Beetenberg cake 🎂 🐝

Compared to trilobites, what is man

Very bad news. Screwworm appears to have made it to Texas, as was predicted. These parasites eat the living flesh of cattle, cause horrible pain, and can ultimately kill them. Yesterday, USDA Chief Brooke Rollins categorically denied that screwworm was close to the border.

Damn, that was a BIG CLAM

Fat little axolotl babies

One of the easiest animals to come by for biology class is the mussel, Mytilus edulis. But understanding the anatomy when dissecting a mussel isn't that easy, so this infographic makes it understandable. And keep in mind: this is what you eat when eating a mussel..

🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.

O, what a noble thing to seek! To find the sun's own secret locked in ancient shells—that would make the very stones sing. I should lie down and weep for wonder.

Some sort of conclusive trace of algal symbionts in rudist bivalves. Like a biomarker associated with dinoflagellates.

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.

Tubular moths, amazing, what will evolution come up with next

Under the proposed rules, peer review will be advisory only; proposals will be required to align with "Gold Standard Science" which is never explicitly defined. Peer review is the foundation of our entire federal funding system, dating back to the establishment of federal agencies after WWII. 6/n

Seashell studies in watercolour. #art 🐡

A heartfelt thank you to federal scientists of the USA. The authors of this piece reflect on the massive losses that occurred in 2025 — 10,109 PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and health — either voluntarily or involuntarily. 17% of the workforce gone in a single year!

President of MIT not mincing words today in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2026/05/27/s...

This is a substantial power grab by OMB. Comment period starts tomorrow. Here are two relevant excerpts. 1/3

Side quest: Diving into the history of mantle plume pulsing led to an oddball 1977 satirical article in Eos Transactions, "Graphic Solutions to Problems of Plumacy," which was illustrated by Jack Holden. www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments... It is a window to another world. Here's the first figure.

My cats love Costco boxes.

MIT (endowment: $27B) shuttering three of its four main libraries is one of those news items that just knocks you off balance, auguring, as it does, profound and permanent changes to the entire institutional apparatus of higher education in this country.

I got a box. There was an office chair in it but that was secondary to the box part

Page views of the Wikipedia for methyl methacrylate went up 300x earlier this week! pageviews.wmcloud.org?project=en.w...

To explain this for my non-science followers. Such a proposal would be to create a black box around review of scientific proposals - this reduction in transparency is what you would do if you wanted to make political or partisan decisions about funding and not scientific ones

The fact is that basic research of any kind is viewed as the enemy by this administration. Science brings knowledge. Knowledge means awareness of their crimes.

Yay! Congrats to Janet Voight at the Field who has described a new species of deep-sea octopus from the Galapagos! Microeledone galapagensis! #molluscmonday www.fieldmuseum.org/about/press/...

"Please provide a justification for the foreign collaboration." Science.

Giant clams (Tridacna) for #MolluskMonday, showing the fused mantle margins that harbor photosymbionts (zooxanthellae), enabling their rapid growth to large sizes. ⚒️🧪🦪

After several unsuccessful winters in pursuit of Burbot (Lota lota), the only freshwater species of cod (Gadidae), I finally caught my first two on hook & line on the White Earth Reservation! I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for Ben, my new friend & gracious host, and for these slimy, nocturnal fish.♥️

“NASA has told some grantee institutions they may be in violation of the Wolf Amendment because their researchers co-authored papers with scientists affiliated with institutions in China, even if no NASA funding went overseas” 🤔 ☄️🔭

We should talk about clams imo. No one I know of has ever regretted talking about clams, we'll maybe they have felt it runs slightly long talking to me about it, but still overall a good use of time.

Is this the singularity

This is psychotic

Dr. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social is GOAT at global comm AND works her ass off on local, like offering native seed packets + murals in Philly. So passionate, and has to fundraise all year long. Help @skypeascientist.bsky.social out! Buy her a coffee! givebutter.com/SupportSAS26

This is fucking insanity www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

Eliminating foreign aid that helps fight disease globally and then sending people with Ebola elsewhere. We are the baddies

Also known as tembiluk and eaten by different coastal communities throughout Borneo. #Mollusca

We tie up Palmer Luckeyand threaten to shove him in a locker until he gives us his tunneling machines, ushering in a new age of Earth Sciences.

Guys is it bad that the National Science Foundation has been offline since last night?

Shells from 'Neues systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet' by Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm Martini and Johann Hieronymus Chemnitz. Nurnberg: Gabriel Nicholaus Raspe. 1769-1829 Courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Library and Archives. #rarebooks #sciart #shellart

NSCA expresses profound concern about the future of the Academy of Natural Sciences of #Drexel University. The Academy is a globally important natural history #collection & center for #biodiversity #research. #naturalhistory #NSCA nscalliance.org/statement-on...

If a bivalve shell has a big honkin snoot off to one side, it is called 'rostrate'. Such structures are often a sign of a big siphon. In the most extreme cases, such as for Cuspidaria, it can a sign of carnivory, with them sucking up prey! All the better to eat copepods with! (349)

We have hit @watchduty.org notification season: such a friendly little chime that surfaces deep dread from last January in my heart

#ScienceUnderSiege #Lysenkoism #SovietUnion burlison.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

It is pretty hard to get funding to study clams. But like a clam, I am resilient. I am ready and waiting for the right opportunity to float by.

Bluesky is experiencing explosive growth...in clam related content

Me trying to repair stuff around the house

MIT President Sally Kornbluth said that the school’s research enterprise has shrunk 10 percent from a year ago and warned of a persistent drop in graduate admissions as the university grapples with federal funding challenges and policy changes. www.statnews.com/2026/05/14/m...

In fisheries models, natural mortality (M) is often set to 0.2 per year. A detailed derivation of this result was provided by John Pope in 1975, see below:

TBT. Back in May 2021, the Mussel of the Month was Haasica balzani! #ThrowbackThursday #MusselMemory #MusselOfTheMonth #MUSSELp — musselpdb.org/motm/2021/21... 🧪 Photo by Graf & Cummings

Been in a months-long repair/replacement battle with <leading scientific freezer manufacturer> and this has gotta be the worst service experience I've had with any company ever. I think we'd have had a better experience buying a random aliexpress freezer