Two-day-old zebrafish larvae, as seen through a scanning electron microscope

Exciting! Endangered, cryptic eastern ground parrot found well outside known areas of occurrence in Narawntapu National Park

All Protocol Observed Welcome to Issue 219 of The Continent Protests, an internet blackout, and deadly force marked Tanzania’s Election Day. Once online again, 37 readers shared what they witnessed. Read their stories: bit.ly/219_TC

oh yeah ok this is super cool not only did they find a gynandromorph spider, it also turned out to be a new species! 🤯🧪🕷️

Solace

I could try to make moral arguments about spending your Spotify fee on one Bandcamp album a month. But let's go simpler. It is *so easy* to just switch from Spotify to Tidal, Apple, or Qobuz! You won't barely notice the difference! You can move your playlists! The audio quality is better!

Today @TheNewYorker released our short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” online. It traces the ongoing effects of the sudden shutdown of US foreign aid through the story of one mother in Kenya as she seeks to save her daughter from sickness and starvation. 🎥 1/ www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Meet our plenary speaker Felicity Muth! Assistant professor at the University of California Davis, her lab group are broadly interested in cognition, especially aspects of learning and memory that have a clear function in the natural world, focusing on captive and wild bumblebees.

In which I blabber excitedly about the themes of my play and a whole lot more: www.youtube.com/watch?reload...

Under two weeks before my #play hits the stage @taratheatre.com ! Can't wait! Come see it if you're in London- it'll be great to have tons of people there. Book here: taratheatre.com/whats-on/i-d... A video of me wittering on about the play in the post below ⬇️ #theatre #newWriting #immigration

Woo hooo, NYC!!! Download and print your own free commemorative Zohran Mamdani zine: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Rainy morning walks into Newcastle 🌧♥🍂 #MyNCLPics #WeAreNCL

Under two weeks before my #play hits the stage @taratheatre.com ! Can't wait! Come see it if you're in London- it'll be great to have tons of people there. Book here: taratheatre.com/whats-on/i-d... A video of me wittering on about the play in the post below ⬇️ #theatre #newWriting #immigration

Mamdani: "New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant."

#Evolution of complex adaptations can involve changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. @benitoexplains.bsky.social &co show that leaf masquerade in #katydids evolved via concurrent modification in wing colour & shape, driven by evolutionary synergy @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oUE741

Now out in Cell! Congratulations to all involved, especially @chiarafornetto.bsky.social For a breakdown, see the bluetorial from when we posted the preprint: bsky.app/profile/neur... Funding: @erc.europa.eu @wellcometrust.bsky.social @ukri.org @leverhulme.ac.uk @thelisterinstitute.bsky.social

Very excited to be part of this issue! Go ahead give this short fiction a read, about a deep sea eldritch god. #WritingCommunity

Award alert! 🎖️🚨 Every other year, the Ethologische Gesellschaft awards the Niko Tinbergen Award to outstanding post-doc level researchers in Behavioural Biology (<=6yrs post PhD exam). ...and this year is one of these years! Please send us your nominations! 🫵 Infos: www.etho-ges.de/wordpress/aw...

Hey, Kids, Stories! Clarkesworld # 230. Features my science fiction novella THE APOLOGISTS. Also stories by @kashinggiwa.bsky.social and @izom-chisom.bsky.social and others!

Over £9million raised so far in this 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity' to do something truly meaningful for nature on a really large scale. It's absolutely doable. Can you help? Donate here 👉 www.wildlifetrusts.org/appeals/roth... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #wildlife

Not to mention coffins in the basement.

Further updates on the ignominious end to Lam's ignominious policy. Good to hear Badenoch say "But we have a principle. We don’t believe in making things retrospective." Let's hope all Britain's parties follow that principle. And for a less punitive & vindictive approach to immigration more broadly

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term www.gov.uk/government/p...

My new radio play, ‘The Wind in the Willows: a Weasel’s Tale’ - narrated by the legend that is Penelope Wilton, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 3pm on 16th November. Details here:

New #PhD ad alert! Interested in wild #bee #cognition and #brains in different #bumblebees? Want to live in #Newcastle and the beautiful north-east of England? Check out this project with me, @lenariab.bsky.social and Sarah Scott. Contact me for further information. iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

Chinese national interested in a PhD using fish? Fully-funded scholarships @bristolbiosci.bsky.social from the China Scholarship Council-University of Bristol Success rates are high, check out the details here and get in touch: www.bristol.ac.uk/students/sup... Please circulate widely!

