On S. Pinker's new book, by @djbduncan.bsky.social: "There is a certain charm to the affable, playfully bumptious professor who can’t resist the provocation of scare quotes around the word 'microaggressions'", "A book can be bad without its thesis being untrue." #Booksky #psychology #anthropology

"Unofficially dubbed a 'grue jay,' the bird likely marks one of the first confirmed examples of a vertebrate animal that hybridized partially due to climate change." #birds #birding #nature #climate 🧪

I'm thankful that so many of you resonated with this beautiful soul & his right to exist. I tried to reply to each of you 🐻 Please, please understand that his plight is no different than the cow or chicken or fish... they all desire to live. See ALT ⬇️

Wheeler always called him by his full name, "Sunfish," out of respect, which he gave along with awe and love, because the horse by his presence and bearing seemed to require it. --Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story, forthcoming. @catapultbooks.bsky.social #SundaySentence #Booksky

Oh this tuxedo expression! Happy #Caturday! #cats

Klaxon! Klaxon! "The bears are magnificently plump": Fat bear week starts September 23! #bears #wildlife #nature #Alaska

Northern cardinals: Love the "elevated" female here in our yard, and surrounding males. #birds #birding #nature

"A well-known Maya stone carving known as Altar Q, located at the site of Copán in Honduras, may use hand signs to represent key dates in the Maya Long Count Calendar." Covering the (contested) work of archaeologist Rich Sandoval. 🏺 #archaeology #anthropology

Every day, I find myself wishing that our new book, Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Organizers in Crisis, was already out in the world, because I think it could really help people right now. Preorders really make all the difference in terms of helping a book become widely available.

I'm getting my updated vaccine next week. There is so much denial in the US about this situation! Thanks to Mike Hoerger PhD. #COVID #publichealth #vaccine

The corvid eye is upon me. #birds #birding #nature

Only 1-2 times a season do we give strawberries to a wild eastern box turtle (we have a small cohort in our yard), but when we do it's very satisfying. #turtles #wildlife #nature

Warm congratulations to Arthur Sze, named the new U.S. poet laureate by @librarycongress.bsky.social . "In the announcement, Sze says he intends to focus on promoting translated poetry." #poetry #translation #Booksky

How quickly did the belly of despair turn itself over into hope, the give of the skin of overripe fruit. - Yael van der Wouden in her remarkable novel The Safekeep. #SundaySentence #Booksky

The very first time she played with a toy 😭 I opened the sliding door just enough to stick the cat wand out. She was wary, but she didn’t run away. This was major, major progress in her socialization. #Caturday #FeralCat #SocializingACat

When someone who spent 17 months in a shelter starting age 10 relaxes this much, my heart is happy. This is calico Caroline. #cats #Caturday

These data are important; we need to face this head on: "Even in areas relatively undisturbed by human activity, insect populations are on the decline, with climate change as a likely culprit." ("Pristine areas" really?, but the overall point, yes.) #insects #nature #climate #climatecrisis 🧪

Kudos and gratitude to @seashepherdglobal.bsky.social : "Since early July, the volunteers of campaign group Sea Shepherd, backed by regional authorities, have pulled up thousands of traps and saved more than 1,500 octopuses." #octopus #nature #conservation #animals #ocean

Trump decreed that gender is the same as sex. Reducing a complex biosocial process for all, even the cis, to a religious belief, to protect masculinity+patriarchy at all costs. If Trump decrees that evolution isn’t true, then are whole departments getting fired? www.chronicle.com/article/a-cl...

Vivid splash of color outside my window: young northern cardinal. #birds #birding #nature

@michael-hoerger.bsky.social What has happened to all of your posts? Are you addressing this publicly somewhere? It's most worrisome.

deforestation *caused primarily by cows and soy for factory farmed animals* reduce rainfall in the amazon. this is why meat is not just a moral issue but a political-ecological issue that reshapes out climate and environment and biodiversity in profound and irreversible ways.

These 6 northern elephant seals are a good start: "Wildlife veterinarians have begun testing bird flu vaccines in marine mammals, which have suffered enormous losses in the ongoing global outbreak." Scicomm by @emilyanthes.bsky.social. #marinemammals #birdflu #H5N1 #conservation 🧪

Oh, hai!

