than as an Indian person

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 23d

to be clear, I'm not trying to insinuate that Edmonton is actually conservative or that the election results were somehow unrepresentative! but I do think the relative coordination on the progressive side was an asset

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 23d

I mean, it seems reasonable to think that the mayoral election could have turned out otherwise had there been fewer candidates on the right or in a broadly anti-incumbent slant (and of course Anirniq)

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 23d

I'm not sure that any of the incumbents had anyone running to their left who got any meaningful share of votes (except maybe Principe? I don't know much about the other candidates in her ward)—although many candidates in many wards never seemed to articulate much of a platform at all

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 23d

wait, what about Anirniq? (and the mayoral race—there was no incumbent, or PACE candidate, but Knack represents a degree of continuity and nearly all candidates were running to his right to varying degrees)

Reposted by Shan Kothari

New Phytologist @newphyt.bsky.social · 23d

Next-generation specimen #digitization: capturing #reflectance spectra from the world's #herbaria for modeling plant biology across time, space, and taxa

#TansleyReview by Jeannine Cavender-Bares, et al.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PlantScience

Herbarium spectral digitization workflow from specimen collection to global integration, and challenges.

Reposted by Shan Kothari

Edmonton Transit Riders @etriders.bsky.social · 23d

Whyte Avenue is Edmonton's most vibrant main street, but that doesn't mean we have to accept noise, traffic violence, and congestion

In an opinion article we submitted to the Journal, ETR Chair Daniel Witte talks about his experience spending Halloween on Whyte

edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu...

Opinion: Let's make Whyte Avenue less scary for pedestrians

We experienced the conflict between Whyte’s energy and vibrancy, with the danger and chaos perpetuated by its car-centric design.

edmontonjournal.com

Reposted by Shan Kothari

Martijn Slot @martijnslot.bsky.social · 23d

New paper led by @bposch.bsky.social out in @newphyt.bsky.social . We reviewed evidence, mechanisms, and consequences of high temperature acclimation of leaf heat tolerance: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

High‐temperature acclimation of photosystem II in land plants

The effect of high temperature on plant performance and survival is a topic of great interest given the ongoing rise in global heatwave frequency, duration, and intensity. The temperature at which ph....

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 23d

I suspect that a big part of it is indeed the perception that BE is UCP-aligned—and also the fragmentation of the right compared to the unity of the progressives

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 26d

a surprising number of my friends in Quebec are devout MSNBC watchers—and not the ones in Montréal proper, who generally consider themselves above that sort of thing

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Parliamentary Library, Jonathan Hopkin , and 11 more Jonathan Portes, Parliamentary Library, Jonathan Hopkin, Felicity Callard, Aaron Sojourner, Bessma Momani, Talbot Imlay, Jason Lyall, Erin O’Donnell, Juanjo Medina, Christina Pagel, Nicole Guenther Discenza, Pádua Fernandes, Shan Kothari

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 26d

“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”

Yale lab reports mass killings in Sudan, calls for student activism

The Humanitarian Research Lab was told this week that over 10,000 people in Sudan were killed within three days.

yaledailynews.com

Shan Kothari @shankothari.bsky.social · 28d

"ton arrière arrière grand-mère, elle a eu 14 enfants" 😬

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