We are celebrating 100years of #NotForProfit #Publishing with @biologists.bsky.social #biologists100 in 2025 with a dedicated collection of articles. In this Perspective we look at the impact that research published in JEB has had on conservation & engineering journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Age and attitude: How longevity influences cognitive biases in #honeybee workers: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @royalsocietypublishing.org

The first Pan-African neuroscience journal, the African Brain Journal, prepares to launch. By Lauren Schenkman #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/publishing/f...

New #PhD ad alert! Interested in wild #bee #cognition and #brains in different #bumblebees? Want to live in #Newcastle and the beautiful north-east of England? Check out this project with me, @lenariab.bsky.social and Sarah Scott. Contact me for further information. iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

🎇New package alert @wired.com! This one has been in the works for months. If WIRED was going to tackle AI -- something we cover daily -- we had to go big. So here are 17 different stories about the way AI is changing us, even as the technology itself keeps moving www.wired.com/ai-issue/

Engineering for insects! 🐜🐞 New butterfly🦋banks at Trumpington offer an unprecedented chance to investigate climate change mitigation measures for invertebrates. Read more: bit.ly/42V03n3 PS Related postgrad research project currently being advertised: bit.ly/47ikYSh @wildlifebcn.org

Song of the Sea is leaving Netflix soon and it’s a gorgeous Sunday night movie. Halloween appropriate too. It’s such a work of art in every way

In a new paper, we show from longitudinal UK and France data that income volatility (fluctatuations month to month) are bad for mental and general health. And it is much badder than you would expect given the lowness of the low months: doi.org/10.1016/j.ss...

I’m sharing a Palestinian account every day and today is Sahar. Sahar is a 23 year recent graduate in English translation. She has been displaced nine times with her family and is currently living in a tent with her parents and siblings Yasmeen, 20, Mohammad, 18, Abood, 16 and Omar, 14.

Looking for a #PhD? Interested in #SocialBehaviour #BiologicalMarkets #Fieldwork? Want to be based in #Bristol? Check out this project with me, @ljnbrent.bsky.social & #PatrickKennedy: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6 For UK-domiciled Black-heritage applicants Get in touch for more information Please #share

Looking for a PhD? 🦜 Interested in ornithology, animal behaviour, bioacoustics? I am advertising a PhD on vocal communication in ring-necked parakeets tinyurl.com/44a3hcnz Eligible candidates are encouraged to apply for University of Salford Widening Participation Scholarships tinyurl.com/4wtzzh3z

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Really like this paper, led by @ficusorganensis.bsky.social, the supplementary videos aren’t up yet but will post them when I’m back in the office!

One pronounced behaviour are circular flights around a floral resource, where they turn back on themselves in a loop. They do this repeatedly while feeding; loop, feed, repeat… 4/n

This is such a great piece of animation and adaptation!

Hadn’t, in truth, really absorbed the scale of what the Conservatives are proposing on ILR and immigration more broadly until this week’s Sunday Times interviews. Some thoughts on that in today’s note:

"The idea of deporting people with settled status is disgusting, and anyone proposing it should be immediately drummed out of polite society. Breaking promises made in good faith to our friends and neighbours is racist, extremist and immoral." I'm basically shouting at the sky here, but still.

Fellow Calcuttan writer/editor Archita Mittra is in desperate need of financial help. She recently lost her father, her home was damaged in the recent rains, & her mother's in hospital. They don't have insurance, & she's a freelancer. I can vouch for her. Please share widely & donate:

For years, there's been a massive over-emphasis on food miles, and a massive under-emphasis on food type. By far and away the best dietary decision you can make, for environmental, humanitarian and public health purposes, is to cut out animal products.

Congratulations to @vajra.me for winning the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for his ferociously visionary RAKESFALL! & congratulations to all the finalists; I can confirm that this was an enormously challenging decision to make--because each novel in the shortlist was worthy of winning in its own way.

Please share ‼️ 19 hours left. We still run daily goals for six families facing still-deadly days. That means every support matters—and makes a difference to their survival. Current priorities: - Food - New tents & rent - Winter blankets - Newborn supplies - House repairs Last check: 100/1000

Some good news/ Home Office evaluation of the Refugee Transitions Outcomes Fund - pilot schemes to help employment, housing and integration for newly recognised refugees. Substantially improved employment outcomes & had positive fiscal impacts. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Cool grant funding opportunity- send in your applications!

Sweet-looking postdoc with Chris Cooney (who is awesome) on perceptual bias and animal communication signals. FWIW, Sheffield seems to be a genuinely great place to live. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPB994/r...