Free piece just released. Marco Rubio called on tolerant, democratic, liberal Europe to destroy itself and embrace a Trump-like future. He received a standing ovation and we are told some people are reassured. If so, Europe will deserve everything coming its way. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

"The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools." — Thucydides

This isn't shortread data, but alignments of genome assemblies with N50 > 100Mb. The plot is the # of bp per 100Kb window that are dropped because of missing data -- because those bp physically are not there in one of the other 25 genomes. This is what normal plant genomes look like, folks.

Sing it

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes! "Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

With the increase of recreation on public lands, there is an increasing need for data on how recreation affects wildlife. We ask whether wildlife responses to recreation depended on previous exposure to recreation Paper, led by @markdittmer.bsky.social here www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Repeat after me: An executive order is not a royal edict; it is not law. It is a direction to the executive branch as to how to carry out the law. Also: Key parts of Trump's last EO on elections have been stopped by federal courts, ruling that the President has no role to play in federal elections

NEW: Western reporting suggests that the United States has accepted Russia’s demanded sequence of having Ukraine cede territory to Russia before receiving formal US or European security guarantee commitments. 🧵 (1/8) Read more: isw.pub/UkrWar021326 Other Key Takeaways ⬇️

Europa? Werkt gewoon.

"If remembering the fallen is a violation of the rules,then silence about their killers is complicity” Ukrainian footballers at the Russian‑destroyed Lokomotyv stadium in Kyiv showed their support for Vladyslav Heraskevych,who was disqualified before the first run of the 2026 Olympic skeleton event

Ukrainian troops outperformed NATO forces during joint exercises in 2025 using drones, WSJ reports. In one scenario, a formation including a British brigade and an Estonian division was unable to advance. The report says Western armies have not fully integrated Ukraine’s combat experience. #Ukraine

Conservation genomics and assisted introgression is saving the American chestnut from extermination by invasive non-native pathogens. #consgen

Orban rival Magyar accuses opponents of planning blackmail ahead of Hungarian election

Elon Musk genuinely has to be regarded as one of history’s pre-eminent mass murderers

Two waterbird PhDs starting Oct 2026 - one is rooted in ecological data science asks how and why waterbirds use landscapes the way they do (tinyurl.com/3wx3huht) the other rooted in sociology seeks to understand the social licence of bird hunting (tinyurl.com/4u2r34wc) - please share widely 🦆🦆

AI agent goes nuts on open source maintainer after having its pull request denied. This is a pretty insane story. Open source development as we've been used to for the last few decades is likely over. 1/ theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

Trainees of the FC Lokomotyv Kyiv Academy presented a football damaged by a russian missile to the FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The initiative is a reminder of the global responsibility to protect the future of Ukrainian sport.

Anyone out there know of anyone using or developing #gtseq to genotype Brown Trout? #consgen #fishgen #fisheries

“The richest man in the world posted about how the white race was under threat, made allusions to race science or promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy content on 26 out of 31 days in January” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Verbod op pro-Palestijnse actiegroep Palestine Action als terreurgroep is onwettig, beslist Brits Hooggerechtshof vrtnws.be/p.JNBadNDo7?t=177... @vrtnws.be

A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that is able to perfectly copy itself... Wow! 🧪🧬 doi.org/10.1126/scie...

“The English have a fierce reputation for conquering the world.. invading loads of different countries and then getting upset when those people followed them home.” - Tommy Tiernan

A third Ukrainian athlete has been banned from using his helmet. The International Skating Union did not allow Ukrainian short track skater Oleh Handei to compete in his own gear. suspilne.media/sport/123764...

Whilst embarking on a big writing project, many of us think about routines to achieve our goal. Wake up earlier. Block our phone. Write 1 hour everyday, etc. But what if long projects stall not because of a lack of routine, but a lack of clarity about why we write? New post: shorturl.at/hbh1g 🧵

To those “Americans” attacking the US athletes who are criticizing ICE and the Trump administration, all I have to say is this. It is unAmerican to sit by meekly as the USA is being decimated by a group of corrupt incompetents, who are shooting US citizens. Deal with it.

