Hey bsky! I’d like to share some cool work I recently coauthored that integrates entomology, paleontology, and German cultural history. 🔶🐜⚡️ We discovered a fossil ant in the amber collection of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe! Read on for a delightful story of #museomics and #collectomics. >> 1/

When you build an unprecedented amount of renewable energy but it gets used to meet new data centre demand instead of replacing fossil fuels

Can plant pathogens boost vector fitness? Together with @hassansalem.bsky.social, we review how phytopathogens can spread further by moonlighting as insect symbionts 🪲 More on this nifty lifestyle in @annualreviews.bsky.social! www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

One of the great British tragedies of recent decades is the collapse of its university system. Wrecked by disastrous Govt policy experimentation followed by neglect, and a totally incompetent, vindictive executive class. Utterly fucked now. Well done pricks.

You can test new tech ideas using the Seinfeld Test Would the product eliminate the plot of an episode? (Google maps, cell phones, paypal, battery packs) Good tech. Would the product inspire new Seinfeld plots? (NFTs, AI chatbots, crypto currency, blindboxes, metaverse land sales) Bad tech.

Blue Shieldbug, Zicrona caerulea. #Bugs #Hemiptera #VC55 #macrophotography #macro #OMSystem

WHAT DID JACK DO TO WALDORF?!

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

21 / 23 This means that the first giant organisms on the Earth’s surface were not closely related to anything alive today. But despite its strangeness, in its time Prototaxites would have had an important role, being eaten by arthropods and having impacts on the ecosystem that we don’t yet know.

That is an AMAZING ad. Standing ovation.

This is the fucking limit. I had no idea that Amazon drivers AREN'T ALLOWED TO SING wat CRUSH this monopoly wtf my levels were already redlining www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

THEY'RE CALLED ICE COOP. BUNCH OF COCKAMAMIE BOOTLICKERS WHO THINK THEY SAVE THE REPUBLIC BY TERRORISING PEOPLE, INSTEAD OF BY SHOWING LOVE AND RESPECT TO THEIR FELLOW HUMANS. TO MY MIND THEY'RE NOTHING LESS THAN THE REINCARNATION OF A-DOLF HITLERS BROWN SHIRTS AND AS WELCOME AS DOG DIRT ON MY BOOT.

0/10 🥳 our #exocyst paper out in @cp-cell.bsky.social, led by Marta, Sebas & @sasmeek.bsky.social in collab with @jonasries.bsky.social, @cmanzo.bsky.social & Castaño-Díez labs #Quantitative_Cell_Biology Continuum architecture dynamics of vesicle tethering in exocytosis www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

ECRs in plant–microbe interactions: Join us in Norwich for an intensive, interactive 1.5-week Summer Conference at TSL (20–31 July). Lots of opportunities for networking and deep discussions. (We also plan to offer hands-on practical sessions using our technologies 🔬🧬)

[sombrely, with tears in eyes] "truly the people of Iran embody the great spirit of Flumpo The Fart Wizard" - author of Flumpo The Fart Wizard

With the new year, is my time to say bye to @gmivienna.bsky.social as I move to @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social in Tuebingen. I will start my solo Group Leader career as a Emmy Norther fellow. Thanks to everyone that helped on the way. I will be advertising PhD and Postdoc positions soon, stay tuned!

"Conflates answers [or outcomes] with learning" - this a is perfect distillation of the shift in how higher ed's value is perceived, and something we need to keep fighting against, particularly in the age of AI.

This is my favourite shot of a starling #photobombus

A THREAD, which I am calling 'Some Of The Many Reasons Lichen And Moss Are Fucking Brilliant'. 1. They make public seating super comfy. bsky.app/profile/dj-a...

If something is legally required, like car insurance, then the industry should be nationalised. Why should the law force me to make profit for their shareholders rather than taxpayers?

I, for one, am not feeling any cringe as the Make-a-Wish President pathetically tries to recreate the "Obama watching the Bin Laden raid" photo in his pillow fort full of spraypainted chairs with cartoons on the TV.

reading a lot of history really hammers home the point that there very rarely is a plan but this is ✨fancy✨ levels of "no plan"

The Slopsand Effect

I often wish people had even half the amount of passion, energy and interest for issues such as politics, climate change & biodiversity loss that they do for football. I’ve seen grown men cry over a game but not the destruction of our natural environment or the bleak future for their own children.

one month ago 🥶

the only thing more frustrating than realizing all the 90s linux guys were right is the knowledge that they realize it too.

Beef will disappear

Relentless "improvement" of the countryside leaves no space for nature. But ever more people are now helping the wild return, through *rewilding*. No matter who you are or where you live, you too have a part to play in the fight. There is no better New Year's resolution.

Ok: 1 like = 1 demographic fact* * may include estimates, generalizations, dataviz, or unsubstantiated claims

In our #VirtualIssue on #Herbivore-derived elicitors of plant responses we bring together New Phytologist articles that highlight recent developments in the study of how plants respond to herbivores 👇 📚 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1... #PlantScience

Dear registrant: We regret to inform you that our planned AAS 247 session "Learning To Say 'No'" is canceled, on account of us being unable to secure the commitment of any qualified speakers…

This is a metaphor for the tech industry overall circa 2025

When you're grumpy because three annoying ghosts kept you up all night.

suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research: they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.

I had multiple papers from my classes with hallucinated citations this semester. Reviewers and journal QC protocols need to be absolutely vigilant about this. This issue is ruining the literature even more than we realize, per this 🧵:

I’m not the biggest fan of boxing as a concept, but I do think we’re at the point where the only thing that’s going to prove to some people that they aren’t the main character with pro level skills at anything they want is to be punched in the face repeatedly.

Jo Cox was murdered before the vote by a far-right terrorist & this is the language this complete disgrace chooses to use

ICYMI: The government has released a progress report on its work on AI and copyright, as required by the Data Act, as well as a summary of responses to the consultation on the new Bill 👇

this is a good reminder of how things that are shitty but have been accepted as normal and inevitable can actually turn out to be abnormal and evitable with some science, time, education and political will

New paper in PSPB on the benefits of giving positive feedback to students, especially from underrepresented groups. Although not the norm in STEM, giving positive feedback boosts self-efficacy and belonging, which increases STEM performance, attitudes, interest journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

New preprint on pop #genomics of #spittlebug—the main insect vector of Xylella, the bacterium that has ravaged olive groves in southern Italy 🇮🇹 🫒 Take-home: problematic insect vector may be less widespread than initially thought—important implications for disease control 💥 👇

We have a new preprint! In this study, we use #genomic data to uncover population structure and adaptive potential in the meadow #spittlebug, the main European #vector of #Xylella fastidiosa.

When you drift through some unheralded point in your 40s, you start accumulating actuarial risks. The odds of illness, heart attack, or the chances losing of a parent go up. But there is another risk- particularly acute for men. There is a risk you will lose your capacity for joy.

Learned today that “Galápagos” comes from a Spanish word for tortoise, meaning that “Galápagos Tortoise” is, in fact, a tortology

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

So happy to see Mark recognised for his incredible work. Over a ~40 year career he and his group discovered ECF sigma factors, characterised many key developmental regulators of the Streptomyces lifecycle, and identified new mechanisms of bacterial gene regulation, antibiotic action and resistance.

I’ve posted this before but the light was perfect today- a little Victorian cat paw in a brick at the front of the old Norfolk & Norwich Hospital. As this is on the front-facing corner of the main gates, the bricklayer quite clearly put it there on purpose, at a height where children would spot it.