Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.

Thank you for this opportunity and I'm excited to learn and actively contribute to science communication as a writing fellow at @molbioevol.bsky.social and @genomebiolevol.bsky.social Congrats to the other fellows @haorancai.bsky.social and Shady Kuster, looking forward to working together!

SCOOP from me: I uncovered that the Interior Department just quietly defunded *two* multimillion dollar research programs studying how whales move and behave near U.S. wind farms actively being built. Trump blames wind turbines for whale deaths, then cuts vital research on the topic. 🧵

On Trump’s terror memo and regime change. Basic points on the rule of law, phantom conspiracies, big lies, and civic action. (Audio) snyder.substack.com/p/trumps-ter...

This is, without any exaggeration, exactly how Putin and Orbán proceeded — using antisemitism to discredit the idea of civil society and political opposition, and as an excuse to undo the rule of law. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

Why do headlines say "norms shattered" when what is meant is "laws broken" or "Constitution violated"?

Kind of feels like a big deal that a Reform/Brexit Party former MEP has been convicted of taking bribes to promote Russian interests in Ukraine, and it feels like a bigger deal that this isn’t being treated as the major scandal that it clearly is.

Applications now open for the SSE GREG Rosemary Grant Advanced Awards! These grants provide up to $3500 to expand your dissertation work. Submit your proposal by September 15! www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci...

Tim Winton among 100 high-profile Australians calling for university fees that don’t ‘punish’ arts students

We need Democratic leaders who are willing to cast America’s billionaires not as success stories of American capitalism, but as parasitic oligarchs robbing the people blind, dismantling the country, undermining western democracy, and burning the whole world just to keep their taxes low.

1. Here's a fish swimming upstream. Nothing unusual about that. What's unusual is that this particular fish is *dead*. Vortices in the water as it flows past the fish cause the fish's body to flex, maintaining orientation and actually propelling it forward. (D. N. Beal et al 2006 J. Fluid. Mech.)

Former Australian National University chancellor slams 'gobsmacking' proposed university cuts www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

The ability to understand what makes us human - from a science and social sense - is being eroded at the nation’s university. Soon it’ll be too late to reverse the cack-handed cuts. Nobody can say they weren’t warned. We warned you. graemeturner.org/2025/07/20/w...

Congratulations Prof Phillip Byrne, Dr Aimee Silla, Dr Chris Friesen, and Dr Damien Esquerre. An amazing achievement! We look forward to seeing the outcomes of your important research. Read more via the below UOW media release. @cpictus.bsky.social www.uow.edu.au/media/2025/r...

Dr. Eline Schotsmans recently published groundbreaking work using ancient DNA to reveal the malleable nature of social organisation in Neolithic villages Read more via the below @elineschotsmans.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ever wondered by dolphins jump out of the water? Dr Katharina Peters explains in her latest article in the Conversation 🐬 kjpeters.bsky.social theconversation.com/curious-kids...

The idea that we can "easily" overthrow the regime in Iran is a fantasy of people that have never served. Afghanistan is back in the hands of the Taliban after 20 years of slaughter. Iraq still isn't peaceful. Libya is a war zone that's been in civil war since we dropped bombs. History is screaming!

Adaptation & gene flow are insufficient to rescue a montane plant under climate change. Need to model evolutionary dynamics under #climate change. Implications for SDMs. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities ROI for NIH and NSF for local economies is conservatively 4x, often close to 10x demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

Elon Musk’s regulatory troubles? Vanishing fast. Since Trump returned to the White House, federal agencies that once scrutinized Musk’s empire are being gutted or redirected. At the USDA, Trump fired the official investigating Neuralink.

HAPPY 75th, NSF! We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond. Read on 🧵(1/11):

Here is a great film "The Birdman of Skomer" about my friend Professor Tim Birkhead and his 50+ year study of guillemot's on the island of Skomer - please share! vimeo.com/1063680641/2...

IOB "Our study demonstrates that other non-model #nothobranchids can be used as comparative #species to N. furzeri in the study of #aging, #neurogenesis, and life history." doi.org/10.1093/iob/... @chijing-leow.bsky.social & Piller #science #fish #evolution #biology

Huge tonight: ‼️ A coalition led by @democracyforward.org files a massive lawsuit asserting DOGE actions are illegal and unconstitutional. "When the President takes for himself the legislative power of Congress to recreate federal agencies in the manner he sees fit, he violates the Constitution."

