mammalcol is now on CRAN. Get easy access to the List of Mammal Species of Colombia using #mammalcol #R package #rstats 📦 dlizcano.github.io/mammalcol

We just pushed a new version of the global bird phylogeny to Github. Updated topology (v1.5), and now in the most recent Clements/eBird taxonomy. We'll push to CRAN soon too, but head over and grab the most recent clootl version now. @snacktavish.bsky.social github.com/eliotmiller/...

I am thrilled to share this paper outlining some ideas I’ve been thinking about for a little while on a simple but powerful approach for predicting risk of inbreeding depression from long runs of homozygosity and non-ROH heterozygosity. 1/n @klohmueller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Plague in prairie dogs is deadly, but pdogs are evolving immunity. And some of the genes showing evidence of adaptation are the same types of genes that protect Great Gerbils & humans from plague. This suggests evolution is ~predictable, & it can help us manage species facing anthropogenic threats.

10. This provision is by no means the only dreadful, counterproductive, and un-American aspect of the current executive order. But it is one that will cause extraordinary harm and may be less transparently disastrous that other elements of the order. /fin

6. This makes it impossible to engage in anything other than the shortest-term, most incremental research. Far-reaching, innovative, creative, world-changing research will no longer take place in the United States.

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years. Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

“This Executive Order is nothing short of obscene," said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). "In what world does Donald Trump think that Americans want political appointees – who, need I remind the President, are unelected bureaucrats – making decisions on what science gets funded?”

And this is what we have been seeing since Jan 20th: Vought and his Project 2025 team have been interfering with grants by meddling INSIDE the agency, inside NIH and/or HHS.

"At this point, women have been cleared out of all of the military’s top jobs" By a former long-time Naval War College professor

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will shut down its Office of Research and Development and eliminate thousands of agency jobs. According to the agency, this office has long served as the scientific backbone of its efforts to protect both public health and the environment.

Yesterday we posted about the Trump administration shutting down the LGBTQ+ youth crisis line, the “press 3” option on 988 is officially gone. The Trevor Project is stepping up to help fill the gap, and they could really use some support right now. If you’re able, please consider donating! 🏳️‍🌈 💛

5 reasons why Medicaid cuts affect everyone: 1️⃣ More ER Overcrowding 2️⃣ Higher Insurance Premiums — Hospitals shift unpaid costs to your insurance. 3️⃣ Job Loss — Fewer clinics, especially in rural areas. 4️⃣ Weaker Public Health — Less funding for services 5️⃣ Higher State Taxes or Service Cuts

The office of Secretary of Defense has always been held with honor and dignity. Until now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW6P...

Teachers in Oklahoma will soon be required to tell kids the 2020 election had "discrepancies" and that Christianity is the foundation of the U.S. That’s not education. That’s propaganda. A new lawsuit aims to stop it. www.friendlyatheist.com/p/oklahoma-s...

Now the Trump people have jammed political appointees — from DOGE, Vought, Trump, whomever — into the science process. These people know nothing about science. This is the way to Lysenkoism and the death of US science. @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

We believe this is a deeply misleading headline. In the article: “Please coordinate with your agency’s leadership to ensure that all required reviews and approvals by **political appointees** are completed before posting.” Emph added. The political review is doing the DOGE job.

Who knew sea slugs were so devious? A type of sea-slug hoards photosynthetic equipment called chloroplasts from algae and stockpiles it to use as an energy source on a rainy day. -Think solar- generated ‘fat’ stores!

I can’t speak for every city, but here in LA, ICE bounty hunters aren’t going after gang members. They’re hunting the vulnerable: gardeners, street vendors, day laborers. Easy money, no risk. Folks need to stop pretending this is about crime. @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social—thank you for your words.

We're getting very close to an *actual* WAR IS PEACE Fox news banner.

New Bomb Capable Of Creating 1,500 New Terrorists In Single Blast theonion.com/new-bom...

But the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments are clear: no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” It doesn’t say “citizen.” It says “person.” The Constitution doesn’t get to be optional.

