Both of these animals are 'pandas': the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) and giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). But they're not closely related, with a common ancestor ~40 MYA. So which one is the TRUE panda?

Take this image in: road signs leading down into the sea. You're looking at 'Passage du Gois', a causeway that joins the island of Noirmoutier to mainland France, near Beauvoir-sur-Mer. It's drivable twice a day at low tide, at high tide the water is *up to* 4 meters deep. (📷: Florian Pépellin)

Americans are 'somber', while Brits are 'sombre'. Americans have 'fiber', while Brits have 'fibre'. Americans go to the 'theater', while Brits attend the 'theatre'. The -er v. -re difference stems from a more 'conservative' approach to French borrow words. Let's take "somber"...

Ah the deep ocean, answering the question (this time) of: What if shark but ALSO pig? Let's meet the angular roughshark (Oxynotus centrina), found across the eastern Atlantic Ocean & Mediterranean. They're 'hairy', they grunt & they look like this 👇

I love this GIF of a grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) munching away on a red grape, cheeks stuffed full of goodness. But I managed to track down the story, and it's even sweeter. This is Sully, who was found comatose in a Sydney park in 2015, 2 months pregnant, possibly concussed.

My ask of any science enthusiasts who tell the story of Rosalind Franklin: Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author. Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.

I hope he lived long enough to change his mind on some topics. If nothing else, his life showed that even the deepest legacies of science & discovery do not overcome personal accountability in word and deed.

A friend at UT was calling Bari Weiss's anti-woke "University of Austin" the "Scarbrough Highrise Institute of Technology" because it's leasing space in the historical Scarbrough Building in downtown Austin, but I've only just realized the acronym.

TRUE FACT: Die Hard (1988) is based on the book "Nothing Lasts Forever" published in 1979 as a SEQUEL to Roderick Thorp's 1966 novel "The Detective" which was turned into a film in 1968 starring Frank Sinatra. Bruce Willis plays the same character as Frank Sinatra.

I guess they moved on from the dislike button project? 😉

I love that you can just casually stroll along a path and discover the homes of sea creatures that lived & strived on Earth before Saturn had its rings. Deep time is even more intriguing (in some ways) than deep space.

TIL: A million-year old fossil of a pregnant sea snail led me to the discovery that a small percentage of modern snails have internal fertilization, development & live birth. In family 'Viviparidae,' baby snails emerge looking like tiny versions of the adults. What to get for the baby shower?

In Apple's "Prehistoric Planet", two male Dreadnoughtus dinosaurs challenge each other, displaying gular throat sacs. There's no fossil evidence of these, but the titanosaurs did have extensive air sacs in their bones, so it's possible. But here's MY question: Why did they have such long necks?

Disney's animators claim to observe wild animals for weeks before drawing them. Draw a flamingo beak RIGHT, you cowards!

Let's talk about abyssal gigantism: The tendency of animals found in ocean depths to be substantially LARGER than shallow-water cousins. This is the giant squid (Architeuthis dux), which can reach 13 m (~40 feet) long from 'head' to tentacle tip. They can live at depths of 1000+ m. (📷:NTNU Museum)

To fix this engine, you'll need an ingenious engineer, OR a catapult straight to the dump! See: engine, engineer, ingenious all share the same Latin root: 'ingenium', which means something like "innate talent", as in- ‘in’ + gignere ‘beget’. And the craft of the ingenious were 'engines' of war!

It's like if Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas suddenly invented socialism.

"Mike Johnson is starving families and gutting healthcare to cover up the Epstein Files. CHANGE MY MIND"

Bonus Dad Joke of the Day: I told my cat that I'm going to teach him to speak English. He looked at me and said, "Me? How?" #DJotD

Meta Dad Joke of the Day: Dad Jokes are the highest form of Pop culture.

Let's talk about death-ball sponges, because what the hell, ocean? I thought we had a deal, you'd stop making Hooked Horrors of Which We Dare Not Speak, and we'd stop dumping trash in you..... Oh. Right. Carry on. 😔 Okay, the death ball sponges are genus Chondrocladia, the "ping pong sponges."

I associate lions with Africa. A creature of the Serengeti. And I wouldn't be entirely wrong: of the ~30,000 wild lions on Earth, /almost/ all are in eastern & southern Africa. But Hercules slew the Nemean lion in GREECE. Let's talk about the ASIATIC lions of INDIA.

Let's start with a BIG QUESTION: Why is the ocean salty? The answer, of course: They tried making it *peppery*, but it made all the fish sneeze. Dad jokes aside, what's the answer? To start, the ocean wasn't ALWAYS salty. When it first formed in the Archean, from water vapor, it was freshwater.

Evolution out here making a giraffe-moose.

The US CAPITOL building sits in our nation's CAPITAL, Washington D.C. The different spelling reflect entirely different etymologies: capital is from Latin 'caput' = "head, chief" capitol is from the Capitoline Hill of Rome, location of the high temple of Zeus where senators met to invoke blessings.

