The Great Lakes in Winter are one of the great neglected natural wonders of the world.

New neighbors have moved in and are already doing a tear down

Discerning a sense of size from macro photographs is hard. Camponotus intrepidus, for example, is one of Australia’s largest sugar ants at slightly under an inch long. But did you see the little Pheidole ant at her heels?

Very much looking forward to this exciting new contribution to migration history in the US!

We're hiring! Senior position in the learning sciences. "We seek a scholar whose research has focused on the development & application of learning technologies to achieve just & equitable educational learning opportunities, teaching practices, policies, & systems." careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

This is a great summary, and I hope that everyone will read the whole speech.

Why are minerals so central to geopolitics? How green are electric cars? Why is anti-mining protest increasing? Can the inequalities of the global economy be transformed? I tackle these topics in my book EXTRACTION: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism 👀 September 2025 @wwnorton.bsky.social

Moonset over some of my slightly above average ice cover 🌊🌊

Please join us at the Washtenaw Bird and Nature Alliance's 1/21 @aadl.org program. The Seeds to Community project aims to help everyone gain the skills required to grow native plants and get hands-on with the rhythms of the natural world. What a great goal! stewardshipnetwork.org/projects/see...

Sydney Smith lived from 1771–1845 yet somehow knew all my New Year's resolutions

Mary Sheffield was sworn in as Detroit’s 76th mayor, becoming the first woman to hold the office in the city's 324-year history

Nice morning for a first of the year birdwalk hosted by the Washtenaw Bird and Nature Alliance at Gallup Park. Only about 15 degrees, but more than 40 community members turned out, the sun joined us for a while, and there were Trumpeter and Tundra swans on the Huron.

Spent some time writing in my office today and was fortunate to watch our hulking campus Red-Tailed Hawk patiently consuming almost every bit of the Fox Squirrel she caught. Took her about an hour.

"Pilsen Community Books embodies the true Chicago spirit—earnest without being precious, opinionated without being smug..." Thanks to Timeout Chicago for these tender words! Now we just need to get you guys some updated pics. 😎 www.timeout.com/chicago/news...

in hindsight, this one was a little too birder-specific to make it into the New Yorker

The Monroe Building wearing Rookwood Pottery tile.

Maybe, if you're not actually in university classrooms, teaching students in the age of gAI, perhaps you might want to stop and listen when people actually in those classrooms raise concerns about what they are seeing; and not just dismiss us as luddites, or boomers, or cruel profs playing cops

We're suckers for good piping plover news!

"There is no condition in which the university is under attack that the whole of U.S. educational infrastructure, public and private, from pre-K up, is not under attack. And there is no condition in which education is under attack in which civil society can remain unimperiled."

Really looking forward to reading this!

#Nikon #photography #nature #UKbirds #birds #ukwildlife #ukbirding #wildlife #birdsinflight #murmuration #predators 3/3

The Detroit Chamber polled MI in 2024. 58% of voters believe avg student debt is about $50K. Consequently, only 8% of voters thought that a BA/BS was the "minimum to be successful in MI" and only 27% said *any college* was important to getting a good job (1/X) www.detroitchamber.com/survey-paren...

Big seiche Monday! The water is expected to drop ~6 feet near Toledo & rise ~7 feet near Buffalo. So about 13 feet difference between Buffalo & Toledo due to the strong wind on Monday, pushing the water east! #PAwx #LakeErie

Anthony Theakston Sculpts a Spirited Flock of Bronze and Ceramic #Birds #art #sculpture Link for more #photos and information: www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/12/anth...

Since she started almost three decades ago, 95-year-old Hilda White has mounted and catalogued more than 50,000 plants; which researchers said has been key to their success.

