This is actually the trippiest thing I've ever seen that was not deliberately created by M C Fucking Escher. It straight up took me over a minute to make sense of and now I can't go back. This is the white-and-gold dress on a gram a week of trenbolone.

Chul et al. leveraged Bird 10K genomes to explore convergent amino acid variants across phylogenetically matched control sets of bird species; they find convergent genes in six vocal learners significantly enriched in learning-related functions. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf112 #genome #evolution

Timing is everything in cowbird parasitism: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I started getting reports of an unseasonal Joshua tree bloom in the last few weeks, and looking over records on @inaturalist.bsky.social it's pretty widespread! So we're putting out the call for folks to record this "bonus bloom" and help us study it 🌿 lab.jbyoder.org/2025/12/10/w...

An interesting result is that the rate of species description has accelerated, with the largest numbers of new species per year in the past ~20 years. We're currently experiencing an age of discovery for Earth's biodiversity & the role of natural history museum collections couldn't be more important

New paper out. If you like colorful birds, hybridization, and phylogenetics, read on! 🧵https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003501

Blueberry species (genus Vaccinium) circled the Northern Hemisphere to travel from North America to Hawai'i— and then closed the loop to hybridize with a North American species 🌿 buff.ly/3mu6eqJ

I have a new preprint demonstrating a genome-architecture-aware approach to inferring species trees and introgression landscapes from a small number of genomes. If you are interested in phylogenomics, birds, or hybridization, this is for you! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

"Here we show substantial declines in the rates of collection of specimen data over recent decades, from analysis of over 150 million records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) spanning more than two centuries" www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪 #Macroecology #EvoBio #Paleobio

Check out our short warbler hybrid paper out today, including a new unofficial common name. Carotenoid people will find some little tidbits of discussion about how these hybrids can help us understand regulation of yellow feathers.

Just out in Systematic Biology, we explore the role of gene flow in island phylogeography of the Solomons Black-and-white Monarch complex. doi.org/10.1093/sysb... Up first, strong genetic structure between islands groups and weak (but present!) structure between Pleistocene-connected islands (🧵)

Interesting update on avian magnetoreception. This is neat, but given the existing evidence I would be a bit surprised (sotto voce: and disappointed) if the cryptochrome mechanism with its elegant quantum biology turned out to be for naught.

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cool new work by Storch, Ridder, and Okie - Cradles, museums, and disequilibria: reconciling biodiversity dynamics using equilibrium theory #macroecology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🧪🌐

How are Pacific NW mountain birds responding to climate change? I got up at 4:00 am for a month to find out. but first the backstory, or "how I spent seven years telling everyone this project wasn't possible" new paper here: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Our paper on tinamou evolution is finally out in @systbiol.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.

A reflection on the extinction, and museums, and the simultaneous excitement and sadness of getting to hold an ivory-billed woodpecker.

🚨 NEW: Climate change is already causing 30,000 deaths per year - a global annual economic loss of $100-350B USD - but the true damage is probably 10x higher. Out TODAY in Nature Climate Change: the first systematic look at the science of "health impact attribution" 🔓 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Calling all natural history/museum collections folxs The theme of the @systbiol.bsky.social breakout meeting in Baton Rouge is 'The Importance of Natural History Collections' The LSU Museum of Natural Science will host some events. Hope to see you there, Jan 9-11, 2026. ssb2026.github.io

5. The right-wing enthusiasm for AI science is not about doing better science faster. It’s about eliminating one of the most effective forms of societal resistance to authoritarian control.

This plan is utterly insane and would cause catastrophic environmental degradation and loss of outdoor opportunities throughout the west — it would accelerate the decline of forests and wildlife, and seriously restrict hiking, camping, fishing, birding, hunting, etc.

My son and I can confirm that the protest went on as planned, though with a memorial slant due to recent events. Sorry no pics of our own, we decided to leave electronic devices home today.

Can we keep the boat if we name it Harvey Raw Milk

For the past 5 months I’ve been privileged to live surrounded by incredibly biodiverse Panamanian rainforest, & it’s been a wonderful experience. But the relative rarity of some insects is deeply disturbing. There is no more important story in the world right now. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The 2026 federal budget proposes eliminating the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area, threatening bird banding, research, and conservation nationwide, endangering 100+ years of vital ecological data. www.aba.org/proposed-bir...

