@alan678.bsky.social #BirdOfTheDay theme today is #BirdsInTheirElement. Here we have a nicely backlit Red-tailed Hawk at home in its element; Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Surely, this can’t be right! A most unfortunate weather radar image.

MoCo, as more winter weather heads our way, get those shovels out and let’s prepare for snow and icy conditions from Sunday evening through Monday. Please be safe and hang tough!

I’m not even Catholic and I know big a deal this is

Rob @robcrank68.bsky.social ‘s #BirdOfTheDay theme is #WaterDroplets, birds with water droplets on them: here we have a water droplets-palooza! 4 different species of ducks in a feeding frenzy at Cambridge, Maryland.

In 1963 the US govt spent 2.5% GDP on research in America. This was on top of what business spent on research, and was not conflated with business "spending" on research by bundling in expenses like advertising into their research budgets. That spike in 1963 has driven our economy for decades.

Real actual croci seen today, Feb 21, in a down-the-street neighbor’s front yard! The 4-week snowcrete is finally almost gone except for the piles remaining in parking lots. However, a little more is expected tomorrow.

Just in case the Epstein enablers, participants and those blocking investigations into the same want to see what might await them on the other side - an Italian vision of judgement, painted on the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel, 1303, by Giotto, Padua, Italy. Scary stuff!

Watching “Riot Women” on Britbox, about a group of women who set up a punk band in Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, England. Funny but quite triggering in parts. From the pen of Sally Wainwright who did “Happy Valley”, another gem.

For today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme of #WingsOverWater (with thanks to @alan678.bsky.social ), we have a nice Northern Fulmar gliding over the sea in West Iceland.

I don’t know how many baby monkeys or snail darters I indirectly killed this week doing performance plans on ChatGPT. But render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…

Found this newsletter that belonged to my father, an “Island hopping” veteran of WWII. The newsletter offered interesting advice to the soldiers upon returning home. Believe it was meant to be taken lightly. My dad talked a lot about this voyage home, none of it good.

Now this is a movie plot!!! Someone understands grad school.

In 1983, James Watt, Reagan’s Interior Sec, canned the expected usual July 4th Beach Boys concert and replaced it with Wayne Newton, a “washed up” Las Vegas lounge lizard. DC welcomed Wayne with a trademark summer gullywasher!

From first principles, cancers would do great as organoids since they are usually less differentiated. Retinas or brains not so much, as they require more time to achieve full differentiation. Animal models rule here and organoids CANNOT fully replicate. This is a hill I will die on!

Freeman Hrabowski is a genius. UMBC is one of the finest small universities out there!

Happy #SuperbOwl Sunday to all who celebrate! Here is a nice Short-eared Owl that we found last month in a marsh on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. They are hard to come by.

If you take a breath today remember to be grateful to the bottom of your lungs to these guys that made it all possible. Ice-polished ~1.5 billion yo Proterozoic fossil cyanobacterial stromatolite pavement, at Grinnell Glacier, Glacier NP, MT. Oldest fossils I have ever seen!

This weather station provided the crucial reports that set D-Day in motion over 80 years ago.

My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power

Nitasha one of the best to do it, have followed her for years from outlet to outlet and will continue to, but this fuckin’ sucks. It’s nothing more than oligarch maxxing and yacht hoarding.

For my birthday I was offered a choice between the Melania movie and a colonoscopy. I chose the colonoscopy and it turned out better! Honestly!

Because I'm talking about measles. It is also A VERY VERY VERY CONTAGIOUS VIRUS. If someone is in a room and has measles and then leaves that room and you enter that room within TWO HOURS (depending on humidity) you can get measles. And people are contagious for four days before the rash appears.