‘We own it’: Community-owned grocery store opens in Flint, Mich., marking the end of a longtime food desert

The big day is finally here - and with it, a very big fish! Our #25DaysofFishmas road trip ends on the East Coast with the ancient-looking Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus). Once close to becoming a Ghost of Fishmas Past, their ongoing recovery represents a possible brighter Fishmas Future

Recently accepted by #QJE, “Marginal Returns to Public Universities,” by Jack Mountjoy: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

Ok. That's incredible. I love birds, but fish really do rule.

Over the years, on various social media platforms, I have learned a LOT during the #25DaysOfFishmas season. I would like, one day, to taste the delicious Louvar.

New, at Can We Still Govern? Poverty is not some insurmountable problem, we can fix it. A group of National Academies of Science researchers review the temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit during the pandemic, showing it cut child poverty in half. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-have-...

Christmas in (a very ancient) Dorset

Happy to close out another year w/the Christmas Bird Count. This year was Washtenaw Bird & Nature Alliance's 80th CBC, and the 21st for my daughter @bizzadizz.bsky.social and me. Around 120 volunteers counted, recording more than 10,000 birds from 74 species, then we all enjoyed the count potluck.

Happy Solstice | Tattooed Sun, 1994, stonecut by Kenojuak Ashevak | Baffin Fine Arts

My viscosity does increase slightly as I approach freezing making my waves flow a bit slower. On deck soon (in parts of me) I will display the stronger hydrogen bonds of ice which is less dense than my liquid state. Thus, ICE FLOATS 🌊🌊 Ahhhh….science 🧊🧊

Why are rich people paying trillions for “artificial intelligence?” I know people who have genuine intelligence. The real deal. None of this fake shit. Give them your money. It’s a better product.

If you ever get the chance to visit some Long-tailed Ducks I definitely recommend it. They are fabulous! (Found in winter on the northern coasts of North America and the Great Lakes) #birds 🌿

A barred spiral galaxy, observed with the Apache Point 2.5m Telescope in the SDSS survey. It is at redshift 0.018 (lookback time 257.3 million years) with coordinates (204.80525, 4.62334). 43 volunteers classified this galaxy in Galaxy Zoo 2.

When I'm feeling particularly hopeless about the future of professoring as a profession, I try to remind myself: That's what they want. They want us to not want to be professors anymore.

Swanton Berry Farm is a organic UFW contract company in Davenport CA, in Santa Cruz County. "Angela" worker who labors there invites UFW supporters in the area to try their holiday pies, saying we have apple, pecan, blackberry and strawberry rhubarb pies. #WeFeedYou

Christi Belcourt, contemporary Métis visual artist known for her paintings which depict floral patterns inspired by Métis and First Nations historical beadwork art #WomensArt

Michiganders, both of our senators voted for the trans athlete ban this week. Please please please call them and tell them they have to vote against the ban on gender affirming care for minors that just passed the house. This bill will kill children. Slotkin: (202) 224-4822 Peters: (202) 224-6221

The sound of rain in all seasons.

I am thankful for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa 🌊🌊 www.wpr.org/news/bad-riv...

Yes, and here's a marker for an institution that's going to wake up five years from now and realize they've wasted a colossal amount of time and energy. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

A group of elementary school-aged children, running toward me with an urgent question: “COMO SE DICE SEIS SIETE EN INGLÉS!?!?!”

Read more about today's Michiganders Against Data Centers rally in Lansing: cleanwater.org/releases/no-...

More Everything Forever by @adambecker.bsky.social provides a sorely needed and persuasive debunking of the mad and often toxic fantasies now embedded in Silicon Valley. www.the-tls.com/science-tech...

Mark Zuckerberg is building a data center in Louisiana that will use 3x more electricity than all of New Orleans. Oligarchs want YOU to pay for these data centers with higher water & electric bills. Americans must fight back against billionaires who put profits over people.

“Wld 🐟 that famously home to their birth streams swiftly find a stretch of river that had been foreclosed for more than a century? The answer, decisively, was yes. By Oct, fall-run Chinook had already passed the former site of the Iron Gate Dam; by Nov,… dozens… had migrated as far upriver as OR.”