Val 🏳️‍⚧️
microvalevolent.bsky.social
Val 🏳️‍⚧️
@microvalevolent.bsky.social
I paint with watercolors on microscope slides and call it stained glass panels, find my art on instagram @microvalevolent

Research Director, Center on Contemporary Art Seattle @cocaseattle.bsky.social

Nonbinary human
Pinned
@cartamonir.com This is only a beginning, but I had to show you the first three. I want to show my appreciation, my worship of those who have taught me so much. Carta, you have saved me. Thank you.
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
Day 12 #artAdventCalendar is my #linocut of brilliant trailblazing US #geologist & prof Florence Bascom (1862-1945) 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬⚒️ #histsci who championed women’s education, & used polarizing microscopes for detailed petrographic analysis to show that rocks previously identified as sedimentary were in fact 🧵
December 12, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
get. her. ass.
Wow: Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (named for Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin, who coined term "genocide") calls Clinton's remarks "genocide denial."

"Young people in the US are not stupid or gullible. They simply reject genocide – something the Secretary might consider doing as well."
December 9, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
"Journal retracts weed killer study backed by Monsanto, citing ‘serious ethical concerns’
Highly cited paper was used as evidence that the widely used herbicide Roundup is safe."

JFC

www.science.org/content/arti...
Journal retracts weed killer study backed by Monsanto, citing ‘serious ethical concerns’
Highly cited paper was used as evidence that the widely used herbicide Roundup is safe
www.science.org
December 6, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
This kind of dataset is a clear indicator that propaganda plays a big role in people's political positions and acting like people are unshiftable is just completely detached from reality
Republicans increasingly oppose requiring healthy kids to get MMR vaccines to attend public schools
2016 19%
2019 20%
2023 42%
2025 47%
www.pewresearch.org/science/2025... 🧪
December 5, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
5 Dec 2025 @rikiwilchins.bsky.social -- Former Obama natl security assoc. Lucas Schleusener says group called STARRS & Trump advisor Laura Loomer combing thru fed employees' posts for anything showing they're LGBTQ+ & harassing them or getting them fired in a "Lavender Scare" purge like the 1950s.
National security expert says second Lavender Scare is here as gov't purges LGBTQ+ workers - LGBTQ Nation
Is Laura Loomer the new Joseph McCarthy?
www.lgbtqnation.com
December 5, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
For World AIDS Day 2025: the stigma of HIV & AIDS was so strong that many avoided talking about their diagnosis until their final days.

In other cases, the families kept the secret for decades after.

Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, Gia Carangi, Anthony Perkins... and Isaac Asimov.
In 1983, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had triple bypass surgery at NYU Medical Center, during which he contracted HIV from transfusions.

His doctors advised him not to disclose his status because of anti-AIDS sentiment.

He died 1992 from AIDS-related complications.
December 1, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
Katie Sandwina or Brumbach (1884 – 1952) was an Austrian American circus strongwoman.
In 1902 she defeated the famous strongman Eugen Sandow in a weightlifting contest in New York City.
August 22, 2024 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
One of the tragedies of growing up is it's apparently no longer "socially acceptable" to carry around a cool rock & show it to people you meet.

So I have to respect the Chinese, Korean & Japanese for having a tradition of finding cool rocks & displaying them.

Let's talk about scholar's stones.
November 20, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
Scientists should graduate ready to share what they know, effectively. Even the top science programs in our country do not require science communication and public engagement for their graduates. This is dangerous. Let's change the future. Sign the petition to make a difference: bit.ly/3LbnfHB
November 13, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
Scientists should be good story-tellers, but we don't include enough training on how to tell stories that people can understand.

What I love to see: 'lightning talks' / '5 minute seminars' for the general public as outreach efforts.

Those skills translate to industry, too.
Scientists should graduate ready to share what they know, effectively. Even the top science programs in our country do not require science communication and public engagement for their graduates. This is dangerous. Let's change the future. Sign the petition to make a difference: bit.ly/3LbnfHB
November 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history.

Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
November 13, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
#Fungi, #Feathers, and #Insects Spring from Carol Long’s #Art Nouveau Vessels

Link for more: www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/09/caro...
November 10, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
we're following closely... 👏👏👏
glad to see an "update" to > smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
November 8, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
My ask of any science enthusiasts who tell the story of Rosalind Franklin:
Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author.

Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.
November 8, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
bacteria move by swimming, twitching, gliding/sliding, ...and now by 'swashing'
go figure!
#MicroSky
Swashing: a propulsion-independent form of bacterial surface migration journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs
November 4, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
I am so upset.

Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/
To be asked to write about racism only to be racially aggressed in the editing process is a new level unlocked I have to say.
November 3, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
I think everyone should read this communication before trying to defend the Foundation.
Wikipedia is, and has been for a long time, complicit in genocide.
The damage is done, systemic, and no amount of good-faith editors will fix it without institutional accountability.

ifex.org/concerns-rai...
November 3, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
November 3, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
Amazing work #sciart
Art and Data Team Up Against Climate Change
www.nytimes.com
November 2, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
The @chicago.suntimes.com photographer who risked their personal health and safety to take this photograph is Anthony Vazquez. Please credit photographers and media outlets. In this age of misinformation, a photo with no context could be anything at all.
Please remind us who the domestic terrorists are again.
October 15, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.
October 12, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Val 🏳️‍⚧️
For the first time, microbes are part of global conservation efforts. 🌍🧫

The IUCN’s new Microbial Conservation Specialist Group— including @symbionticism.bsky.social —aims to protect the unseen majority of life on Earth.

Read more:
www.psu.edu/news/eberly-...
New microorganism survival commission aims to fill critical conservation gap | Penn State University
For the first time, the International Union for Conservation of Nature is formally including all microbial life in its framework by establishing a Microbial Conservation Specialist Group, which includ...
www.psu.edu
October 6, 2025 at 2:04 PM