So Kristi Noem wanted Bad Bunny to adress the Super Bowl in Aramaic, Hebrew and ancient Greek. At least the comments of the supreme felon would have made sense: « nobody understands a word he said »

See also bsky.app/profile/eddw...

Three-year General Licence restriction imposed on Raeshaw Estate (again), this time relating to the shooting of Golden Eagle Merrick. Statement from NatureScot & commentary from me ⬇️ #RaptorResearch #WildlifeCrime 🌍 raptorpersecutionuk.org/2026/02/10/t...

A massive shout-out to all women and girls in science, you make science and the world better! www.unesco.org/en/articles/...

Quo vadis America?

I was curious about that too, look like it’s here (a substack) migrantinsider.com/p/how-the-pe...

Vladyslav Heraskevych, who wore a helmet with photos of Ukrainian athletes killed by Russia’s war, says the IOC has banned him from using it during official training sessions and competitions. Please listen to his words! “The world must know the price of freedom.”

If all Earth’s ice sheets melted, sea level would rise ~65m over millennia But just 1–2% of that (~65–130 cm) would force chronic flooding & retreat in many coastal cities ~1 billion people live within 10m of sea level (~15% of total) The risk isn’t the end state, it’s how little change it takes!

U.K. might lose a prime minister because a guy who worked for him knew another guy who hung out with Epstein. Meanwhile the U.S. opposition party is telling our President, who was Epstein's best friend, that his secret police should get better training so their public street murders look less messy.

This diagram is in Polish, but fairly easy to understand. The upper section is U.S. assistance for Ukraine during the Biden and Trump admin The lower is russian drone and missile attacks during the same time frame Tell me more about how Trump's negotiations are working.

I wrote on Russia's cyber-attack against Poland's energy system in December, why it suggests a more aggressive Russian approach to disrupting critical infrastructure in Europe, and why the involvement of the FSB, Russia's security service, is bad news. www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

The trajectory from, “Trump will give Ukraine to Tomahawks to attack Russia” to “Trump has starved Ukraine of Patriots to help Russia” is the single greatest example of the failure of people to understand what Trump is and has always been.

Under the banner of “simplification” and “cutting red tape,” key EU laws that protect clean air, safe water, public health and nature are being weakened at speed. Our health and nature are NOT for sale, please support, sign and share this petition handsoffnature.eu

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself! bluesky-map.theo.io I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Oh, here comes another wave of insanity. Ukraine is now supposed to surrender in a war it has not lost and willingly ensure its own destruction by Russia because Trump needs to avert a midterm disaster.

the Post’s real cause of death is that one of the richest people in human history staged a controlled burn to turn it into ash. Bezos wanted the Post to die, because a vigorous, well-resourced Washington Post does not suit his vision for the world or his own bottom line.

Well, now it turns out that it’s no longer enough for Russia for Ukraine to hand over what remains of Donbas without a fight, its strongest fortified region, so that “the war can end.”

Terrifying that such powerful people have mad and dangerous religious extremist views.

Europe is holding individuals named in the Epstein files accountable for their action & relationship with Epstein after his 2008 conviction. While 🇺🇸 fallout has been muted, the latest release of documents has triggered high-level resignations across Europe.  🇺🇸 LETS GO #Epstein

Breaking news: man who could end world hunger and make serious roads into contesting climate change but instead chooses to make porn-AI accessible and cheerlead for fascists can’t work out why he’s not happy. 🧐

Just a reminder to smile from time to time. youtu.be/buqtdpuZxvk?...

Look everyone, for now no one in the Trump administration will be held accountable, no one will be investigated for their corruption or their treason, no one will stop their stealing and their taking of bribes. The only way this stops is a massive Democratic victory in 2026. That's it.

🌏SLN February Webinar with EUROLYNX Collaborative science for large #carnivoreconservation 🐈 ➝ 🐆 From Eurasian #lynx to #snowleopards Join us!! 📅 11 February ⏰ 15:30 (Bishkek time) 📍 Online 🔗 Register here: bit.ly/SLNEurolynx @snowleopardhope.bsky.social

Melania’s “documentary”: I really don’t care. Do you?

Let’s hope that Hungarians massively disagree on April 12 with Orban. The victim blaming of Orban is simply disgusting, but not at all surprising. Corrupt birds of a feather flock together.