Here it is: the Trump Administration "draft proposal" to the University of California. Published bc faculty sued for its disclosure. Its terms go beyond what Trump demands in similar compacts to other universities. EVERYONE should read: faculty, students, admins, alumni. ucop.edu/communicatio...

On her birthday, a poem by #UrsulaKLeGuin "let’s hurry, yes, to offer everything and count on nothing, make and break no promises ... Outside trust, what air is there to breathe?" lithub.com/a-poem-by-ur...

📌 New publication out: Reference genome bias in light of species-specific chromosomal reorganization and translocations TL;DR - We show that the choice of reference genome biases the detection of structural variants and popgen stats. Navigate carefully - 🛳️ 😬 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology seeks a Research Collections Manager for reptiles and amphibians. Required: advanced degree, 3+ years experience. Apply by Nov 5, 2025: https://careers.umich.edu/job_detail/269553/res-museum-collection-manager #job

Michigan's #UMMZ Reptiles and Amphibians Collections Manager position is now open. Join a great museums group and help manage the world's second largest herpetology research collection. Please share! careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

+++ Hissscord🐍 NEWS +++ Second call for joining our server! 🐸 Hissscord is open to everyone in the scientific herpetological community, from students to established researchers. 💬 DM me for an invite to the Discord channel, or reach out via email: hissscord[at]gmail.com Please share!📣

As you will gather from the article, it does, in fact, sound like a cartoon villain the size of a piece of string cheese.

+++ Hissscord🐍 NEWS +++ Our new server is live! 🐍 A free space for young and experienced herpetologists to connect, collaborate, and get quick help. 💬 DM me here on Bluesky or elsewhere for an invite to the Discord channel! Please feel free to share and repost! #Herpetology #SEH2025 #Hissscord

I’ve been asked about de-extinction a lot this weekend, especially whether it’s scientifically possible. No, it’s not, and Colossal has already been caught lying about their projects. Extinction is forever. We have to grieve and use that feeling to protect the future of life that is here now.

Science news article about 2nd year grad students being unceremoniously dropped from the GRFP eligibility with no explanation or warning: www.science.org/content/arti...

🚨 NEW PAPER! 🚨 Being an “internationally successful” scientist depends on English. But what if you also face gender & global inequalities? We show that women from the global South publish the same total # of papers but have 70% fewer in English language. Affecting their career possibilities.

Having a diffuse research group means that I rarely get to spend any time with my group in 3D. It was a great delight therefore to be joined by @collinbos.bsky.social @alicepetzold.bsky.social @njorisfleck.bsky.social and @clarakeusgen.bsky.social together in Bonn for the #SEH2025! 🧪🐸🦎🐍🧬

“fascist government controls media and bans dissent” is a straightforward description of what’s happening in the united states

Someone's pet cat with the native wild red squirrel it just killed. Most cat owners have no idea of, or don't want to know, how much wildlife is slaughtered annually by domestic or feral cats. But it runs to 10s, possibly 100s, of BILLIONS of animals per year, and is a serious driver of extinction.

I’m setting up a Discord server for young herpetologists, derived from an idea at #SEH2025. The goal is to create a space for quick help, collaboration, and networking. If you’d like to give input or get involved, let me know! #herpetology

#SEH2025 what a week! Plenty of great talks, lovely people and chats… Also presented a poster on our Grass Snake project in Berlin.

Hey #frog people! If you are using @inaturalist.bsky.social, please feel invited to the new „Frogs in Amplexus“ project! We try to collect all amplexi, (to be) recorded on iNat. So please consider to add your future amplexus observations, or such that you help identifying/correcting. #amphibians

🚨🚨🚨 In the worst tradition of the McCarthy-era anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee, the GOP House Oversight Committee has just launch a massive, grotesque, ad hominem, partisan assault on the US National Academy of Sciences. oversight.house.gov/wp-content/u...

Loving the Herp-Omics symposium at #SEH2025! Proud to see several members of my lab presenting here—my postdoc @alicepetzold.bsky.social presented and is one of the chairs! Up now, @clarakeusgen.bsky.social is presenting on the Bachelor’s thesis that she did with us.

And now @collinbos.bsky.social is presenting on mitochondrial genome reorganisation in microhylid frogs from Madagascar, and how we can explore it using off-target sequencing from target capture sequencing reads. 🧪🐸 #SEH2025

Meet the newest species of Brazilian flea-toad 🐸 Brachycephalus nanicus! 🐸 B. nanicus is <1cm long & dwells under the leaf litter in the cloud forests of Serro do Mar, southeastern Brazil I CT scanned this specimen for the osteological description Out today in Zootaxa: mapress.com/zt/article/v...

