ICB highlights #spider research this week: Invasive Widow Spiders Perform Differently at Low Temperatures from Conspecifics from the Native Range Monica A Mowery et al doi.org/10.1093/icb/... #science #arachnids

“EXCLUSIVE: I’m the Palestinian Who Has Been in ICE Detention for Almost a Year” Writing for Zeteo from inside of prison on International Women’s Day, Leqaa Kordia asks us not to forget the female detainees being held and mistreated in ICE detention camps.

They had names. They had beautiful faces. And they had the same dreams as your kids - crushed when American "precision" bombs slammed into their Minab elementary school, killing 175 Don't blame AI for this. Blame the sick humans who see war as a game My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/iran...

North American bird populations are not only declining, but they’re also shrinking faster with each passing year—particularly in regions shaped by intensive agriculture, according to a new study in Science. https://scim.ag/4bkrafP

January 2021 was the deadliest month of the pandemic. 3000 Americans died daily, 95,000 in total. And Prasad was *mocking* people for avoiding COVID. Shame on anyone who treated him as a good faith actor or serious thinker. Let’s be honest about his record.

I had a favorite uncle who declined a wedding invitation b/c they had not told their 11yo ‘about the birds & the bees’ (deeply problematic in and of itself!) It was hurtful at the time but sparked decades of hilarious speculation about what *exactly* they imagined would be happening at this event.

A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution reports that long-term ocean warming reduces global fish biomass by up to 19.8% annually. Warmer years and marine heatwaves were linked to sharp biomass losses of up to 43.4%. go.nature.com/40b6AIB 🧪 🌍

“Men older than me spat on me in public,” Lauren Stokes testified, speaking about the days after the University of Mississippi fired her for resharing an Instagram post that called Charlie Kirk a racist. “People are still saying vitriolic things to me. I’m still suffering and humiliated.”

Today we observed six shackled detainees being loaded onto the ICE Air flight at MSP. They're heading to El Paso, where conditions are so horrific, staff gamble on who the next prisoner to commit suicide will be. The man walking from right to left at the beginning of the clip is dragging shackles.

It turns out the U.S. did a “double tap” attack just as emergency responders were arriving at the girls’ elementary school. This is what the Russians do routinely in Ukraine. That’s a war crime under international humanitarian law.

Analysis in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, and the Northeastern Pacific, based on 702,037 estimates of biomass change from 33,990 fish populations recorded between 1993 and 2021. www.maraujolab.eu/2026/02/25/o... @shaharchaikin.bsky.social @jdgonzalezt.bsky.social

Please please read this from the archbishop of Chicago www.archchicago.org/statement/-/...

SCIENCE FIGHTERS!!! Are you attending a March 7th National Day of Action Rally?! Find YOUR LOCAL RALLY by visiting standupforscience.net/march7 and register to volunteer! No rally in your city? Register to host a rally or a pop-up protest! OR join us in WASHINGTON D.C.!!! #March7 #rally

Congratulations Dr. Jawad! 🐌🎓

Today at 1pm! @lsuscience.bsky.social @lsuresearch.bsky.social

My PhD student Wissam Jawad defends his dissertation tomorrow! 1pm CST - please join us if you’re on campus or message me for a zoom link if you’d like to join us remotely.

The mass murder of civilians in Gaza, the brazen attacks on hospitals and schools, without any accountability has created a new kind of warfare that should terrify and enrage all of us. Every child lost is someone’s whole world. Every life lost matters www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I know this feels pointless but everyone has to call their congressional reps and say they oppose war with Iran and they oppose Trump illegally starting one without congressional approval — both 5 Calls can help you make the call: 5calls.org/issue/iran-i...

In your name. Your hard earned tax money is being used to build concentration camps and torturing children at home and murdering children abroad.

