I finally finished reading Walden! In many places a frustrating, but also an interesting, occasionally funny, and often beautiful read. A few favourites of mine: the excited ant war report, the excessively detailed description of different kinds of ice, and this pictured passage... (1/2)

The new European Butterfly Red List is published today, with worrying findings. Over 1/4 (28%) of Europe’s 442 species are threatened with extinction or are close to being so. The situation is far worse for our 148 endemic species, 40% are now threatened or nearly so www.bc-europe.eu/webpage.php?...

Kaivosala on käynnistänyt mediakampanjan, jonka tavoitteena on saada hallitus perumaan maltillisen kaivosveron maltillinen korotus. Luonnonsuojeluliitto antaa hallitukselle ruusuja & kehottaa kaivosteollisuutta keskittymään toimintansa kestävyyden parantamiseen. #kaivokset www.sll.fi/ajankohtaist...

Ympäristöpäällikkömme @heiantti.bsky.social kirjoittaa, että kaivosveron korotus on välttämätöntä ja oikein. Se ohjaa kaivosyhtiöitä muuttamaan toimintaansa kestävämmäksi ja jättämään matalapitoisimmat esiintymät rauhaan. Suomen #kaivosvero on korotuksenkin jälkeen matala. www.hs.fi/mielipide/ar...

Remarkable & important Finnish court decision. Activists stopped logging in Helsinki & didn't follow police's orders to leave. The court ruled activists had the right to break the law (disobedience towards police) because they had to; it was the only way to save a legally protected stream habitat!

Bookmarking for later.

German minister of culture criticized countries that boycott the Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates for "cancel culture". The willingness of leading German politicians to approve genocide is quite baffling. I mean, they were supposed to have learned something from their country's past...

I don't know what to really think of this, but it was an interesting late-night read for sure!

News from Finland. A 9-year-old lost an especially good stick he’d had since he was 2. He hung up 20 posters. A few days later it was returned. It had been found by a 2-year-old, who wanted to keep it for herself, but her mother made her return it. She got toys, flowers and candy as a reward.

🚨🚨🚨 In the worst tradition of the McCarthy-era anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee, the GOP House Oversight Committee has just launch a massive, grotesque, ad hominem, partisan assault on the US National Academy of Sciences. oversight.house.gov/wp-content/u...

Map of areas meeting thresholds for butterfly observation count & species sampling coverage in 2001–2010. I find this fascinating. I expected the good coverage in western and parts of northern Europe, but, knowing little about south-eastern Europe, I didn't expect Serbia to be a data hotspot. (1/3)

Enviously peeking in on all the #ESEB2025 content posted here. I've always wanted to go, but never did because ESEB always overlaps with my daughter's birthday! 🙁Well, I currently don't do much evolution anyway, but this year I was at least lucky to have Matthew Nielsen present our recent paper!

Interesting paper using @ukbms.bsky.social data to examine extreme weather impacts on butterfly populations. Winter heatwaves and periods of high rainfall appear bad for many species. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🌍

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

Finns are proudly rule-abiding, but living abroad has taught me that we really could sometimes relax a bit. A popular train route can't be run with longer trains because some platforms are too short. In Sweden, they do use the long trains; you just can't exit from the last few cars – problem solved.

Meet the new seal species: Pusa saimensis! yle.fi/a/74-20173801

As the climate warms, species are heading uphill and poleward, but such moves may require evolutionary adaptations. A study of butterflies finds evolution for the timing of life events, but winter cold still limits range expansion. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Outoa tosiaankin. Myös "avoimesti saatavissa olevien julkaisujen osuus" laatuindikaattorina pistää silmään, kun olen ymmärtänyt että hallitus haluaisi säästää rahaa; indikaattorihan kuvaa pitkälti sitä, kuinka paljon rahaa syydetään kankkulan kaivoon maksamalla julkaisijoille tuplana.

🚨Postdoc opportunity🚨: LepEU postdoc: comparative population genomics of European scale adaptation in butterflies 2 year, full-time PD in my group, Stockholm Univ. Applications assed on rolling basis, deadline: 23 August 2025. Planned start 1 Oct. Details: christopherwheatlab.wordpress.com

New paper in @pnas.org — and this is my favourite one out of my PhD thesis! Field transplants of wall brown butterflies show life history evolution during climate change-driven range expansion, BUT non-evolving winter tolerance still sets the range limit.🧵1/12. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

I finally managed to find a copy of this crucial, but out of print, Estonian language learning material! 🤩 Brilliant folk/bluegrass band & special guest's children's album – released together with a song- and colouring book! Lovely idea & great music.

Very useful blog on safety in the field, with the focus on marginalised communities. Thank you @zoomingbio.bsky.social and @britishecologicalsociety.org for this piece; mandatory reading for anyone teaching and organising field courses. 🧪 #academicsky #DEI methodsblog.com/2025/06/17/s...

Ever seen an entomologist at a conference about soil microorganisms? Now's your chance! And, yeah, there's a poster about stuff I've been doing this spring. #ESM2025

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But I'd also like to blame the editors (a small subset of the yous): stop sending really bad or unfinished manuscripts out for review. And please do your job (=decide) instead of sending minor revisions out for review!

This looks like essential reading for anybody interested in how climate change affects species distribution. I only had time to skim this right now, but it's definitely high on my reading list.

I just revolutionized the my scientific paper reading habits. Zotero's "open pdf in new window" feature gives me the reference list on my second screen with just a couple of clicks – goodbye to distracting scrolling to the reference list and back. I feel stupid for not realizing this earlier.

Blind-tasting Estonian alcohol-free beers! We started with lagers, and only four kinds so we'd be able to actually finish them. We chose three from A.LeCoq because they're brewed 500 metres from our home. Saku (near Tallin) is another big brewery.

Fellow Europeans, it's time to move away from using American technology and software. Using European and open source alternatives makes us more sovereign and safe, and reduces the influence of Trump-supporting technology oligarchy. Here's a good guide for finding European alternatives.

Allekirjoita 👇

A long-running study out of England has found that, as you use fertilizers on landscapes, you lose pollinators. The mechanism is that fertilizers encourages grasses, which outcompete insect pollinated flowers and reduce floral resources. 🌿🌱🧪🌎

Looking for a useful way to procrastinate? Take this quick survey on your opinions about good supervision and experiences with former or current supervisors.

If we ignore everything else and classify world geography using only butterflies, there would be 19 continents. New study: