Come to do a PhD with me, @bfraser.bsky.social and @batconservation.bsky.social at the University of Exeter on using genomics to understand bat population declines under global environmental change 🦇🧬🌍🌐🧪 Application deadline 8 January 2026 ⚠️⚠️⚠️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

I made 2 pairs of socks with leftover bits of sock yarn over the last few weeks. Comfy and easy! #KnitSky

Wrapping up 2025 with a new publication: Molecular versus microscopic analyses tell different stories of little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) diet in Alaska. Out in Acta Chiropterologica, with coauthors Veronica Brown, Esmarie Boyles, Gary McCracken, and Justin Boyles

Happy Boxing Day

🦇Interested in a bat-related PhD? 👇 Using genomics to understand bat population declines under global environmental change with @orlyrazgour.bsky.social , @bfraser.bsky.social and BCT, based at the University of Exeter. Application deadline 8 January 2026: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🚨 2 PhD opportunities under Wessex One Health to join my group & work on: 1. Integrating bat and fungal pathogen ecology to understand epidemiology 2. AI-augmented metagenomics to map British bat virome and assess zoonotic potential Deadline 26 January 2026 🦇🧪🦠🌍🌐 www.surrey.ac.uk/wessex-one-h...

Just discovered #TautonymTuesday and thought it would be remiss to not mention this cutie, Mops mops, the Malayan free-tailed bat. #MolossidsRule #FreeTails #WrinklyLips

🧪New #OA paper! Shrews are weird. They evolved a whole new immune organ the size of a kidney 🫘🤯! Led by Bill Thomas (who's on thee job market!), pancreas of Aselli was known to be packed with plasma cells at different stages @bmc.springernature.com 👉🏽 bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... 1/3

🚨🦇New paper alert! We integrate information across fields to highlight key traits associated with the diversification of #bats, their roles as evolutionary drivers, and their importance to global ecosystems: An Integrative Perspective on Bat Evolution www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

I really miss when my job was just doing science. I went to a really interesting seminar today and successfully troubleshot an analysis and it was so nice to not be running off to multiple dumb meetings all day!

Huzzah! My paper is accepted!

Earlybird registrations for IBRC 2025 are now open until 8 June 2025 (11.59pm AEST; 9.59am EDT) Register here: whova.com/portal/regis... #ibrc2025 #bats

🦇 www.batcon.org/press/rare-l...

Good luck today, Canada 🇨🇦 elbows up!

These two biologists found purpose—and love—trying to save Nigeria's bats | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

here’s a curse word free version of “look it up” as requested by countless teachers and librarians 🥰😘

There’s this deeply-held belief that public virtue is so self-evidently the natural state of things, that once the fog dissipates, wayward people will organically return to communitarianism like water seeking its own level. Which, if you’ve been around people, is just a bonkers thing to believe.

chef’s kiss

Why does every administrative office at my university feel the need to send out regular campus-wide emails about what they’re up to? When did this become a thing?

Blocking Jady’s new sweater, with help from Marcy. Very proud of those sleeves!

New pots available now! www.roseschmits.com Tentacle pots and a bunch of tentacle cups!

Tank Girl for the New Year. We can be magnificent: we can turn this shit around. Brett Parson artist, and Alan Martin, writer, 2016.

"If a woman doesn't look woman enough to a Republican, they want to be able to inspect your genitals to use a bathroom? It's disgusting. Everyone should reject it completely... they're endangering women, they're endangering girls of all kind, and everyone should reject it. It's gross." - AOC

AOC comes out swinging against a Nancy Mace for targeting Sarah McBride. "They're doing this so that Nancy Mace can ... fundraise off an email. They're not doing this to protect people. They're endangering women, they're endangering girls of all kinds. And everybody should reject it. It's gross."

🚨 Out today in eLife! 🚨 @HFSP-funded postdoc Bill Thomas & #shrewcrew reveal how common shrews shrink their brains in winter! 🧠 Seasonal RNA changes in the hypothalamus hint at parallels in mammalian aging. 📖 doi.org/10.7554/eLif... @DinaDechmann @dechmannlab @aspcorthals @RichardGHunter1

They are counting on you to feel helpless, exhausted, scared, alone, too old or young. We have people worldwide who even at 90 years old went out and resisted. In Ukraine the grandmothers grabbed rifles, the children flew drones. You can hold a sign, organize, we know it’s scary but don’t give up.

Trans rights are human rights

New paper with @gerrycarter.bsky.social just in time for Halloween! Vampire bats' first impressions of each other don't predict the formation of long-term relationships doi.org/10.1111/nyas...

1/ CW Holocaust I've said this repeatedly & will KEEP saying it: If I catch you on my timeline whining that you won't vote for Harris for whatever reason, I'm done with you. If I am following you, I will unfollow then block. You're getting blocked no matter what. I will tell you why.

Love it if you could repost this! Maybe we can change some minds about perceptions people have of bats? Let's try! 🦇

Last night, the Ottawa Impact MAGA weirdos lost all but three of their seats (and two of those were uncontested). Ottawa is extremely red, with zero chance of Democrats winning a majority of races, but seeing these folks lose to conventional Republicans is heartening.