This week's cover @thelancet.com

There were so many of us, exactly when these emails were being written, expressly working to undo the harms of sexual harassment and sexual discrimination in science. And so many people refused to believe us that any of it was real. It was all real. 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

Apply now for the SSE Caregiver Award for up to $500 USD to help cover caregiving costs while attending virtual or in-person #Evol2026. Deadline March 15! www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social

An ICE agent shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez, a US citizen and San Antonio resident, in March 2025. Then ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety covered it up. He was 23 years old. I am calling for a full investigation into this shooting, including why there was an 8-month cover up.

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich.

OPINION: "The disruption to (UM's) reputation was not caused by a private citizen’s Instagram share; it was catalyzed by an administration that chose to publicly target its own employee rather than uphold the constitutional principles it is mandated to defend," Mary Warner writes.

A judge ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts

Light-colored peppered moths right now

So proud of @lsu.bsky.social 's CURE program - allows our undergrads to get a real taste of research. Plus our grad students get practice leading a research team. @lsuscience.bsky.social

It’s just horrific. Where is the mass outrage on this? The Kids Trump Sent to ICE’s Dilley Detention Center - ProPublica apple.news/A-Uc3UmSFSo2...

Just a few weeks ago, the administration cancelled all remaining department of energy grid resilience projects in Puerto Rico. All of them. www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-end...

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

I love this so much.

No children in camps!! Public health and medical colleagues we need to keep speaking up! No camps. No more families torn apart and mistreated. End this now!

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🚨 For those with access to collections of bird specimens: we are looking for collaborators who can quickly measure bulbuls/greenbuls (Pycnonotidae) for a project on intraspecific trait variation. We need 100s specimens measured from common species in return for co-authorship. Anyone up for it? 🧪🌐🪶

Reading about Trivers makes me sick, but also immensely proud of every Federal grant review panel I've ever served on. These dudes cozied up to Epstien because they liked power, but also because their transphobic race science could not survive the cleansing sunlight of scientific peer review.

Marimar Martinez, shot 5 times by Border Patrol in Chicago, speaks out after Renee Good, Alex Pretti deaths 'I am their voice' NEW w/ @adrianacardmag.bsky.social: chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

NEW: School hallways are silent. Grandparents patrol outside in shifts. Two more kids taken from Liam Ramos' school. Trump isn't deescalating ICE at all at MN schools. “I stopped wearing my high heels to work. I wear my boots to work because I have had to run." www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-mi...

The number of children in ICE detention on an average day has skyrocketed 6x since Trump took an office. Families complain of poor medical care and worm-infested food. "It’s only a matter of time before we see a child die," one advocate said. www.themarshallproject.org/2026/01/29/i...

While many of my faculty colleagues remain silent, UNC students are leading the way. ICE OUT!!!

Mornings are my time for a run, and often a good cry. Here’s what did it for me this morning:

ICE has been holding a disabled Black man for a year! Rodney Taylor is a double amputee who was days away from receiving new prosthetic legs when ICE took him. He’s been denied his prosthetics & placed in solitary. His health is declining. Public outrage might save his life. Say his name:

“At NSF, the net reduction of 205 STEM Ph.D.s between 1 January and 30 November constituted 40% of its total pre-Trump Ph.D. workforce of 517, by far the largest percentage at any agency. STEM Ph.D.s also make up a larger percentage of the total workforce at NSF than at any other agency…”.

As someone who is literally waiting for one button to be pressed to give me $2.1m of NSF funds six months late: I’d rather shut my lab down than have another person killed by ICE - in the street or in custody, citizen or non-citizen

If you are a scientist funded by NIH and agree that if the HHS/NIH bill is held hostage by linkage for funding to DHS/ICE, we need to shutdown both and save lives, its time to speak up. Right now, with a few exceptions, the silence is deafening

M. Gessen, gift link: The soviet secret police too "were ruled by quotas... Fundamentally, the terror was random. That is, in fact, how state terror works. The randomness is the difference between a regime based on terror and a regime that is plainly repressive"

Here's a time-lapse from yesterday as thousands of people marched through downtown Minneapolis to protest ICE. 📷️: Sydney Lewis/The Minnesota Star Tribune