Squirrels can't die from falling: The terminal velocity of a squirrel is ~30 km/h (20 mph) compared to a human at 200 km/h (120 mph). This, combined with their low weight & tendency to flatten out on landing, makes falls from any height survivable (though injury still possible!).

Little songs to remember things are powerful, but they do have one unfortunate side-effect. Coworker: "We'll need to meet with the national health department of Peru. Which city is that in?" In my head for way too long: 🎶Caracas, Venezuela; Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador...🎵 Me: "It's in Lima."

You have to admire the bloody-minded ambition of a pelican trying to eat a whole capybara (who seems utterly unconcerned). The thing with pelicans is that they have ONE super-power & their brains default to "get it in your mouth & deal with it later." Let's talk about the gular sac of the pelican.

I'm preparing to give a seminar on Friday, so let's dive into the uncomfortable etymology of 'SEMINAR'. The Latin root is 'sēmen' & we're already seeing the problem? It means "seed", with all its implications: plant & animal. Have I been doing seminars wrong this whole time 😬?

Majestic sea flap-flaps --> Pelagic Pancakes + Benthic Bagels.

Going to be a lot of ketchup and crockery on the walls tonight at the White House.

Texas Democrats watching the election results from around the country.

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) live in a world of ice & snow, so it makes sense that they have *behavioral* adaptations to crossing thin ice, possibly learned from other polar bears. As climate change causes summer ice to vanish from the Arctic, there are NEW behavioral changes in this species.

I found my tattoo. #StolenFromTheInternet

Too soon. 🦕🦖☄️

Always in our thoughts, dinosaurs 🦖. Gone too soon, R.I.P 🪦.

The Texas ballot initiatives are written like: "affirming parents are the primary care-takers for children" Then you read the analysis and it's like: "Critics argue that this initiative is tied to support for court cases where teachers will be imprisoned for mentioning LGBTQ+ issues in classrooms."

The Fallopian tube is named for 16th century Italian priest and anatomist, Gabriele Falloppio. In his only work, the 1561 "Observationes anatomicae" he described a "tuba uteri" (Latin: "uterine trumpet"), a horn-shaped structure that Greek physician Herophilus believed conveyed "female semen".

You're watching (and being watched by!) a harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja), native to Central and South America. They're the national bird of Panama. They're well adapted to hunting in rainforests: with narrow wings & piercing close-set, forward-facing eyes.

Gottfried "Götz" von Berlichingen (1480-1562) lost his arm at the wrist when cannon fire forced his sword against his own body. He worked with local artisans to develop two prostheses: one was a close replica of a hand, with metal fingernails & sculpted knuckles. The other was a gripping hand...

The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was designed by a group at Armour Institute (now IIT) led by Thomas Poulter, a veteran of Byrd's Second Polar Expedition. It was designed to be a mobile base for exploration & research, 37 tons in weight, 55 ft long with 10 ft tall tires. (📷: C.C. Shirley)

Your BONES 🦴 are WET💧. Sorry, I know that's a weird thing to tell someone, but it's: A. True. B. Important, for reasons. Your bones are about 30% water by weight & an adult skeleton contains ~3.2 liters of water, a little less than a gallon.

This picture tells a story about who we are as humans: we're monkeys that want to see the view from the hill, because it might be pretty, surprising, or neat. We're driven by discovery, novelty, curiosity. But you'll also notice how uniform the patterning is. Let's talk about Desire Paths.

Tone it down a little, Physalia mikazuki sp. nov.! This new cryptic species is in the same genus as "Portuguese man-of-war" (Physalia physalis), also called 'bluebottle'. Their presence near northern Japan suggests concerning climate change-driven marine ecosystem shifts.

Are you, you know, a, uh ... a "Friend of Alf" 🤨🐈?

Ever wear a glass? Ever use a scissor? Do you wear a pant, trouser, or jean? Have you used a goggle, given thank, or washed a dish in sud? Why are some words exclusively used in the plural? Let's talk about "pluralia tantum," words used exclusively in the plural form.

Antarctica has only two species of flowering plants: Antarctic hairgrass (Deschampsia antarctica) Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) Both are considered extremophiles because of their ability to survive/grow in the low-moisture, frigid temps of the icy continent. Let's talk about them.

The shrimp eel (Ophichthus gomesii) has Kermit the Frog eyes, and I don't know what to do with this information. They're native to Gulf & Atlantic coasts of the US, can grow up to 91 cm (~3 ft). (📷: Fishes of Georgia, Flickr)

The LARGEST DESERT IN THE WORLD isn't what you think: it's the continent of Antarctica. The Antarctic Desert has an area of 14,200,000 km^2 (5,500,000 sq mi), about 40% larger than all of Europe. Even the wet coastal areas only receive 20 cm (8 in) of precipitation annually.