Some personal news: @jesgilbert.bsky.social and I just won the Nancy Baym Book Award, granted annually by The Association of Internet Researchers (@aoir.bsky.social), for our @mitpress.bsky.social book The Secret Life of Data. I am honored, chuffed, and oh so grateful.
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
2025 Nancy Baym Book Award |
aoir.org
September 11, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Some personal news: @jesgilbert.bsky.social and I just won the Nancy Baym Book Award, granted annually by The Association of Internet Researchers (@aoir.bsky.social), for our @mitpress.bsky.social book The Secret Life of Data. I am honored, chuffed, and oh so grateful.
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
Oh, we’re not extraditing to international criminal court.
This was murder. We are extraditing to Tobago or whatever other Caribbean/South American country/ies would have jurisdiction and reciprocal extradition with us.
This was murder. We are extraditing to Tobago or whatever other Caribbean/South American country/ies would have jurisdiction and reciprocal extradition with us.
November 29, 2025 at 1:48 AM
One highlight of my Baym lab internship was going to the pub with the Baym lab, encountering some finance bros, telling them we worked on micro evo, & having them suggest we check this out, describing it at length while we all silently lost it
In 2016, the Kishony Lab at Harvard Medical School put together this demonstration of acquired antibiotic resistance in E. coli bacteria, creating a mega-Petri dish (2' x 4') with a stepped gradient of antibiotic.
Seeing the mutants emerge & spread is an elegant demo of evolutionary change.
Seeing the mutants emerge & spread is an elegant demo of evolutionary change.
The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish (Kishony Lab)
YouTube video by Harvard Medical School
youtu.be
April 13, 2025 at 9:04 PM
One highlight of my Baym lab internship was going to the pub with the Baym lab, encountering some finance bros, telling them we worked on micro evo, & having them suggest we check this out, describing it at length while we all silently lost it
I love being too dangerous for an AI to even talk to
June 11, 2026 at 1:33 AM
I love being too dangerous for an AI to even talk to
That this man was confirmed by the U.S. Senate will be an enduring stain on our nation.
“Should we follow the Geneva Conventions?” Pete Hegseth asked in 2024.
It’s almost as if there were signs!
bsky.app/profile/anna...
It’s almost as if there were signs!
bsky.app/profile/anna...
November 29, 2025 at 5:22 AM
Baym continues to make freakin' art. Must see thread/paper
Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics
From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...
www.science.org
November 20, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Baym continues to make freakin' art. Must see thread/paper
This video doesn’t shed much light (that I can see) on whether the agent was brushed by the vehicle but it makes it very clear that Renee Good was turning the wheel away from him and was not attempting to hit him.
🚨 NEW VIDEO 👇🏽This puts an end to all the lies. Horrific.
They were having a calm exchange seconds before he murdered Renee Good, and she was barely moving and clearly avoiding him.
Stop the lies.
They were having a calm exchange seconds before he murdered Renee Good, and she was barely moving and clearly avoiding him.
Stop the lies.
January 9, 2026 at 7:21 PM
I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name
OAI: say no more
OAI: say no more
Introducing GPT-Rosalind, our frontier reasoning model built to support research across biology, drug discovery, and translational medicine.
Video: https://twitter.com/openai/status/2044861690911850863
Video: https://twitter.com/openai/status/2044861690911850863
April 17, 2026 at 7:31 AM
WSJ now reporting that it was “an internal bulletin distributed to law enforcement officials across the country” that made the “transgender ideology” claim
So about that “transgender ideology” WSJ report
September 12, 2025 at 9:18 PM
"Archiving Machines" is this year's @aoir.bsky.social Nancy Baym Book Award winner! Congratulations to author Amelia Acker and the Information Society Series editors on this incredible honor.
This is the 2nd year in a row that a book from our "Information Society Series" at @mitpress.bsky.social has won the AoIR award. Sinnreich and Gilbert's "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" won in 2025
mitpress.mit.edu/series/the-i...
2/2
mitpress.mit.edu/series/the-i...
2/2
Information Society Series
The Information Society Series publishes original scholarship addressing the social, legal, and political implications of the Internet and new information and communication technologies. The series fe...
mitpress.mit.edu
September 21, 2026 at 6:56 PM
"Archiving Machines" is this year's @aoir.bsky.social Nancy Baym Book Award winner! Congratulations to author Amelia Acker and the Information Society Series editors on this incredible honor.
Woohoo, Martin Shkreli (yes that Martin Shkreli!) has given me a new business card!
June 13, 2026 at 10:19 PM
Woohoo, Martin Shkreli (yes that Martin Shkreli!) has given me a new business card!
Michael Baym is a microbiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School who studies antibiotic resistance. This week he lost five federal grants to his lab.
I wonder what kind of deals the administration has cut with Big Bacteria behind the scenes.
I wonder what kind of deals the administration has cut with Big Bacteria behind the scenes.
May 17, 2025 at 1:36 AM
Michael Baym is a microbiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School who studies antibiotic resistance. This week he lost five federal grants to his lab.
I wonder what kind of deals the administration has cut with Big Bacteria behind the scenes.
I wonder what kind of deals the administration has cut with Big Bacteria behind the scenes.
Excited to share that Amelia Acker's "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" has won the 2026 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award.
aoir.org/announcing-a...
1/2
aoir.org/announcing-a...
