I know it’s exhausting. I know you’re sick to death of Trump. I am, too. But as he revealed yesterday, there is no limit to what Trump will do to assert his power. Your activism, courage, and attention are needed now more than ever. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-the-looting

I had to share these just because they are so cool-looking. #liverworts

Seems like it's worth posting this one again.

This is also so true for #biodiversity natural history collections. We are digitizing but there are so much left to do! 23 million invertebrate specimens at #AMNH in NYC, for example. And the paper archives, old taxonomic work, indexing to it all. Maps, drawings. Treasure troves not online.

Solstice on Sweden’s West Coast today, finally the light is turning. A calm Atlantic sea, water mirroring clouds and light in Skärhamn in Bohuslän, Sweden. Own photo.

Frasera is a genus of 15 spp in N. America. In 2024, a 19-year-old plant of F. caroliniensis growing in the NC Bot. Garden bloomed for the first & last time. This species is monocarpic (it flowers & dies). The peculiar greenish flowers have nectaries on the petals. #Gentianaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

The species of Sabatia (21 spp; 📷: S. angularis) are some of the prettiest wildflowers in the eastern US, Mexico & the Antilles. The similar-looking Zeltnera (27 spp; 📷: Z. venusta) occurs in western N. America but has a much wider distribution (to S. Amer.) #Gentianaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

A reminder that breakfast can be good and beautiful and fun. :) Philadelphia, years ago, a table from above. #diner #food #photography #orange

This photo is over 20 years old, but I think this street in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, might still look nearly the same. Timeless. That particular color of turquoise makes me so happy. I think the trees are tamarisk (Tamarix sp.), feel free to correct me :) #blue #color #NM #streetview #tree

Good thread about scientific illustrations, and the current oversimplification in images. When you look in the microscope, the reality you see rarely matches the drawn textbook images.

Show your science pride this season with our newly released phylogenetic holiday cards! These 5x7 cards can be purchased individually or in sets of 5. 🧬 🎄 🧬 #phylogenetics #science #evolution #biology #biologist

This is a great poem - if you can, I suggest you take a moment to read this article and poem. #Thanksgiving #NativeAmerican #poetry

Fascinating #medieval paintings in the well-preserved Härkeberga Church in Uppland, #Sweden, attributed to Albertus Pictor (1400s). Images from events in the bible are interspersed with stylistic flowers and garlands and patterns. Looking up at these is like time travel. #arthistory #history

Embarrassing choice of cover, AI-based and scientifically so wrong.

I cancelled my NYTimes subscription today, this is the last drop in the bucket. Seriously, whose bad decision was it to publish this anti-woman, anti-justice, and anti-equality piece? Feminism means equal rights and respect for all. "Conservative feminism" is fake, doesn't exist. Disrespectful, NYT!

Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. —Harry Truman, 1952

The 5th of 6 faculty positions in UNC Biology is posted. We're working with the @ncbg.bsky.social to fill a joint position as Director of the UNC Herbarium at @ncbg.bsky.social and as Associate Professor within the Department of Biology (BIOL). Please share 1/n unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/308...

Today in #PlantDiversityEvolution class my students built models of hypothetical fruits for novel dispersal adaptations: snowplows, squirrels, mice in tunnels, sharks, migratory birds, wind turbines etc. Fascinating creativity! The blood-imitating pheromone-soaked fish-mimicry fruit = sharks.

You have until Sunday SUNDAY Sunday to order a Biology is Bigger than Binaries shirt. I don't have room in my house for piles of shirts so our shirts are always time-limited. Designed by @franzanth.bsky.social, supports @skypeascientist.bsky.social, looks cool as hell. Get one: SquidFacts.net

'Within 28 days it found an increase in cells in the blood – called T regulatory cells – that protect the body from autoimmune diseases. Other research showed that in just two weeks children’s immune system regulation could be improved by playing in a sandpit enriched with garden soil.'

That feeling after you have read a truly uniquely wonderful book and you do not want to start another book because you know you will get disappointed when you compare, and you also know that the only way is down from a high point, to be able to find other high points in the reading landscape. #books

It’s a very exciting day at Rutgers today! The 100th anniversary of the Chrysler Herbarium! Thanks to @drgentian.bsky.social and Megan King for organizing, training so many students/botanists, and taking such good care of the collections! It’s been really fun to learn from you over the years!

