You're watching the hypnotic motion of a "bait ball" composed of anchoveta (Engraulis ringens). This piscine mosh pit probably has tens of thousands of individuals, but they move like a singular organism. How is this coordinated & WHY? Let's talk about swarm behaviors. (📷: BBC Blue Planet)

What do the SPACE SHUTTLE, ICE RINKS and your SEX LIFE have in common? Let's talk about it. In the 1970's, an engineer was working on active cooling systems for NASA's Space Shuttle program. There were already freon-based closed loop systems, but they took time to cool & circulate.

Let's talk about the surprising world of trout vision & what it says about how these aquatic hunters find prey. We start with a literal 'fish eye lens', which in trout is spherical, magnifies objects on the edge of their visual field by 3X. Like inverse telescopes, magnifying /peripheral/ vision.

You guys! There's a BIRD. On the FEEDER. Or there /was/, like 10 minutes ago, but Butter's mind is blown 🤯.

Slightly increase a band They're Pretty Likely To Be Giants

Let me introduce the pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus), the state bat of California, as of 2023. I'm a big fan for one simple reason (it's not the fantastic smile): (📷:Ann Froschauer/USFWS)

What do 'Lincoln Logs' have to do with earthquakes in Japan, Frank Lloyd Wright, WWII steel rationing & California redwoods? Everything. Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son, John, in 1916. The two of them worked together on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

i will simply incant "do NOT corrupt me. make NO mistakes" before wielding the One Ring

YouTuber Cody don Reeder produced this demonstration of a 50 kg (110 lb) anvil floating in liquid mercury, demonstrating that relative density, not weight, determines if something floats. But let's talk about the one PARADOXICAL SOLID that makes life on Earth possible. Why does water ice FLOAT?

So, uh. Sometimes, when a remora gets scared... It hides inside a manta ray's butt. Science 🧪 by @emilyyeager9.bsky.social @drcatmac.bsky.social, with a healthy HT to @whysharksmatter.bsky.social! www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/s...

"Alcohol" is (indirectly) named for Egyptian eye makeup.

The branch manager is reporting for duty

Weird fact: Bastrop, TX (pop. 14,184) is home to the official corporate headquarters of the social media network formerly known as Twitter. For tax reasons. It's also about to be home to close to a million Houston toads (god willing). (📷: Texas Parks & Wildlife)

New life-hack for writers: "[Science-fiction writer Hugo] Gernsback’s isolator device - part diving suit, part monastic cell - did help him to work, he said, but it came with a risk of suffocation. He later installed an air supply."

From the Fort Worth Zoo (@fortworthzoo.bsky.social) FB & just in time for Mother's Day, freshly-hatched masked lapwing chicks (Vanellus miles). Native to Australia, NZ, NG, they're fierce parents, willing to charge/swoop at animals that threaten their babies.

We’ve been doing this for at least an hour as @aarondsouza.bsky.social can confirm. Though when animals select a toy out of the toy basket that they want to play with, that just knocks me out.

North America's only marsupials, opossums have a 13 day gestation. After birth, the bee-sized babies spend 6-9 weeks in the pouch attached to a nipple, then another 4-5 months riding on mom's back. During the 'baby-bus' phase, she continues to forage. This momma has a mustache made of baby tails.

For Mother's Day: You have literally swapped millions of cells with your mother (and possibly grandmother, siblings). Up to one in every million of your cells have a maternal origin. She's in your HEART (and brain, lungs, kidney, spleen), you're in hers, & not in an /allegorical/ way.

Inside your brain is a PINECONE, rapidly filling with BRAIN SAND, and it's evolutionary evidence of your FOUR-EYED FREAK ancestors. Let's talk about the tiny eye inside your brain, the pineal gland. We start with Galen, 2nd century AD, who called it, in Greek 'konario' (κωνάριο), "pine cone".

Momma francolin opens up the pantry for her chicks. These Old World pheasant relatives found in Asia & Africa are terrestrial (but not flightless) omnivores. Termites create "mud tubes" to allow them to move from soil to tree without risk, but they're no match for momma francolin & her chicks.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone, and best of luck keeping all your little ones together.

“A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known" - Bertrand Russell, 1976. Time-lapse video of Vampyrella lateritia eating Spirogyra algae from Science Source/Oliver Skibbe. 🦠

Tiliqua rugosa is a species of blue-tongued skink native to Australia that has many names: Shingleback Bobtail 'Sleepy Lizard' & my favorite: Pinecone Lizard. Let's talk about the time a zookeeper's burnt lunch led to a discovery about how the sleepy lizard survives Australian wildfires.

This is Naegleria gruberi, non-pathogenic cousin to the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri. They have the ability to shift from gloopy crawlers (amoeba) to rigid, propeller-powered boats (flagellates). The amoebic form is used for hunting & reproduction, while the flagellate is for traveling.