1/2
Announcing AoIR2026’s Nancy Baym Book Award Winner and Runner Up |
aoir.org
September 21, 2026 at 5:50 PM
Excited to share that Amelia Acker's "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" has won the 2026 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award.
aoir.org/announcing-a...
1/2
aoir.org/announcing-a...
1/2
First you do one of the relatively few experiments that actually make me envious and now this. You are dead to me, Baym.
Woohoo, Martin Shkreli (yes that Martin Shkreli!) has given me a new business card!
June 14, 2026 at 12:34 AM
First you do one of the relatively few experiments that actually make me envious and now this. You are dead to me, Baym.
I do not know Michael Baym
April 1, 2025 at 6:11 PM
I do not know Michael Baym
Shelfmarks:
The Delafield affair (1909) by Florence Finch Kelly - Baym 813 K29d
Adele Doring on a ranch (1920) by Grace May North - Baym 813 N8113a
The biography of a prairie girl (1902) by Eleanor Gates - Baym 813 G224b
The giants (1905) by Mrs. Fremont Older - Baym 813 Oℓ17g
The Delafield affair (1909) by Florence Finch Kelly - Baym 813 K29d
Adele Doring on a ranch (1920) by Grace May North - Baym 813 N8113a
The biography of a prairie girl (1902) by Eleanor Gates - Baym 813 G224b
The giants (1905) by Mrs. Fremont Older - Baym 813 Oℓ17g
March 4, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Shelfmarks:
The Delafield affair (1909) by Florence Finch Kelly - Baym 813 K29d
Adele Doring on a ranch (1920) by Grace May North - Baym 813 N8113a
The biography of a prairie girl (1902) by Eleanor Gates - Baym 813 G224b
The giants (1905) by Mrs. Fremont Older - Baym 813 Oℓ17g
The Delafield affair (1909) by Florence Finch Kelly - Baym 813 K29d
Adele Doring on a ranch (1920) by Grace May North - Baym 813 N8113a
The biography of a prairie girl (1902) by Eleanor Gates - Baym 813 G224b
The giants (1905) by Mrs. Fremont Older - Baym 813 Oℓ17g
🎉 New year, NEW PREPRINT!
Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from?
My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:
Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from?
My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:
Novel genes arise from genomic deletions across the bacterial tree of life https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.05.697752v1
January 6, 2026 at 4:09 PM
🎉 New year, NEW PREPRINT!
Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from?
My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:
Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from?
My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:
"I'm still in shock. I know that there have been political issues around Harvard in recent weeks, but antibiotic resistance isn't one of them." My conversation with Harvard microbiologist @baym.lol, one of many researchers there who just lost millions in fed. grants. www.wbur.org/news/2025/05...
Antibiotic research at Harvard lab threatened by federal funding cuts
Microbiologist Michael Baym studies antibiotic resistance at Harvard Medical School. He lost millions in federal funding this week.
www.wbur.org
May 16, 2025 at 10:59 PM
"I'm still in shock. I know that there have been political issues around Harvard in recent weeks, but antibiotic resistance isn't one of them." My conversation with Harvard microbiologist @baym.lol, one of many researchers there who just lost millions in fed. grants. www.wbur.org/news/2025/05...
Folks, it actually is possible both to acknowledge that the U.S. private health insurance system is utterly broken *and* not to be complete and utter assholes about the depraved public slaughter of a human being on a city street.
December 5, 2024 at 12:22 AM
AoIR is pleased to congratulate the winners of this year’s Nancy Baym Book Award @aramsinn.bsky.social & @jesgilbert.bsky.social for The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance (@mitpress.bsky.social). Congratulations!
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
September 12, 2025 at 1:37 AM
AoIR is pleased to congratulate the winners of this year’s Nancy Baym Book Award @aramsinn.bsky.social & @jesgilbert.bsky.social for The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance (@mitpress.bsky.social). Congratulations!
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
Congrats to @aramsinn.bsky.social and
@jesgilbert.bsky.social! Their wonderful book "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" won the 2025 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award. 1/2
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
@aoir.bsky.social @nancybaym.bsky.social
@jesgilbert.bsky.social! Their wonderful book "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" won the 2025 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award. 1/2
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
@aoir.bsky.social @nancybaym.bsky.social
2025 Nancy Baym Book Award |
aoir.org
September 11, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Congrats to @aramsinn.bsky.social and
@jesgilbert.bsky.social! Their wonderful book "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" won the 2025 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award. 1/2
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
@aoir.bsky.social @nancybaym.bsky.social
@jesgilbert.bsky.social! Their wonderful book "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" won the 2025 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award. 1/2
aoir.org/2025nb_booka...
@aoir.bsky.social @nancybaym.bsky.social
Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab
May 22, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Houffantlich nayt aahh nou baym Keanoöüill!
September 2, 2026 at 9:24 AM
Houffantlich nayt aahh nou baym Keanoöüill!
Baym was an English professor at Illinois who amassed an 800 volume collection on the female perspective of the American West. Baym was dedicated to recovering the voices of these 19th- and 20th-century women writers, ensuring that their significant literary contributions are recognized.
March 4, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Baym was an English professor at Illinois who amassed an 800 volume collection on the female perspective of the American West. Baym was dedicated to recovering the voices of these 19th- and 20th-century women writers, ensuring that their significant literary contributions are recognized.