UConn Presidents message just now: “The university is $63 million lower in awards through May 2025 over the same period last year, and has lost $32 million in federal funds due to terminations and cancellations of existing research”

The @sse-evolution.bsky.social public policy committee is organizing folks to send postcards to Congress from #Evol2025, stop by the booth in the exhibition hall

apnews.com/article/nhts... Crash dummies used in car safety tests are still modeled after men despite higher risks for women

Good morning #Evol2025 ! We are looking for a Postdoc in the LaBella Lab! Do you love fungi 🍄, genetics 🧬and bioinformatics 💻 - then this might be a good fit for you! jobs.charlotte.edu/postings/63307 Applications accepted through July 1 #Evol25

As an Iranian American, it feels like I need to help explain something: A friend recently expressed confusion as to why those in the Iranian diaspora (liked myself), who hate the regime, would be opposed to the attacks on Iran. I’ll try to explain my thoughts/feelings. 🧵

Navy reverses course on DEI book ban after Pentagon review https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/navy-reverses-dei-book-ban-after-pentagon-review/story?id=122081512 #fivethirtyeight #elections #news

I am looking for a postdoc to work on cutthroat trout evolutionary and conservation genetics, starting ~January 2026. Get in touch or find me at #Evol2025 for more information!

So excited to be at #Evol2025 and with some members of my lab! Come to Carlos’s talk today at 2:45 and Carolina’s poster on Monday!

The comment period for this ends in 3 DAYS. Please leave a comment telling them EVERYONE should be able to get covid boosters. www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

Holding a hearing at 1:00 AM? What is it? They’re hiding? Good opportunity for us to all set our alarms and get up for a little midnight popcorn & airing of the truth.

With the abrupt end to the Mammal-L list serv, we are working on a Google Group option, American Society of Mammalogists List Serv - Google Groups, which you are welcome to join. groups.google.com/u/0/g/mammal... There will be some hiccups as we navigate this option, please be patient

Two weeks until our late registration closes for #ASMPurdue!!! We look forward to seeing you in Lafayette, IN, June 27 – July 1, 2025!! mammalmeetings.org/registration/

As we’ve said before now confirmed. FOIA requests reveal that DOGE employees are pulling in six-figure salaries, with many holding the title of “Expert,” a specific Office of Personnel Management (OPM) designation that pays around $190,000 a year.

The Spencer Foundation is offering rapid response bridge funding for those who lost NSF research grants. www.spencer.org/grant_types/...

It’s said that we live in a post-fact society. We disagree. Now, more than ever, facts matter, and ProPublica is going to continue to track how and when patently false statements are injected into conversations about the country’s future. (Published Feb.)

Federal workers SAVE the government money, that’s why firing them is COSTING the government money. This isn’t difficult.

Last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined. wapo.st/4luJyph

Bone chilling. A court ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that he was illegally removed. Trump is pretending he won the ruling 9-0. 1/ You may not think this case means anything to you. But let me tell you why it does.

Once again, we fought a whole damn ass war against the British to prevent this kind of thing

United States Disappeared Tracker: 1214 and growing. public.tableau.com/app/profile/...

Meet the ʻIʻiwi, pronounced "ee-EE-vee". Scientific name is 'Drepanis coccinea,' also called the scarlet honeycreeper. They're native to Hawaii, where their plumage has traditionally been used in decorating cloaks & helmets. (📷: Loren Cassin Sackett, @cassinsackett.bsky.social)

NYT: "As the Trump administration pulls government websites and data offline, it is selectively stripping away the public record, letting the president declare his own version of history, archivists and historians said." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/t...

NIH has rescinded its scientific integrity policy. Hard to see this as anything other than clearing the way for shoddy research on things like vaccines. Regardless of the rationale, it's bad news for public health. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Staffers at 18 rape crisis centers told ProPublica that payments were delayed for months after North Carolina’s state Legislature directed $15 million for sexual assault survivors away from Democratic-led agencies that had long overseen such money. By @dougbockclark.bsky.social

School Bully Shocks Nerds With Further Lunch-Money Demands

Pay attention to this: Musk is trying to make our air traffic control system "dependent” on him by integrating his equipment, which has not gone through security and risk-management review. It's corruption. And it's dangerous. Fire Elon Musk. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

The economic strategy is consistent with large corporate legal strategy. If you have so much money that you can absorb the costs, you'll do so. Your opponent (yes, regular American's are the administration's opponents here) will have to concede because they can't afford to fight very long.

Oh neat, March 28 is national "Smash Your Amazon Echo Devices With A Hammer" day.