RESEARCH: Social associations and habitat selection delineate two subpopulations of west coast transient killer whales (Orcinus orca rectipinnus) in the California Current System. Authors: Josh McInnes & Dr. Andrew Trites (@ubcmarinemammal). journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... via @plosone.org

I'm worried about both equally TBH: Facebook is radicalising older, normal people en masse. Twitter radicalising elites who are hyper engaged. Both feeding each other in poisioning the discourse and media ecosystem. It's brutal and a pretty nasty feedback loop. Algorithm social media is a curse

A single shared source of truth is essential for a functioning democracy. Without it you’re left with fragmentation, polarisation and a perpetual culture war where the discourse focuses on what divides us rather than what we have in common. My column from last week: www.ft.com/content/5060...

I don't think this is hyperbole btw. Things are spinning out pretty badly across multiple nations, obviously including the US, at a time when the stakes have never been higher. Twitter and elite whatsapps clearly key drivers.

Be clear, the American far right are coming for British democracy.

The degree to which every single major journalist seems to just hate math is palpable in almost everything

oh my god yes. you only have to look at how often people complain about not being taught something in school that they absolutely were taught in school. education isn't a magic bullet!

I think this also applies to higher ed — much as I think we can do a lot of good in academia, fundamentally, we are not where the major issues of society are litigated in a practical sense. If you want to see the world change due to your ideas, there’s a name for that profession — politics

Think there's something particularly dispiriting about the Greek governments various moves against climate change initiatives because if your country routinely bursting into flames each summer doesn't drive it home, what will?

I find it really interesting how the case do to paying legislators high salaries is left coded in the USA and right coded in the U.K.

Granger et al. Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #ornithology #seabirds

In some professional news, I will be taking over as Book Reviews Editor at Ibis, the official journal of @bou.org.uk If you are interested in reviewing, please do not hesitate to reach out. I will be advertising books received in need of a reviewer here: www.danielantoniovillar.com/books-to-rev...

Gestation length both shapes and is shaped by other life history traits in terrestrial eutherian mammals doi.org/10.1093/evle... Now in @evolletters.bsky.social by Thodoris Danis et al.

I think most normal people would agree it's sadistic for armed men to barge into a daycare and arrest a teacher. Even if she is an illegal immigrant (which she's not). The children are so traumatized that the daycare is closed for the week. www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Centre-left politicians worried about anti-car policies polling badly in the short term need to remember: every measure that pushes people to cycle or use public transport ultimately creates more centre-left voters; every measure that leads to more people driving creates more right-wing voters

must-read analysis of how Musk's twitter is drenching new users with right-wing propaganda news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

This probably applies even more so in the UK, where the commentariat is even more concentrated than in the USA. The dysfunction of a Reform government, as seen in Durham, is of lesser concern than being irritated by someone a bit too woke at a dinner party in SW1 to the Torygraph columnist

Absolutely agree, and this is tangential, but I do wonder why in the social sciences there has been a trend towards making some BAs more specialised (eg Africana Studies), when the same trend hasn’t occurred in the natural sciences — and indeed the trend has gone in the opposite direction in biology

God I wish we had instant runoff voting. Obviously not every Green/LibDem vote would flow to Labour or Tory vote to Reform, but I reckon we’d be looking at a 55-45 TPP in the left bloc’s favour, which is far better than where we are now

This is probably one of the most pessimistic aspects of this moment; the idea of “progress occurring one funeral at a time” seems less tenable when the reactionaries of today came of age after the Race Relations Act

2025. Native megafauna (Bison bison) act as a surprising inhibitor of cedar tree expansion in a Great Plains grassland. - Ecological Applications esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

My autumnal wardrobe is bright cords, breeks, tweed jackets/Norfolks, tweed flat caps and deerstalkers, checkered/coloured waistcoats/woollen jumpers, and brogues/wellies depending if I’m going to the countryside or city. Combine that with a long beard and hair, and I think the battle is lost

🌿 New paper! Using rare #mosses to resolve barriers in the use of species distribution #models for #climatechange vulnerability assessments. 🌦️ #Microclimate data improved predictions of vulnerability 🧭 We present a framework to connect modeling with #conservation practice 👉 doi.org/10.1111/csp2...

The trouble is, and as anyone who has been canvassing can tell you, this fear from MPs isn’t born of SW1 brain worms, but popular perceptions of who has multiple families. We should scrap the two child cap because it’s the right thing to do, but be under no illusions that’ll be popular

This is for those that believe in evolution. 😉 While hosts have evolved to recognize parasitic breeder eggs, like those from the cuckoo, and remove them from the nest, the cuckoo’s have co-evolved to lay eggs that mimic that of the host. But how have they accomplished this with so many hosts? 👇

The university is not a skills machine and neither should politicians think of themselves of oiling the gears of economic performance. Politics is not just about adapting populations to fit labour market demands.

Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs. Would be interesting to do a double blind experiment with humans.

Biodiversity loss and wildlife declines can seem abstract and difficult to contextualise for general audiences. Studies like this can help bring a more relatable perspective to such issues. 🧪🌍 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

'When the White Paper suggests that the government can “incentivise specialisation and collaboration through research funding reform”, it is worth asking what – if any – links there currently are between research funding and teaching provision.' Well worth a read.

Assessing the impact of character evolution models on phylogenetic and macroevolutionary inferences from fossil data onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @daveyfwright.bsky.social @datadryad.bsky.social

Rate hikes did nothing to stem the 2022 inflation the IMF finds. But they did wreck green transition momentum, and fed back into the pre-pandemic status quo of deregulation, debt-obsession, social cuts and corporate largesse I caught flak for using the word ‘sabotage’ at the time, but I stand by it

Move universities to the jurisdiction of DSIT and acknowledge them as what they are — a major sector primarily engaged in research, with teaching higher skills within that remit

This is but one example of a phenomenon occurring globally, of the right radicalising itself online into places many themselves would’ve considered abhorrent a decade ago. Humans are social animals, and if the social interactions you have look approvingly at racism, you’ll become more racist

New in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com: our review of the influence of #seabirds, via their nutrient transfer, on islands & adjacent marine ecosystems 🐦🏝️🪸 We highlight knowledge gaps & future directions ✨ "The circular seabird economy is critical for oceans, islands and people": doi.org/10.1038/s443...

"Promises were made, and lives and families built upon them. How have we reached a place where wrecking those lives is even up for discussion?" On Powell, Heath, Lam and the descent of the British right.

This was an excellent read, and this bit stands out as what's made me most worried over the last few years. The whole information environment is geared to making people angry, afraid or depressed, and before we get to anything as advanced as politics, that's terrible for our brains.

When science sounds uncertain, charlatans sell certainty. Paul Fielder isn’t unique — he’s the business model. Politics disguised as biology. Certainty disguised as science.🧵 yellowstonian.org/who-knows-mo...

Rudolf Meier paraphrases a post from @rdmpage.bsky.social : as ~ 2/3 of the records in GBIF are birds, @gbif.org is primarily a Global Bird Information Facility. To correct this bias, we need to focus on the “ugly” biodiversity. 🪰 🪱 🪳 🦟 @mfnberlin.bsky.social #LivingData2025 x.com/rdmpage/stat...

🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵

Welcome to the world Aevipertidus gracilis - the gracile one from a lost age. 14-19 Mya ancient #NewZealand appears to have had a bowerbird. Check out this amazing research mahi led by Elizabeth Steell (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....). Artwork by Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa CC-BY-SA. 1/9 🧵

Why are some species smaller than a paperclip while others grow longer than a school bus? How is body size evolution governed in animals? Out now in @pnas.org we tackle these longstanding questions through a genetic lens using my favorite group of fishes as our model!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Darwin's geological training shaped his scientific identity. He took classes from professors on opposite sides of a major geological debate. One was dull, the other exciting-but he learned a lot from both, and from field excursions in Wales. #Histsci 🗃️ #geology daily.jstor.org/mad-about-ge...

NEW: Labour condemn Tory plan to strip people of indefinite leave to remain: “It’s utterly grotesque that Tories want to deport people with the lawful right to be here to achieve ‘cultural coherence’. “This policy would mean tearing families apart and ripping out our neighbours from communities."

"The idea of deporting people with settled status is disgusting, and anyone proposing it should be immediately drummed out of polite society. Breaking promises made in good faith to our friends and neighbours is racist, extremist and immoral." I'm basically shouting at the sky here, but still.

I would happily join any such group - if you would too then get in touch with Marie. The madness being proposed by Tories and Reform needs to be opposed, and migrants' rights need to be protected.

Katie Lam’s comments stink of desperation. This crass racism used to mean she’d be kicked out of the Tories but not now. The Conservative Party seem to be falling all over themselves to chase the tail of Tommy - two names - Robinson. It’s becoming like the BNP in a twin set & pearls.

I remain a socialist, but at this point I’d consider it a victory if liberal democracy and the rights of man survive to my dotage. I want a better world, but for now I’d settle for averting the current trajectory to a far worse one

I think we can now dispense with those saying “Labour shouldn’t need to respond to every mad rant from a Tory backbencher”, since Lam is not a backbencher and her proposal has been backed by her party.

Important read from @reporterrwright.ft.com on why changing the immigration rules — the terms of an informal contract, really — after someone arrives is unfair. on.ft.com/47fYDVt

I really think people are underestimating the degree to which 21st century politics are going to be apocalyptically bad; we are collectively sliding towards mass ethnic cleansing being the norm in the Western World, out of no reason but pure fucking spite and empty nostalgia.