From Copernicus: This shows how the expected date for breaching 1.5C has been creeping ever closer in recent years. The orange date shows the baseline for the extrapolation; the red date shows when 1.5C is breached based on the trend...

Our FDA has been hijacked by RFKJ & co. This is outrageous. “Moderna’s vaccine uses the same mRNA technology as its Covid shot. In a release Tuesday, Moderna said the FDA did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with the vaccine” @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

Whenever I see pseudoscientific conspiracy theories about ancient aliens or giant petrified trees or ice age satellites or whatever it drives me crazy because THE EARTH IS COOL ENOUGH JUST AS IT IS! WE DON’T NEED TO REACH FOR REASONS TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING! HAVE YOU SEEN A TULLY MONSTER??!!

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs xkcd.com/3204/

I fear bad things are coming for our Delta. Another crucial federal dataset has been undermined. mavensnotebook.com/2026/02/09/n...

Scotland has passed a law that all new buildings must install ‘swift bricks’ which are hollowed out bricks to help nesting swifts and other endangered birds! Swifts are especially endangered because so many chimneys now have chimney caps. Swifts return to the same nesting spot year after year.

I stumbled on an @sfestuaryinstitute.bsky.social “State of the Estuary” report from 1992 and this is easily my favorite graphic. Birbs here. More birbs over there.

Do nutrient pulses alter phytoplankton communities? Yes. What about short-term shifts in temperature? Well, it depends. New insights from a repeat microcosm experiment. doi.org/10.1002/lno....

Major FOMM (Fear Of Missing Mollusks) about not being able to go to this!

Brendan with the paper title of the month, everyone

@dantheclamman.blog, I feel that this is relevant to your interests...

I've been at @sfestuaryinstitute.bsky.social for 4 years! During this time I've become a hardcore estuary/wetland stan. This Bay surprises me in the data every day! I love to look at it and marvel at its greatness and mystery. At the end of the day, I continue to do it for the clams tho!

Here’s what they found: Women are interrupted more often than men—by about 10–20% in economics seminars. Those interruptions are more likely to: - Cut women off mid-sentence - Come from men - Be adversarial rather than clarifying in nature

Happy #WorldWetlandsDay to the real MVPs.

One of a bivalve's most important organs: its gills. The gills are covered by tiny micron-scale cilia which wave in the water, grabbing prey. The clam controls the cilia directly via its nervous system when it smells its food floating by! Ciliary movement can also be triggered with serotonin (325)

Record warmth across much of the West this winter has left the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains with very little snow. “That is the classic global warming mountain snowpack signature.” @weatherwest.bsky.social Graphics by @sean-greene.bsky.social www.latimes.com/environment/... @latimes.com

Histoire naturelle des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de France ... New York, H. Baillière; [etc., etc.]1855. (source: https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32068772) #nature #illustration #art

I am reading a Vernor Vinge book, Rainbow's End. In one memorable scene, some companies tear through UCSD's Geisel Library literally vacuuming up books and shredding them en masse to digitize them. Sounds like real life is catching up with that scenario.

Plant opinion: plants with seasonal dormancy are underrated. Sure, you'll have a pot of buried treasure half the year, but you know that hit of endorphins you get when a plant pops a new leaf? That feeling of validation and mutual understanding? It just hits harder when the plant pops a new *plant*

"NCAR is not just another research center. It is purpose-built critical infrastructure designed to integrate observations, modeling, supercomputing, and applied research in ways that no single university, agency, or contractor can replicate on its own."

Being a journalist is sick: I just contacted a pre-eminent jaguar conservationist in Argentine with a question that has been weighing on me for ages and he wrote back right away with an informed answer.

Science: U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office By Jeffrey Mervis, Monica Hersher @science.org @policyhound.bsky.social @mghersher.bsky.social bit.ly/3M8yf9B

For some reason, very few people these days will stand up and say it, but: the US federal bureaucracy is one of the great wonders of the world, staffed with incredibly diligent people who do their jobs well and care deeply. Trump's destruction of the federal apparaus was a historic crime.

Holy hell, what an obituary

Just gonna leave this here….

HORSES. CAN SMELL. YOUR FEAR. 🧪

The EPA weakened air pollution standards for new power plants and said it will no longer consider the health impacts or economic costs of some of the most dangerous pollutants. The move is part of the Trump EPA’s broader effort to roll back regulations.

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

The new Congressional NASA budget does look way better, but we need to acknowledge that even if NASA "gets its budget back," it will not undo the massive amount of damage done across the country. It won't bring back the many scientists and engineers who've lost their jobs and had to move on!

I searched the Latin name of ginger and Google said yeah that's a Spice Girl, and some people use it to flavor stuff

I quit my job at #iNaturalist, the product I co-founded. If you'd like me to keep working on natural history software, support me on Patreon: patreon.com/kueda. FWIW, I'm building an iNat backup tool and an app for viewing geologic maps. Or, if you think you'd like to hire me, get in touch!

Bought a shitload of live terrarium plants, as self care

Dan, I'm gonna get on my little merroir hobbyhorse for a second. I farmed oysters for 15 years, and I have ... thoughts! This does not for one second detract from my gratitude for the education and amusement your epic thread has provided. digitaleditions.sheridan.com/article/Lose...

I'm a news junkie. It's not unusual that I spend two hours a day reading news. But even I have started to reach my doomscrolling limit here. I can almost feel my cortisol rising as I scroll. So I'm going to do my part to cool the fuel rods and only post clam/science content for a couple months

Wines have terroir, and oysters have merroir: the flavor of oysters from a particular place. Because oysters even in the same species live in a huge variety of water chemistries and have highly variable diets, I believe it! (323) www.whitestoneoysters.com/blogs/an-oys...

Learning new stuff about how animals are reacting to a changing planet this morning at #SICB2026

I personally observe Bivalve Day (February 2, mark your calendars), but happy Bird Day to all those who celebrate

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved, ending its 58 years as the primary funder for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations

For #molluskmonday, Discus rotundatus. Native to Europe but broadly introduced in N. America. Sounds like they're not as destructive as garden snails and mind their own business in leaf litter. Hadn't seen one before in North LA County where my mom lives! Small population at nearby Descanso Gardens.

Fuck it. It's not Friday, but I'm going to share fossils. This is Porocrinus, an echinoderm from the Ordovician Maquoketa formation near Eldorado, Iowa. The arms are missing, but the calyx is very unique.

So everyone knows that northern cod collapsed completely in the 1980s and never recovered. Well... it's actually kind of recovering now. Spawning biomass is at pretty good levels, while catches remain at a tiny fraction of the heyday levels. publications.gc.ca/collections/...

We live in a completely lawless dictatorship. That's my hot take.

I've kept multiple opinions to myself today! Feels good man

Imagine if tuataras, coelacanths, cycads or trigoniids didn't quite make it to the modern. Their Cenozoic fossil records range from sparse to non-existent. I keep hoping to see deep-water ammonite or conodont UAV footage someday. I'll settle for a placoderm.

🤯

I'd swear on this all-time classic, which I found at a library book sale

An essential development over the past decade-plus is that the ignorant went from feeling chastened when their ignorance was revealed to banding together and deciding that, actually, they were right. They might disagree at times, but they agreed that ignorance itself was an indicator of trust.

A small but significant island on the fringes of San Francisco Bay is entering a new chapter after a long and checkered history, which includes stints as a rumored rum-running outpost and a kitesurfing club for Silicon Valley elite. #cawater www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

Tree toppers: a full moon in Yosemite valley, and a Cedar Waxwing, aka Berry Bandit. #birds #moon #fullmoon