Sure the bumpy snailfish is cute. Please though let's not perpetuate the idea that the standard deep-sea animal is somehow frightening and the exceptions are adorable. We can appreciate animals' adaptations fully instead! #deepsea #ocean #fish #science #marinebiology #animals

in loving memory of Maru 💔😭 , here is Esme carrying on his proud tradition #sad #caturday

I thought I would need someone to find me bearable, but he thought I was wonderful! -- From author Virginia Evans: character Sybil's observation in one of her letters, in the wonderful epistolary novel The Correspondent. #SundaySentence #Booksky

More and more into horror reading, and this list fills me with the best . ... dreadful anticipation. #Booksky #horror

I'm (so VERY) here for this: "It’s a bizarre scenario, but one that opens the door to powerful questions. What would a cephalopod civilization look like? How would they reshape the planet?" #octopus #nature #anthropology

Thrilled to see my first-ever scarlet tanager, and in our yard. I'd thought a female, but a more experienced birder tells me males lose their redness at the end of this season, and this bird is male. #birds #birding #nature

Thank you to Judge Allison D. Burroughs- her decision is an "interim rebuff" to the administration's attack on Harvard and I hope, more than that, a step forward of sanity in supporting all of #highered. #Harvard #education

I know, I know, but: The president of the US saying, literally, "we're going in" in reference to sending the military to an American city for no reason beyond terrorizing the local population should be the most immediately impeachable shit imaginable

Delightful: This all-women research team preserves and expands the meteorite collection in Brazil, for science and for public education. 🪐🧪 #space #geology #astronomy #womeninscience #Brazil #scienceeducation

Oh the nearly lost art of writing letters with pen, on paper- irascibly so by this novel's main character. I do it, but not enough. Liking 'The Correspondent' by Virginia Evans quite well so far. #Booksky #amreading #writing

I had the honor of presenting on behalf of @whenwejustify.bsky.social at the International Conference on Alternatives and Simulation in Education yesterday, an exceptionally inspiring satellite conference of the WC13 Rio - World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences.

Cracking the code of the feather barbules was the most important task she'd ever been assigned, the success of which could possibly save lives and make air travel safer for everyone. @cbsweeney.bsky.social, The Feather Detective. Fabulous book about Roxie Laybourne! #SundaySentence #Booksky #birds

My best-ever sighting in the yard of Baltimore Orioles-- this morning! #birds #birding #nature

Fascinating, on birds in Australia: Researchers found "sex-reversed individuals in all 5 species, at rates of 3% to 6%. Nearly all these discordant birds were genetically female but had male reproductive organs. The researchers also found a few genetic males with ovaries." #birds #birding #sex 🧪

yes just believing in the rule of law has become "radical left" to rightwing propagandists. propaganda repeats, repeats, repeats lies & slander nonstop so that eventually some portion of what the propagandists say will be imprinted in citizens' brains even against their conscious choice.

At last, I saw Self-Portrait With Monkey by Frida Kahlo, in person! Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. #art #museum #FridaKahlo #monkey

Oh yes. #cats #art #womensart

New research by @gayani.bsky.social et al. on the evolution of bipedalism, sci comm by @carlzimmer.com. One cool finding among others: "The ilium is slow to switch from cartilage to bone, lagging about 15 weeks behind the rest of the skeleton." #anthropology #humanevolution 🧪

"Mixed results"? Transplant a pig's lung --> a brain-dead person's body with a functioning right lung, so you can't assess overall efficacy; realize the left lung sustains damage. We learn....what? That pigs' lives amount to laboratory tools and remain ungrievable. #xenotransplantation #animalrights

Climate journalism by @jeffgoodell.bsky.social: "Risks accelerate as the thermometer rises. W/o protections, many workers are forced into a kind of extreme heat arbitrage: I need the paycheck, so I will work in the heat and keep my mouth shut and gamble that it won’t kill me." #climate #extremeheat

This much is granted for an hour: That we are young and tender, That I am bee and you are flower, Honey-mouthed and swaying slender. ~Countee Cullen from “To One Who Said Me Nay” That’s my poetic #SundaySentence for this week—what was YOUR favorite sentence?

There were too many of them, a vengeful mob; no girl could withstand them, not even wicked ones such as these- black dresses masking bushy tails, pretty mouths filled with pointed yellow teeth. - Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding. (Page 1 of this novel and wow!) #SundaySentence #Booksky

Pleased with this capture of two cormorants at Machicomico State Park here in Virginia. #birds #birding #nature

In October it'll be a year since adopting Caroline and she'll be 12! She's very beautiful, we think. #Caturday

Judging from birdsong data, "a lot of birds around the globe are starting their days earlier than ever, because of unnaturally bright skies caused by light pollution." #birds #birding #nature #lightpollution #darksky

So I was and am a Constant Reader But now im a colleague Im so honored to be a part of this anthology Thank you @briankeene.bsky.social and @cgolden.bsky.social And @stephenking.bsky.social Did I cry seeing my name in the intro? Hoss I boo hooed lol Baby can your dig your man? I think u can😎