So pleased to help celebrate 100 years of the Chrysler #Herbarium at Rutgers. Major kudos to @drgentian.bsky.social + Megan King for putting together such a fun symposium. #iamabotanist #plantpeopleFTW

So much agree with this. It makes life more varied and interesting too. And you can trade tasks, and work together and learn from each other. Make your life and skills stretch from the plants in the dirt to the words on the page, from the pain brush to the kitchen. There is comfort in competence

@andrewlhipp.bsky.social gave a stirring talk promoting #NaturalHistory at the #Botany2025 @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social lecture. He has preprinted an essay based on this lecture which is worth a read if you need some hope in ecology. doi.org/10.32942/X2MS85

@couchmicroscopy.bsky.social Like we discussed… and where are the protists?!

The talons of the red-tailed hawk are something truly impressive! We visited the Zoological Collection at #Rutgers University today with our students to investigate bones, skins, pickled, and taxidermied animal #biodiversity. #HiddenTreasures #SpecimenStories #museum #raptor #birds

It blows my mind that red-&-black fruits and seeds are attractive, but red-&-black insects are repellent (aposematic). In dispersal, as in life, context is everything! 📷1: Ripe fruits of Pinanga malaiana (#Arecaceae). 📷2: red-spotted stink bug, Jose Amorin CCBYNCSA2. #dispersal #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

BHL has retrospectively assigned DOIs to 50,000+ historic journal articles These articles, which include the first scientific description of the Platypus (1799), are now part of the great linked network of scholarly research: doi.org/10.5962/p.30... #ILoveBHL #RetroPIDs 🧪 @crossref.bsky.social

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

IMO paying close attention to species and simply describing what they do is a worthwhile endeavor unto itself. Guessing I am not alone. #iamabotanist #iamanaturalist #PUI #biodiversity onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Fascinating study! But that image below is not a fall webworm (an insect larvae), is it a spider? Crab? Still, maybe we are all evolutionary specialists when it comes to food, and other things :) #entomology #evolution #ecology #competition #nature

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

I do a comic about ornithological vocabulary for every issue of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's wonderful Living Bird magazine. Here's the latest one, featuring the American Bittern.

The ivy-leaved morning glory has fruits that look like something out of… the seashore, medieval fashion fur hats, or rose buds… Right? Seen in New Jersey, USA.

New paper by @drgentian.bsky.social in @newphyt.bsky.social using @gbif.org mediated data: The collector practices that shape spatial, temporal, and taxonomic bias in herbaria 🇺🇸 #CiteTheDOI: ✅ https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70297

ALRIGHT! Version 1 of the fall zine is ready for ya. For your reading enjoyment, Everything Sucks! Full Zine (for digital reading) here: drive.google.com/file/d/1cYXF... Print-and-fold version coming soon, I need to test print it first and can't do that right now lol

The Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University is Hiring! We are searching for a Director of the Oregon State University Herbarium and applications are welcomed at the ranks of assistant, associate, or full professor.

Looks like this was filmed at #Gotland in the Baltic Sea, Sweden. Not sure what seaweed that they harvest there though, Ulva intestinalis? A green #algae?

One hundred years ago, the small town of Dayton, Tenn., became the unlikely stage for one of the most sensational trials in American history, over the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution.

America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished. I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better, to protect and deepen our democracy, to fulfill its promise for each and every person who calls it home. Happy Independence Day. No Kings in America.

A corrupt system is when you need 60 Senate votes to protect voting rights, universal healthcare, reproductive rights, climate justice, lgbtq rights, immigration justice, and a living wage—but only 51 votes to strip them all away. #BigScamBill 1/3

Iconic anti-war poster, originally by US printmaker Lorraine Schneider, 1966 #ReframingWomenPrintmakers

So true!

Yes, same happened for me. Hallucinated papers by me and collaborators, looking very real but non-existing. Advisors, you will have to check the titles of all citations. I am consider requiring screenshots of first page (=not book cover, actual title page) of all cited works soon.

Tip for PhD applicants reaching out to prospective advisors: Don’t use an LLM to write these emails. It’s not a great first impression to express your admiration for a recent paper the faculty member published if that paper does not exist.

International Nature Journal Week starts today - join in, it is open to all around the world. #naturejournal #art #nature

There are posters too! If you are not into T-shirts...

There is no "science-wide replication crisis" because every word in that phrase carries unfounded assumptions. 🧵 1. There is no evidence that progress has generally stalled in the sciences. Also, no one has actually tried to estimate replicability across fields.