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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Jack Wallington @jackwallington.com · 20h

The latest Red List of endangered species ... now includes 172,620 species, of which 48,646 are threatened with extinction. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Now more than ever we must be the voices for nature.

Green turtle bounces back from brink in conservation 'win'

Once endangered due to hunting, it is making a strong recovery thanks to global conservation efforts.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Patrick Barkham @patrickbarkham.bsky.social · 19h

More than half of all bird species are in decline. But good news about green sea turtles - we can save species if we really try!
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

More than half of world’s bird species in decline, as leaders meet on extinction crisis

Biodiversity losses are growing, the IUCN reports as summit opens, but green turtle’s recovery ‘reminds us conservation works’

www.theguardian.com

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 16h

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oHT...
Some candidates were tricked by this song that I was not familiar with. Then I found this. Literally breathtaking!

Chopin: 24 Préludes, Op. 28: No. 16 in B-Flat Minor

YouTube video by Martha Argerich - Topic

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Jessica Kant @jessdkant.bsky.social · 1d

One curious thing on this site about speaking out against the encroachment of LLMs is that inevitably you get accused of being anti-tech. I don’t hate technology. I’ve used machine learning in my own code before. But I also recognize that oligarchs are so hellbent on pushing this tech for a reason.

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Jessica Kant @jessdkant.bsky.social · 1d

So when I hear of students being encouraged to use GPT in college I don’t hear innovation. I hear cognitive atrophy, the inability to think critically for oneself, and total dependence on vulnerable centralized repositories of data for knowledge without ever understanding how knowledge is generated.

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 22h

It’s good. I like it. Thank you Michael! 👍

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Oslo Center for Environmental Humanities @uio-oceh.bsky.social · 1d

Do trees talk to each other?

It might sound like sci-fi, but research shows that trees and plants can “communicate” underground — thanks to fungi🍄👇
#EnvHum #Mycorrhiza #WoodWideWeb

Tree roots spreading across forest floor, with a caption explaining that trees communicate underground through fungal networks.

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 23h

She does ‘not’ allow me but I don’t care
My recent lesson is ‘sovereignty’
Don’t need external validation any more!

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 23h

I stopped at this page before I came out to enjoy the sunrise and help another flat move fridge. All unreasonable plots (e. g. My flatmate does allow me to get up and have breakfast before 9) conspired to make this warm and special #10/10portal morning. #morningread #thomashardy

From wildreckoning: an anthology provoked by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 23h

Pleasure.

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 1d

might be better to translate ‘道 as--‘dao' than lesson or truth or epiphany...

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 1d

No one knows before the concentrated and effortless moment, how many hells I have travelled.
'心不死则道不生'––your heart has to die before the lesson is born.

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 1d

www.imdb.com/title/tt2781...
So glad that the movie Silent Friend will be released at @leedsfilmfest.bsky.social. It's about trees and humans. #envhum #ginkgo

www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/sil...

Silent Friend (2025) ⭐ 7.4 | Biography, History

2h 27m

www.imdb.com

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 1d

conferences.leeds.ac.uk/poetryenviro...

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 1d

CFP: 'Poetry's Environments', University of Leeds, June 2026.

About poetry and the natural environment in relation to the environments in which it is written, experienced, performed, preserved, and studied.

Please submit a proposal! Deadline 5 December.

conferences.leeds.ac.uk/poetryenviro...

Call for Proposals | Poetry's Environments

conferences.leeds.ac.uk

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 2d

I just cannot comprehend how a massive bung for older rich homeowners, at the expense of sicker and younger people who have to bear all the cuts, is seen as some sort of 'win'. Britain has become a grotesque and narrow place indeed. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Conservatives would scrap stamp duty, Kemi Badenoch announces

The Tory leader says the move would help millions buy a home, in her annual conference speech.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 1d

The most exhilarating time is the darkest night before dawn, the last one mile before the destination. Adrenaline will take you to the moon. Always bounce between -200℃ and 200℃. After all, I need three months or just three hours? 🙃

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 1d

Thursday #morningread
🦉

From Nature’s Calendar: The British Year in 72 Seasons

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 2d

It's taken over 24 hours to get this uploaded with passable captions, but here's my talk from last night @cumbriauni.bsky.social with @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social on #TheCompanyOfOwls and #DorothyWordsworth. Including some terrible slights on robins, and blackbird impressions. youtu.be/goiC3hhlsx4

Companions of Nature: from sickbed consolations to mimic hootings

YouTube video by Polly Atkin

youtu.be

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 2d

A Gen AI argument I hate:

‘We disadvantage our students if we don’t teach them to use it “responsibly”’

For fuck’s sake, no.

1: it can’t be used responsibly
2: it’s antithetical to what makes humanities work worthwhile: critical thinking, deep research, self expression, self reflection, etc.

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 2d

Students talk about the demoralizing effects of AI. It makes them feel like they don't need to know anything and can't learn how to do anything well enough to compete with the machine.

MiMi Aye @meemalee.bsky.social · 6d

Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman on generative AI

"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat.
People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people." - author and filmmaker Justine Bateman from a piece by Emine Saner for the Guardian

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Warren Pearce @warrenpearce.bsky.social · 2d

On way home from superb Cultural Climate Models meeting in Graz with @davidhiggins.bsky.social @caroschwegler.bsky.social et al. Looking forward to seeing in print the new approach to modelling from this truly interdisciplinary international collab

gewi.uni-graz.at/en/unsere-fo...

Entrance of Graz train station with Graz Hauptbahnhof written in capital letters on a light coloured stone building against clear blue sky

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Reposted by Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma

Patrick Barkham @patrickbarkham.bsky.social · 2d

We are nature. Its best interests are our best interests. So it's pretty dim of our chancellor to again pit wildlife against people, boasting of 20,000 homes built despite "some snails" that "are a protected species or something". www.theguardian.com/environment/... Unsavoury lobbying here too.

Rachel Reeves clears planning blockage amid ‘good relationship’ with developer

Exclusive: Chancellor says 20,000 homes were being held up due to ‘some snails that are a protected species or something’

www.theguardian.com

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 2d

Tuesday #morningread
Louis Bailey’s ‘Hunter’s Moon’
A timely read.

From The Books of Bigs: Stories from a Yorkshire Moor and Other Peatlands

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Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social · 2d

#silentspring #rachelcarson

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