Pls share: I'm seeking ornithologists willing to comment about how the Bird Banding Lab &/or Breeding Bird Survey are crucial to their research & conservation efforts, for a piece for @therevelator.org defending these programs. Reply, DM, or email me at rebecca dot heisman at gmail. #ornithology

🚨Hiding under 6 sections of science sounding rhetoric is an edict to appoint officers at each agency that will be responsible for detecting research that isn't "Gold Standard Science" as defined by the White House🚨 Stay tuned for rapid response action! www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

HAPPY 75th, NSF! We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond. Read on 🧵(1/11):

Join us in the evolution tri-societies Week of Action for NSF! Call/write congress, engage with colleagues, friends and family about the importance of NSF funding! Scan the QR code on the attached image for instructions and scripts. We must make noise! Pls RT!!!! #WithoutNSF #SaveNSF #SupportNSF

*** Academic BFD alert *** We just published a new global bird phylogeny. It synthesizes the work of thousands of researchers before us, and it will grow and improve over time. @snacktavish.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Very excited to see this super fun collaboration with @jacanamama.bsky.social finally published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I have the honour of gathering and sharing your responses to @biodivlibrary.bsky.social’s "hopeful, but uncertain, future". Your voices are uplifting and galvanising. Please keep sharing your thoughts – we are listening! 💬 🌿 🌏 #ILoveBHL blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/04/new-...

In addition to EVERY-FUCKING-THING ELSE The most vital of tools, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, is apparently homed at the Smithsonian. For obv reasons, the Smithsonian cannot retain it For free, you can access biodiversity-related texts going back to the 1400s! www.biodiversitylibrary.org

All wildlife research at USGS will be eliminated. All research and science centers. All coop units. BBS, BBL…. gone. www.science.org/content/arti...

SCOOP: DOGE notified the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) today that the entire staff is being put on administrative leave effective immediately, I’ve learned from an agency source. They’ll be cancelling huge swaths of grants/contracts and starting a Reduction in Force (RIF).

A study in Nature suggests that parrots and humans may use similar brain mechanisms to produce complex sounds. The study uncovers a specialized brain region in budgerigars that works in a similar way to speech-related regions in the human brain. https://go.nature.com/43VkmC5 🧪

California condor rebounds from extinction. In 1987 there were only 22, there are 561 today, with 344 flying free. This recovery stems from innovative breeding techniques, genetic research, and cross-border collaboration between US and Mexican institutions. buff.ly/98BJsxN #ShareGoodNewsToo

boy the "it was supposed to explode all the time, akshually" guys are going to have a hard time if this thing's a dud no amount of rosy Eric Berger ars technica columns will console them

As a curator at a natural history museum, I'm gutted to learn about the dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. If anything, we need to fund, protect and preserve museum collections and uphold institutions of scientific and cultural knowledge now more than ever.

It was a beautiful day to #StandUpForScience2025 in Minnesota.

Today, a broad coalition of scientific professional societies who represent over 92,000 scientists are speaking out against the politicization and demonization of Federally funded science and government scientist jobs. It was an honor to help the Union of Concerned Scientists with this! 🧪🌎

If you have experienced direct harm to your work/lab/job due to recent changes at US NSF, & are willing to share this on behalf of the Am. Society of Naturalists and NSF, please DM/ email me ASAP (this is time-sensitive) or submit story here sites.google.com/view/scienti... Please share widely

KU Center for Genomics is hiring a postdoctoral fellow! Choose a mentor among the Center's faculty and propose an original project. Two years funding and generous research budget included. Please share, retweet and apply! genomics.ku.edu/ku-center-geno…

Get in Dorks, we are going protesting. STAND UP FOR SCIENCE. MARCH 7th 12-4pm. DC AND YOUR STATE CAPITALS. More information to come.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

We're sad to hear of the passing of conservation hero, and friend to so many at Waterbirds, Helen Hays. Helen was an inspiration to generations of seabird researchers and a true friend to the terns she spent her life studying and protecting. Fly high, Helen. 📸: Julie Glassberg/NYT