Danse Macabre #art

Every now and then I remember that sponges are ANIMALS — that these seeming hybrids of plant and rock; these sessile, porous, tissue-and-organ-less barrels, tubes, and blobs are just as much an animal as a falcon, wolf, or shark — and marvel once more at the wonderful weirdness of life on Earth.

That iridescent metallic shine on the fruit bodies of the White-footed Slime are so cool! 📷 Canon R5 Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM M, f/4, 1/2, ISO 400 Stack of 8 images 8/29/25 Northern Oregon Coast #mushroom #fungifriends #mushrooms 🍄📷 📸🎞 🌿🌱 🟢 🍄 🍄‍🟫

I was really sad to learn about the passing of Garfield Minott. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but by all accounts he was a lovely human, and I had the joy of having his Smilodon bust in my office while I was completing my PhD. www.arbormemorial.ca/en/glendale/...

Vaccine hesitancy isn't just for humans, we see impacts on pets too. There's some overlap between hesitancy for human and animal vaccines, but also some different issues and reasons. It's complex. But, what are the disease implications. 1/n

Message to all faculty: your expertise is no longer trusted or valued at this so-called “university.”

#PrehistoricPlanet #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge Pov: You are Assoc. Prof. Ben Freed, it's Dec. 1989, and you are conducting field research in northern Madagascar. You are disturbed by strange noises coming from your supply tent, and decide to investigate. You are in for a surprise...

Waning Hours

Me, reading a textbook on vertebrate diversity state “No native placental species occur naturally” in the Australasian faunal region:

Round bat alert!!

Drew a Least Weasel because the name always makes me chuckle... "Thou art the very least of weasels!" Yet ounce per ounce, probably one of the most vicious and terrifying predators on the planet (but also deadly cute!) #art #SciArt

I absolutely snorted out loud in an important, quiet historic reading room. And then had the giggles for 5 minutes. Fingle rows of tentaculated fuckers!

I find it fascinating that although whales are the largest animals on the planet there's a ton of species we just don't know much about. There are 24 species of beaked whales and some have only been discovered in the last few decades.

We are in the midst of an all-out attempt to exclude the global majority from science. Watson was clear about where he fell on that. I would trade every single dinner, meeting, seminar, fancy campus, and prestigious donor for my incredible friends to be safer. Their science is worth far more.

It's irritating that they describe the effects of his racism as limited to causing controversy within science and reputational consequences for himself rather than giving an immeasurable boost, false veneer of legitimacy, and idiot-friendly prestige to modern scientific racism and eugenics.

These were choices that had consequences. If we want to talk about biology, we can talk about the very measurable and deeply harm that racism and discrimination produce in people's bodies. Threats to belonging are particularly potent when they come from authority psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-...

Jeremy, I have followed your science advocacy on this platform with respect, but I find this thread deeply hurtful and sad and I am going to tell you why. While my wife did her postdoc at CSHL, she and our many dear friends had to endure the racist rhetoric of this man, which did constant harm

Officially beyond X and Y 🧬🏳️‍⚧️ @beyondxandy.bsky.social #PokemonZA

Just visiting Lumiose City's premiere Pokémon genetic research center. Happy to report the DNA is twisted the right way 😂🧬 Bonus, they also understand that sex is more complicated than a simple binary

snowflake moray (The Sea Unseen, 2021) #art #sciart 🎨🦑

Pine martens are such gorgeous little animals, and as omnivores perform a great range of vital roles within the forest ecosystems that are their home, acting as predators, scavengers, seed dispersal agents, and more. Their name in Irish is 'an cat crainn' – the tree cat.

Roman glass cups with colourful enamel decoration of animals from the Roman arena. AD 200s. Found in richly-furnished graves in Denmark. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. 📷 by me #FindsFriday #Archaeology

Super important update to our estimates of the number of birds killed by domestic cats each year in Canada!

How many #birds are killed by #cats in Canada? Between 19-197 million! This is the main result from my first chapter of my PhD thesis just published in Avian Conservation and Ecology. ace-eco.org/vol20/iss2/a... @gowelizabeth.bsky.social @ryannorrissci.bsky.social 1/6

Seeing people nonchalantly post stuff like makes me feel like I'm going crazy honestly.

My students: what’s on the midterm???? Me: I haven’t even finished making the lecture I’m giving you in half an hour, I have no idea.