A wonderful first day of the #SEH2025 meeting today here in Bonn! Seeing my students presenting is especially gratifying; @clarakeusgen.bsky.social brought this absolutely beautiful poster. 🧪🐸

On my way to Bonn for the #SEH2025 23rd European Congress of Herpetology! I’ll be giving a plenary on Wednesday about miniaturisation. Really looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, and exchanging ideas across the field 🐢🐍🐸🧪

Rawr! 🐢

the first images that show up when you google specific frogs are just AI slop that looks nothing like them 😭

Yarrow's Spiny Lizard (Sceleporus jarrovii), Arizona. See the parietal eye? This third eye has a lens, cornea, & retina, but is not for image-forming. It senses light/dark to help regulate circadian rhythms, and may help the lizard avoid predators & assist with sense of direction. 🦎 #reptiles 👁️👁️👁️

One of our “green new scam” research grants that USDOT terminated focused on making transit infrastructure more resilient to more frequent and severe weather events. But “climate change adaptation” was too woke, obviously, and doing this research is clearly unnecessary

Been wandering the Kerala side of the southern Western Ghats for almost a week, and I’ve finally met, quite possibly, the most stunning frog on the planet. Photos from my phone do not do this frog any justice. Galaxy Frog 𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴

New paper on long-term lizard declines.🦎 Abundance highest in wet yrs (we haven't had many!). Some species abund related to lagged effects from vegetation cover, emphasizing the delayed response of biotic communities to ecosystem changes. #urban #herps 🌎 doi.org/10.1002/eco....

Excellent piece. LLMs can be useful for automating tedious tasks, but for tasks that require rigour and critical thinking, such as peer review, it's problematic on multiple levels.

School Bully Shocks Nerds With Further Lunch-Money Demands

MVZ Professor Jim McGuire and Former MVZ Postdoc Simon Scarpetta find that Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the North American desert iguana — evidence of the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any land animal. bit.ly/3DMIAUD

University of California announced a systemwide hiring freeze. This affects not 1 but 10 campuses (including UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC San Diego among others) plus 3 national labs with impact on medical and scientific research and local economies. www.reuters.com/world/us/uni...

They are coming for every university, if you think you’re safe because it hasn’t been yours yet I don’t know what to tell you. Join AAUP, refuse to comply, organize your colleagues

" (...) French researcher was expelled from the country for expressing "a personal opinion" on Trump." I fear it is now not safe for Europeans to do conferences in the US. www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/d...

[Please share widely] Come work at the U. of Oslo. We are advertising a 3-year postdoc in Evolutionary and Comparative Genomics. If working with plant evolution in the Galápagos, pangenome and structural variants sounds exciting for you - this may be your chance! www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

In biology, I keep thinking of the bacterial strains, yeast strains, plasmids, mouse lines, worm mutants etc etc etc that will be lost to science FOREVER because the freezers and animal facilities won't be maintained Generations of work will be lost in essentially an instant

One of our few support systems, IMLS helped countless Natural History Museums modernize and care for collections and libraries. One of the most respectable government entities, IMLS is to be eliminated... really fucking stupid. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Today, EPA's Lee Zeldin announced rollbacks on key environmental regulations, including pollution limits for coal plants, climate rules & EV standards. He called it a “consequential" day of deregulation, but for those who care about clean air & water, it's one of the most destructive in US history.

pholidosis: an R package to compare biological surface patterns https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.23.639543v1

The mild temperatures and gentle rain have brought out the first smooth newts here in Denmark. I had to rescue this one from the cycle path last night; another was already half crushed. In peak activity season, I can save as many as five a night from one 20 m segment of path.

Gave my first herpetology exam and my favorite and most entertaining question to grade is “Draw a California species, include the Latin name and label 3 defining features”. Some favs (shared w permission):

The San Francisco gartersnake - one of the USA's most beautiful and endangered snakes. Many people don't believe a bright blue and red snake can be discreet - but when seen in its habitat you can see how these snakes can evade notice.

"...a compelling reminder of how deeply our fate is tied to the natural world. 🐸 may seem like a minor player in the grand scheme of things, but their role in controlling disease vectors highlights the complex and often unexpected ways that ecosystems and public health are intertwined." #OneHealth

Thanks to @jdrakephd.bsky.social for highlighting the importance of #amphibians in the services they provide to humans www.forbes.com/sites/johndr... #malaria #disease #frogs #tropical 🐸🧪🌎🦟

Want to go visit the national parks this year? Sorry. The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

Ruby-crowned kinglet at Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area today...