The African crested rat (Lophiomys imhausi) is a rabbit-sized rodent with patterned coat. They have no natural predators which puzzled scientists because they don't display obvious deterrents to large African predators. That's when studies found they were packing enough poison to kill an elephant.

Political theorist William E. Connolly passed last week, leaving behind an influential body of work studying democracy, capitalism & culture To celebrate his legacy, we're unlocking his contributions to our journals thru 31 March on Project MUSE press.jhu.edu/newsro... 1/3

The Scottish have won the AI Wars.

It occurs to me that if the government did force UK writers to hand over their work to the big AI companies, that would now among other things mean contributing to the development of US advanced weapon systems.

no pressure

Something better awaits, surely. Just a question of how long it takes to get there. And if we're all invited :)

It’s #worldwildlifeday! Here are a few of the gorgeous creatures that live around me. A small tortoiseshell butterfly, a common blue butterfly, a wheatear on the beach and a fox in the garden. #ourpreciousearth

Excellent! Next we need an accompanying "human-edited" standard to maintain the quality of, you know, humanity in our literature. #AIfreezone

CRUROTARSI🐊 these are only a few examples of how diverse the lineage Crocodiles come from used to be 🐊 #crurotarsi #pseudosuchia #paleoart #purussaurus #deinosuchus #postosuchus #plesiosuchus #arizonasaurus #phytosauria

So, it turns out that the UK national security report on nature -only published last month thanks to an FOI request - omitted the most serious forecasts. I've updated my earlier piece here with the @itvnews.bsky.social revelations: medium.com/the-new-clim...

This is a hugely important story: everyone concerned with learning and truth should read it. Presented with prompts about a lesser-known turn-of-the-last-century composer, an LLM produces a nice, clear readable evaluation of her Symphony No. 1 - which DOESN'T EXIST. Everything is made up. 😵‍💫

This short film has been nominated for an Oscar. It is =hysterical=, and I use that term advisedly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxpj...

🤯 ‼️ Got to see the Heysham Hogback An early medieval sculpted stone from the 10th century, thought to be a bridge between pagan Viking Norse myth and Christianity… 🧵 #medievalsky #archaeology

"Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?" ~ David Baldacci, ‘The Camel Club.’ #Illustration

How's the mood in England, you ask?

Zooming out is important. Foreign-imposed regime changes (FIRCs) are seen as a product of the Cold War, but they aren't. Alex Downes catalogued 120 cases from 1816-2008 in his book. Countries have always tried replacing leaders to get what they want. amazon.com/dp/1501761145 3/

“UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has shown that deep reading, defined as sustained immersion in a text, builds the cognitive circuits required for critical analysis, empathy and perspective-taking in ways that skimming, scrolling and short-form video simply cannot.”

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

The world could be such a nice place if we allowed it. It's all so goddamn unnecessary. There's no need for any of it. It's so beautiful here. It should be so cool to be alive

If you live in Ireland and you need to trim a hedge it’s get it done this weekend or wait until September. It’s illegal to cut a hedge after 1 March before 1 September in most circumstances.

Here's a video that explains how this happened: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwDp...

So, any other news yesterday? Anything important?

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran... #BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪

Northern gannets are monogamous. They spend winters apart and return to places like Bird Rock in N&L each summer to breed. It's a mystery how they find their mates among thousands of squawking, flapping neighbours... but they do. 🐦❤️ from @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YYZ...

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a dinosaur? Nope to all of the above. This #FossilFriday, let’s celebrate pterosaurs, flying reptiles that ruled the skies for 150+ million years. Some were as small as paper airplanes while others had wingspans bigger than an F-16 fighter jet!

If only western newspapers offered analysis rather than simpering propaganda. www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

God, I love the videos of this behavior, which is has been theorized to be cultural and spiritual. Watch with sound up. vimeo.com/157106967?fl...

Your 'moment of doom' for Feb. 25, 2025 ~ And acidification. "The current challenge is that this overfishing crisis is being further exacerbated by ocean warming and deoxygenation." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I'm really quite pleased with how the moss is growing on these boulders in my front yard. I love growing moss, I don't have to do anything but let it be and it creates art in my yard.

I just want to live in a world where I don’t have to say “What the fuck is wrong with you people” every time I leave my house. #WeedWednesday #LetMyPeopleGrow

The notion of sustainability never really caught on in Alberta.

The "publish or perish" culture must perish. Scientists need time to think. We just published our Slow Science Manifesto, where we argue that huge changes are needed in the way we fund, publish, and evaluate science. Read more and sign here: www.slow-science.com

😬 “This study reports that in utero SARS-CoV-2 viral exposure was associated with decreased cognitive skills in toddlers at age 2, and this association was mediated by cortical gray matter volumes in the newborn brain.”

This image from the James Webb Telescope shows thousands of galaxies in a tiny corner of the sky - each one holding billions of stars. It forces us to face our physical insignificance in an infinite cosmos.

like look at that blue whale I just reposted. Is the blue whale “relevant”? no it’s sublime. it’s transcendent. it’s a blessing from God. these and a trillion other qualities are more valuable than “relevance” ffs you should not even be able to say “relevant” without laughing

This is the most incredible footage of blue whales I’ve ever seen

Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté. - Margaret Atwood (Negotiating with the Dead) #writing 🦆

Dear Young People. This post is written for you… Our generation of doctors decided to let you all get infected with a novel virus without even protection from vaccines in many cases, and we already knew that some of you would be killed or disabled for life when we made that decision.

still unclear to me how the species made it this far

Temptation of St. Anthony (detail), 1506 #northernrenaissance #hieronymusbosch

Bet Siri didn't think of this when asked "what's a death trap?"

Oh, I'm quite liking this @apastyle.bsky.social account!

Here's some sound guidance from @apastyle.bsky.social on how to cite your use of AI, should you choose to use AI in your research or writing.

Egad! Great sax!

In an attempt to demonstrate that philosophy is a "fact-based" discipline that makes progress, a philosopher offers up “200 straightforward facts directly about philosophical matters that virtually all philosophers know and non-philosophers don’t know.”

#OTD (Fri, Feb 19) 1915 at #JoeLake, #AlgonquinPark: "Two trainload of troops passed through last night. Mr. Joe Kehoe, aged 17, was killed by troop train last night." @csnrec.bsky.social @nichecanada.bsky.social

Trump Changes Name of “Board of Peace” to “Bored of Peace”

here you go

If I were able to start all over again... #sentience #animal #justice