Whenever dealing with elephants, bovids, dogs, and frankly a lot of other mammals, we should always assume deep population structure and frequent hybridization

oh no why did I come on here, this week was already stressful enough

There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.

The First Lego League is a competition that schools from all over the place compete in. As part of the competition they need to consult with an expert. A lot of clubs use our program to make that connection. This year's theme is archaeology. It's all-hands-on-deck for archaeologists.

The history of late Quaternary-to recent European bisons: "The abundance of European bison specimens responded negatively to the extent of forest cover, including Holocene cycles." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Macroecology

One important thing to understand about Harvard is the Metaphor Hedge. The Metaphor Hedge is a block-long lilac hedge outside the Barker Center. They could have chosen any kind of bush for this, but they chose lilac. Then they prune it ruthlessly so it cannot bloom. (pic is late April)

I missed #worldelephantday yesterday but here are some sketches of some extinct elephant relatives 🐘

This sucks, and we keep hearing the same story over and over. Privately-owned dinosaurs, in someone’s foyer or on loan to a museum, can’t be studied because they can be yanked from view or sold again with no notice. No access, no reproducibility, no sustained long term care. Only assholes do this.

A friendly neighbor I think this is Melissodes bimaculatus, a local solitary bee, and a male given the very long antennae. All around a very good bee!

I have a dream of selling items in aquarium gift shops, for now I’m occupying myself by drawing the things I’d like to see in one! #bsnm 🐡🐙🦑

It is really really sinking in for me the degree to which LLMs are the ultimate expression of right wing anti-intellectualism. Its proponents are literally mocking the idea that anyone would ever want to learn anything, know anything, develop any actual skill, or have a thought of their own.

the new developments on inat inspired me to make a diagnostic thread for every insect order because there's only like 30something of them. going to try and avoid exceptions and extremely technical characteristics when possible. 🧵

Even if iNat seems dispensable to you due to your abundance of local resources, it's the only thing people like me have. They're now taking feedback from the community so this is our chance to steer them in a better direction. I don't want the platform to die, I want it to do better.

One of the best things about iNaturalist is that there were actual people out there, looking at others' photos and sharing their actual knowledge. Community based science. Adding GenAI tools defeats that entire purpose.

the iNaturalist situation is basically this, but replace artists with taxonomists

Wow. If you follow me because you thought I'd be blindly loyal to any politician or party, you followed me for the wrong reasons. My job is to hold power to account and to give a voice to the voiceless. Even when that might be unpopular. I'm a journalist, not a cheerleader!

🪡 Have a portable sewing machine? Join our growing cadre of fabric fixers for the repair cafe! 🗓️ Sunday, June 22, from 12-3pm. 📍 Outside Karma Co-op (739 Palmerston Avenue, Toronto), weather allowing. Rain location inside store. 💵 Free to attend! #RepairCafe #TorontoCommunity #ZeroWaste

Canadians, I realize all eyes are on the US but: Carney's introduced Bill C-5 which is basically Doug Ford's Bill 5 but for the whole country, allowing corporations to do whatever the fuck they want to our land in the name of the economy, Indigenous rights and environmental concerns be damned 1/3

@mark-carney.bsky.social: We have to protect the Canadian Arctic. Me: Cool. Carney: By destroying it physically and spiritually. Me: What? Carney: Don't worry! Our new army will protect the border. Me: FUCK THE BORDER.

Republicans are destroying everything that made the U.S. a global leader in science and health care / disease prevention policies.

The rate of rocket launches is accelerating, with the US, China, NZ 🇳🇿and Russia leading current rates. It's driven by a mix of commercial and nation-state efforts (often with blurry lines), both for a near-Earth economy & to create vast new satellite constellations 🚀🛰️

Misinformation spreads fast because it’s often wrapped in emotional, repetitive, and personal narrative even when it’s wrong. That might make it more dangerous than just ignorance #scicomm #science #health

I’m going to say it again, generative AI and the push for it to be used in every Avenue of learning and education is because generative AI literally is a weapon for knowledge destruction not a knowledge creation tool and silicon valleys goal is to monetize and gate off all of human knowledge

It’s absolutely unbelievable as someone who has done this work on the academic and research side for as long as I have and reading as much history as I have of the Nazi party and seeing their incompetence and inability to plan strategically on full display because we are seeing it again