Maybe contact The Research Council of Norway? They have set up a taskforce to help America researchers. If not help directly, I am sure they can advice on fora to gather up. www.forskningsradet.no/en/

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

The trope that universities are "dependent" on the federal government fundamentally misunderstands how vital this partnership has been for the US. The private sector can't replace it. If we kill it, we're all worse off. From @donmoyn.bsky.social and me: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/are-univer...

A wonderful read about the career trajectory of an inspiring #cnidarian researcher.

ICB blog Diving into Discovery: A #Researcher’s Journey in Marine #Biology, #Regeneration and #Evolution - Christine Schnitzler By Lisa Mesrop, SICB Mangum recipient, #scientist/blogger, UCSB (Oakley lab) integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2025/04/22/d... #science #fluorescence

In the last interview of his life (1996), astronomer Carl Sagan gave an eerily prescient warning of the dangers that come when you cannot ask skeptical scientific questions of those in authority. Watch and ask yourself: was he right?

💯. US science is so powerful because public dollars are spent, by the government, on fundamental research that the private sector will not support. If NIH goes away, US biomedical science will collapse.

Trump swings budget ax at USGS biology research #ecology #ecosystems by @erikstokstad.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

The opinion by Judge Wilkinson for the Fourth Circuit denying the government’s most recent request for a stay or mandamus against Judge Xinis’s rulings in the Abrego García case is especially powerful when you consider it was written by … Judge Wilkinson: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

There's a circulating rumor that no studies have ever compared vaccinated to unvaccinated children when investigating autism risk. That's simply false. Here are just a few of the many high-quality studies that have made this comparison—and found no link ⬇️

Did you now that exposure to certain environmental conditions during early life can lead 🐸 to develop gonads opposite to the expected from their sex chromosomes? Come to Edina Nemesházi's talk on this fascinating topic this Thursday (18:30) at the Natural History Museum! @klivvvienna.bsky.social

1/4. On the White House’s theory, if they abduct you, get you on a helicopter, get to international waters, shoot you in the head, and drop your corpse into the ocean, that is legal, because it is the conduct of foreign affairs.

Deadline tomorrow, April 4th at 5:00pm! Apply & share!

Dr. Richard Youle was fired today. He is an eminent scientist who has done important work on brain diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s. Musk and Trump are stopping NIH research into cures, for diseases from cancer to Alzheimer’s. Americans did not vote for this.

Proud to be a signatory of this statement from 1900 members of NASEM: We call on the administration to cease its wholesale assault on U.S. science, and we urge the public to join this call. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

"5. Remember professional ethics.

Blown away by this paper on body size variation among 11,264 (!!!) measured plethodontid salamanders over an elevational gradient. Super surprised to see that it is not temperature that has the main explanatory role, but mostly humidity and precipitation 🧪🦎 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

How the regime follows Project 2025’s radical roadmap to defund science. Much of the regime's agenda for research is laid out in the 900-plus-page blueprint. Nature read it so you don’t have to" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Working with an interdisciplinary team, we have developed a website to communicate how the White House's proposed cuts to health research would cause losses of $16B and 68,500 jobs. Find out how your community may be impacted. Explore more at SCIMaP: scienceimpacts.org a 🧵

ICB's How Do We Measure the Cost of Whole-Organism Performance Traits? Jerry F. Husak, Simon P. Lailvaux doi.org/10.1093/icb/... "We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of several potential #phenotypic measures of dynamic whole-#organism performance that may be used in life-history studies..."

One thing that made the US a powerhouse in the 20th century were networks of government support for education & research in all the regions of the country There was this idea that people across our country deserved access to the best knowledge & services we could provide with our pooled resources

A Future Made in Australia … as long as no new knowledge is needed.

Trump and Musk are going after Columbia for "antisemitism" and Hopkins for "DEI" and Penn for "trans spts". Why those issues? Because this is the start of an authoritarian soft takeover of ALL universities. Those issues are just politically convenient because they draw some support from Dems. 1/