"I don't need another productivity app"

This is excellent. We just need another 50 or 100 similarly minded billionaires. Though taxes are more accountable and probably yield less idiosyncratic outcomes

Happy Rosh Hashanah y'all.

On the money as usual. It is actually bad

Has anyone written an R package or script with plottable data for all the Milankovitch curves? Wouldn't that be so convenient ⚒️🧪

Follow me into #PALARQUE ’s coring campaign in the Cape Region I'll be posting here this week! Co-led by my friends & almighty palynologists Saúl Manzano & Lynne Quick, the project explores fynbos Holocene & Anthropocene dynamics in the #Cederberg mntns., N Cape Region. Part of my 💜 belongs here! 1/

Which are more painful, desk rejections or rejections following peer review?

Die back and apparent recent mortality of Eucalyptus macrorhyncha (red stringybark) in the Mullum Mullum valley, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 🧪🌿.

Angiosperms "kindly" facilitated change-management workshops for sullen Gnetaleans and Cheirolepids 🧪🌾

I remember my dad jumping with joy as he brought in the morning newspaper with the all-caps headline, "NIXON RESIGNS". I miss him terribly but he'd be rolling and rolling in his grave now

One of the truly compelling features of using an LLM as a coding tutor, rather than, say, asking human coders for advice at Stack Overflow, is that the LLM is polite, never complains about your failure to provide a reproducible example, and is uninterested in being an arsehole.

by contrast, Decalobanthus peltatus (Convolvulaceae) belongs to a small (~20 spp) and recent Malesian/inner Pacific radiation of fast-growing vines. It probably arrived in Australia within the past million years or so

the cycad Bowenia spectabilis (Zamiaceae), Daintree rainforest, Queensland Wet Tropics. Bowenia has been kicking around Australia since at least the late Cretaceous 🧪🌿

Crab-like creatures are famed for having evolved five times in evolutionary history. But anteaters have evolved at least 12 times--in half the evolutionary span. Cool story by @jakebuehler.bsky.social for @science.org

Decalobanthus peltatus (previously within polyphyletic Merremia) is a megatherm Convolvulaceae vine colonising cyclone-damaged Daintree rainforest (NE Queensland). Totally feral on Pacific Islands, esp where not native (no surprise). See George Staples' superb revision tinyurl.com/42dk4pe2 🌿🧪

If you haven’t read THE NATION OF PLANTS, a short book by Stefano Mancuso (2019)… you should!

This is a lovely article. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

How good is this

Preparing to give a popular talk

Not a hint of exaggeration

Some of my best work

New Article: "Leaf venation network evolution across clades and scales" rdcu.be/epLNP Evolution of leaf venation networks, from fewer, corrugated veins to high vein density and smoother loops. Herbivory as a potential driver of venation architectural changes.

New work on speleothem growth demonstrating lack-of-glacial aridity in southern subtropical latitudes. Led by PhD student Calla Gould-Whaley 🧪 cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

For the last 3 yrs, I was the director for the Science of Science program at the NSF. We funded projects on science communication - science communication to the public, communication of public priorities to scientists, citizens engagement & participation in science. 🧵

unfollowing everyone on linkedin except this guy

drought is woke now

Jfc

I took this photo less than 10 years after the deer fence behind was erected. Before it went up, the land behind was just grass, exactly like the foreground where he sheep are. *Nothing* was planted here. "It's not rocket science" is an understatement. 🌍

If this happened to an American student who wrote an op-ed while on Fulbright in Turkey, it would be an international incident. Congresspeople would demand the student be returned w/in the hour. Their intellectual, professional, political, & personal integrity would be defended

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For those, like me, sad to be missing the international #karst conference, #KR10 is your hashtag friend 🧪

Another resignation. 'I will be resigning my position as associate editor at the Royal Society’s journal Open Science with immediate effect. I will no longer submit my research to Royal Society journals or act as a peer reviewer for them. I would urge my colleagues to do the same.' 2/2

Brings a tear to my eye. The people are on top of their game

Another outcome of proposed ARC changes: currently some Unis promise an ongoing job to an incoming FF, but with 2x more f'ships paid for 2yrs, a f'ship might be easier to get, but may be viewed as less 'prestigious', so Unis, with less $ incentive, won't offer ongoing jobs @arc-tracker.bsky.social

Oh, ok, to be fair, I've realised that this is an apples vs oranges comparison. The *sensible* answers come from ChatGPT4.5, but if you then ask it to generate an image to accompany its own scientific content, it passes the ball to DALL-E, who is just an idiot in the corner who does finger-painting

Is 'real' AGI about to take over the world? I asked #ChatGPT4.5 if it could generate an undergraduate lecture on #AMOC. No problem. Pretty credible outlines of content & detailed description of slides, all pretty accurate. But can you also *generate* the slides? What's not to love about the result

My Obituary of Elisabeth Vrba—out today in Nature in read-only format: rdcu.be/ediyO

Mesozoic tyranny of dinosaurs is reflected in ancient mammal pelt colors: "...hairs in six mammaliaforms of different lineages and diverse ecomorphotypes showed ...dark-brown coloration consistent with crypsis and nocturnality." 🧪 #Paleobio ⚒️ #Geology www.science.org/doi/reader/1...

Excited to see this out!! In this thought-provoking review led by @davidperis.bsky.social and Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente we further demonstrate that insect #pollination was once widespread among #gymnosperms and existed long before the origin of #angiosperms onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Can anyone think of another scientific term, in any discipline, that is derived from #Yiddish? 🧪

Paleogene Bagelopollis verrucatus (Carroll 1999, Palynology 23:55), a fossil pollen type named for the resemblance of its pores' pseudo-annuli to a BAGEL. Nice example of disregarding Greek/Latin bound morphemes in forming scientific terms. Probably the only #Yiddish-derived palynological term! 🧪

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If instead of video we ask only for images, we could use #OpenAI's #Dall-e3. For the prompt "several tricolporate pollen grains from different families, shown in polar and equatorial views", we get this wonderful display of pasta or colonial wasp nests. #palynology 🌿🧪

#Sora is deeply confused about many aspects of reality ("optical microscopy image of an Asteraceae pollen grain")🌿🧪

Finally, if we ask #OpenAI's #Sora for "tricolpate pollen grains in several plant families, as seen down a light microscope", we get...what, a pile of rugulate walnuts, or #Elaeocarpus seeds?🧪🌿

Maybe #Sora is meant to just produce fun videos for kids? This junk, in response to "tricolpate pollen grains viewed under light microscopy, in several plant families". These remind me of extinct Cretaceous Wodehousia pollen, (probably an extinct angiosperm lineage), but c'mon. #palynology 🌿🧪 1/2