Lyme disease spreading is just one teeny-tiny aspect of how climate change intersects with human health.

We could do a lot worse.

What if there were a carbon sequestration method that was fully solar-powered, could be deployed anywhere & cost pennies per unit? Oh. Trees. I just re-invented trees. EXCEPT trees don't hold carbon for very long. Enter the Saguaro cactus: It shifts carbon from 'biotic' to 'abiotic'! (📷: NPS)

Canaries were used in coal mines MUCH more recently than you might think (1986!), but I have a really neat artifact to share with you & I hope it brightens your day. Canaries were used as indicators for clear & odorless carbon monoxide (CO) gas that was a hazard to human health in deep coal mines.

I love how Google searches for "laboratory-grade helium tanks" give me like 19 options that are serious, and one that looks like this:

I need a mood booster, let's talk about capybaras. Here's a capy demonstrating one of MANY ways they can move through the water: running along the bottom. They're 'semi-aquatic' mammals, just like hippos, seals & beavers. They LOVE water. (📷: Fernando Maidana)

become ungovernable

Song sparrow goes NYOOM! #birds 🌿

You're going to eat tacos 🌮 & drink beer🍺 tonight, even though most of you have no idea why. Why should a (non-Mexican) American celebrate Cinco de Mayo? I'll give you one possible reason from history: Mexico might be a reason the Confederacy was defeated. 🧵

This is the beautiful Agami Heron of Costa Rica

Someone out there decided it would be a good idea to put a German Shepherd in charge of babysitting a bunch of Doberman puppies and they were 100% correct

Warwick Davis was 11 when he was cast to play 'Wicket' in 'Return of the Jedi'. His grandmother heard a casting call for people <4 ft., knew he was a Star Wars superfan. Mark Hamill reportedly bought him every Star Wars action figure he didn't *already* own.

GOOD NEWS for all Orthodox Jedi (reformed) practitioners: MIDICHLORIANS have been discovered! Now the BAD NEWS: they've been discovered in Ixodes ticks. "Candidatus Midichloria" are a real bacteria found in the ovaries of certain hard-bodied ticks & they DO have some unusual properties.

To cast the Stormtrooper roles for Tatooine in "Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope", they mostly hired locals from the Tozeur region of Tunisia who met certain height & weight requirements. Filming took place in 1976, when big hair was in vogue. So, under the masks, this is what they looked like:

Oreo is a rescue badger (Taxidea taxus) at the Northwest Wildlife Sanctuary in Oak Harbor, WA. www.northwestwildlifesanctuary.com She's being offered her favorite snack: cheese, to lure her from the safety of her dark void. Audio on for badger hissing. 🦡❤️🧀

I am here for Puffin Cocktail Hour.

One of these days, an AI-generated medical illustration is going to summon an ancient demon named back when the Sumerians were working out a new system of making markings on clay & that's how the world will end. All hail the Dark Lord Làcriqιoàμcuriany! This one was found on 'getlabtest . com'

One of the problems with hayfever (pollen allergy) is that when you yell at plants, people tend to stare and call the police. So I have provided this handy thread of pollen grains under high magnification (electron microscopy) for my fellow-sufferers to channel their rage at.

Here's a fact you can't unknow: You produce & swallow 1-2 liters (about a quarter gallon) of mucus every day. It traps microbes, keeps tissues moist & lubricated, protects delicate surfaces like your eyeballs. Key to its icky texture is a family of proteins absolutely coated in sticky sugars.

Powered animal flight has evolved *five* times: 1. Insects (300-400 MYA) 2. Reptiles/pterosaurs (215 MYA) 3. Dinosaurs/birds (160 MYA) 4. Mammals/bats (60 MYA) 5. Humans (120 YA) I mean, we're late to the party, but we brought snacks!

The rare biology / dad joke dual post.

These are black and rufous elephant shrews (Rhynchocyon petersi) at the Hertfordshire Zoo via their FB. In Bantu, they're called "sengi". These little guys were born February 2026 & are joining mom & dad in foraging for morio worms (beetle larvae). Let's talk about these weird little guys.

Starting a sort of super-thread of our foster litter, which we came to call "Belphegor and Company":

2.5-3 million people per day in the US are boarding commercial flights at airports. The population is ~340M. Almost 1% of the US population, every single day. That's a lot of $35 hamburgers.

Bowie came up with the idea for this song while watching '2001: A Space Odyssey' in 1968, by his description "very stoned". It was released July 11th, 1969, 9 days before the Apollo 11 moon landing. The video was filmed in 1972, shortly after he invented his "Ziggy Stardust" persona.

So I'm reading about the giant extinct penguin Kumimanu fordycei & I had a realization. Bear with me. At 150 kg (330 lbs) & 1.5 m (5 ft) tall, this Eocene tuxedoed terror-bird represents something important about birds. Their size is constrained by flight. Flightless birds, on the other hand...