Awful news about the sublime Catherine O Hara passing away. RIP. What a legend ❤️

Sóla’s Thursday AM walk: 7/67%/5MPHWNW. Dogs:4; Winter Wren:2. Teachers’ parking lot was plowed o/n. Parents will be happy for school tomorrow. Want to get out of town, cabin fever is bad right now. TG for streaming for the distraction it provides. #Dogsofbluesky

A few suggestions @wcratcliff.bsky.social. I know which kind of snowflake yeast I’m most excited for.

We can leave the street now that the county plow came! Prolly could have done it earlier in the 4runner but as predicted had to dig an exit through the ice for the Rav4 to get to the plowed lane!

If you’re 50+ get your Shingrix shot!

Part of a large group of American White Pelicans we saw last weekend at Blackwater NWR (Dorchester Co., MD). I counted >100, with many more hidden, others constantly flying in. More and more pelicans have become an annual winter occurrence at Blackwater.

After Greenland, #Iceland next? Billy Long, the nominee for US ambassador to Iceland “joked” during his confirmation hearing in US Senate that Iceland would be the 52nd US state with him as governor. Icelanders are not happy. This is never the affect of any ambassador to anywhere!

There has been at least 7,400 deaths from the flu, this season alone according to CDC data: www.cdc.gov/fluview/surv... Get yer vaccines. They are not perfect, but this is carnage. 2025 was the worst flu season so far in a decade in many communities in America.

Play “Count the Eagles”! There are ~15 Bald Eagles in this frame. 62 counted on this island, on this side alone! We saw >80 eagles on a visit to Blackwater NWR (Dorchester Co., MD). Attracted by a cold snap fish kill and here to breed. Blackwater hosts the most eagles on E coast between ME and FL.

🧬 Major breakthrough: IOB researchers identify new genetic cause of inherited blindness in overlooked RNA genes. The discovery solves decades-old diagnostic mystery and opens new pathways for many patients worldwide. ➡️ www.nature.com/articles/s41... #AcademicBlueSky #Genetics #VisionResearch #IRDs

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, near Cambridge, MD. The eagles are “he-ing and she-ing” or attending an East Coast speed dating service for Eagles right now.

Eagles chatting to one another at BNWR, near Cambridge, MD.

What’s up loon? You aren’t the crazy one out here.

Sanderling doing his/her thing on the OC beach to Evanescence.

Short-eared owl, Maple Dam Rd, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Cambridge, MD. Best view of these owls we have ever had. Photo courtesy of M.

Black Scoters whistling out in the Chesapeake Bay, Middle Hoopers Island, MD. We also saw: Common loons; long tailed ducks; Buffleheads here on the island.

First daughter’s first first-author paper on her graduate studies has dropped! Yay!! rupress.org/jcb/article/...

The ceremony will feature light roadkill hors d’oeuvres, goblets of beef tallow, and a sewage plunge, and will include a memorial tribute to the parasitic worm that perished after eating a portion of his brain, but whose influence continues to be deeply felt.

if you want a long read that involves udders, a hot air balloon, and some extremely dubious data on egg prices, the story I’ve been working on for the last few months where I tried to single-handedly take on every government function myself is now online! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Hey, @drdorotask.bsky.social is here on Bsky! Such cool work. We think that retinas degenerate with time and that if all of us live long enough, we’ll get AMD or other neurodegenerative diseases. But Greenland sharks manage to live for hundreds of years and repair their eyes. How?

Early morning at the gondola rank, Bacino Orseolo, #Venice, #Italy.

As it fades further into the rear view mirror, an artist’s impression of the US in 2025.

Inscription on Ponte Fabricio, the only functional classical Roman bridge in #Rome, #Italy, almost 2100 years old. Along with abbreviations, translated as “Lucius Fabricius, son of Gaius, Superintendent of the Roads, arranged for this to be built.”

On this day, 8 years ago, I received a diagnosis of breast cancer. My 65 yo mother died of the same disease when I was 31 so this was terrifying news. NIH/NCI sponsored research developed a new targeted immunotherapy for HER2Neu+ disease to add to adjuvant therapy. This therapy saved my life. ❤️NIH