Not bad for my back yard. Very red today!!

"There’s also a dedicated $925-million artificial intelligence (AI) fund, which Carney has identified as a priority." Here we go... How about funding basic research instead of speculative technology?

Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk - bird brain expert - joins The Warblers podcast. He shares fascinating insights into the unique senses birds have and how their brains are adapted to use them! @evoneuro.bsky.social

Proud to have contributed to @gaiabianchini.bsky.social and @flor-iacaruso.bsky.social new paper on how the superior colliculus temporally integrates multisensory information

I am on my third heart attack

Drama

Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s4...

Every worker in Alberta should be off the job from tomorrow until this is repealed. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Time to get rid of the notwithstanding clause

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

What a time to be alive

museum job alert 🇨🇦 royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/XBR2Yc...

New paper out today on hippocampus neuron morphology in homing and feral pigeons. 🧵 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #neuroskyence #neuroethology #anatomy

🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵

New PhD preprint! We studied the effects of habitat and multi-stage life cycles on salamander limb bones! Aquatic and terrestrial spp. have divergent morphs + semi-aquatic and multi-phasic spp. do their own thing + decoupled external and internal shape promote diversity. 🧪🦎 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Paper & incredible science alert: Our assistant professor @laurastidsholt.bsky.social & a passionate team @elena-tena.bsky.social @ebdonana.bsky.social found proof for greater nocturnal #bats 🦇 preying on migratory birds 🐦 AND devouring them in flight! #bioacoustics www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

doi.org/10.1126/scie... This seems rad: overexpressing FruM in a set of proboscis-motorneuron-projecting neurons makes melanogaster males add food-sharing to their courtship repertoire. It is fascinating to see evolutionary shifts in behavior be tied so concretely to shifts in brain development!

When part of a word is replaced by noise, humans still hear the whole word. How do brains do this? New from Meliza group in @natcomms.nature.com Le et al. study this in zebra finches, a model system for vocal learning www.nature.com/articles/s41... #prattle 💬 #neuroskyence 1/5

The global whaling industry experienced a boom c. 1840-1950 as technology allowed whalers to hunt the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. Under standard models, we would have expected krill populations to have *exploded*. Instead, they DROPPED exponentially. Let's talk about the KRILL PARADOX.

The premier is at the demonstration in support of Alberta’s teachers

The ancestors of ostriches and emus were long-distance fliers – here’s how we worked this out. Why did these birds become flightless over and over again? theconversation.com/the-ancestor... #palaeontology #biology #science #SciChat

Jane Goodall was also the first to bring attention to wild tool-using vultures, which she spotted randomly one day while out driving. These birds use stones to break into ostrich eggs. Be observant like Jane and who knows what you’ll see! 🧪🥚

The bees have discovered Brutalism

⚠️ Half of commercial antibodies miss their target! So how do you pick the right one for your experiment? Here’s the solution 👉 Antibody characterization data (all tested in KO cells) are now available at: 🔗 onlygoodantibodies.co.uk Tested by @ycharos.bsky.social & @oga-community.bsky.social

Shut the mother fucker down! Trans rights are human rights, and health care is a human right.

Primate neuroethology: a new synthesis www.cell.com/trends/cogni... #neuroscience

FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States - The Onion share.google/KvgdtFBFjoCH...

a warm welcome to kunpengornis anhuimusei 🪶 this is a euornithine - a "true" bird - from the early cretaceous jehol biota of china. the holotype is beautiful, and kunpengornis provides insight into the first adaptive radiation of piscivorous birds www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

If universities anywhere are hiring an Evolutionary Biologist/Paleontologist please let me know! I'm on the market for Tenure Track positions!! You can find more about my research on fish evolution here: rtfigueroa.wixsite.com/my-site

Please help me get a job in a different country

Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

My answer is no we won’t. Unless there is significant investment in post secondary and industry sees Canada as a site of innovation, there are not enough jobs to recruit these people. In fact all signs point to less investment in post secondary. 🇨🇦 #academicsky #Canada www.bbc.com/news/article...

The money class are parodies of themselves. There is no problem they think won't magically be solved by tax cuts and deregulation. Psychologically, there's no difference between "tax cuts solve everything" fetishists and your weird aunt who's constantly talking about how fairies cured her gout.

BOOM: The swainsons hawk came back a 2nd time and I nailed the shot as close as I could with a 100-400mm f/5.6 - next time if I'm packing(aka renting) a 300 f2.8 ill get the shot of a lifetime. Or if someone near Sacramento wants to lend me one! =) #birds

A tiny Jurassic pterosaur, Bellubrunnus, wingspan, less than a foot (its head is the size of my fingernail)

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

All genes have the same function: - Template gene products. The products are diverse. Their functions are complex and incompletely characterized.

👁️The retina — strikingly conserved across vertebrates, but an oddity among bilaterians! So how did it evolve? With @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social, we argue that retinal complexity may 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑦𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/n

Very excited about our new preprint, led by @gkafetzis.bsky.social /w @mikebok.bsky.social & @denilsson.bsky.social. We suggest that the vertebrate 'duplex' retina emerged from interconnecting two ancient median-eye microcircuits. Say goodbye to the 'simplex' retina - it probably never existed!

1/3 Rooks that understand us when we speak! Leo, a 21-year-old rook, began following verbal instructions spontaneously during comparative cognition experiments. He has been tested for this ability, and did great. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

And at a time when the Coen Brothers are on a hiatus, too

Come to the MBL in Woods Hole @mblscience.bsky.social for a GRASS FELLOWSHIP @grassfoundation.bsky.social 🦑 🐙🐛 There are two application deadlines this year: Oct 15, 2025 (submit by then to receive feedback on your application!), and Dec 1, 2025 (final deadline). grassfoundation.org/application-...

A new report on the impact of lithium mining in South America’s lithium triangle finds the rush to extract lithium in Chile’s Salar de Atacama has had a severe impact on the area’s water supplies.

New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇 www.cell.com/current-biol...

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

The new XKCD has to be a reference to the ant paper where ants just casually lay eggs of a different species, yes? Maybe? There are so many weird bugs its hard to know.

Did a corporate landlord wrote this?

Please do not forget that some scientists were cozying up to Epstein long long long after his horrific behavior was known. Five of them are featured in the Birthday Book. Gerry Edelman. Murray Gellman. Steve Kosslyn. Martin Nowak. Lee Smolin. See docs: oversight.house.gov/release/over...

Spent hours being spellbound by Convolvulus Hawk Moths last night as they nectared on Nicotiana plants in my highland garden!. Up to 3 feeding at a time, their entire abdomens glowing red hot in the thermal from flight muscle use!! #teammoth @migrantmothuk.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social