Happy birthday to Charles Darwin, patron saint of tired scientists, grumpy fieldworkers, and hating your own manuscript.

🤔Looking to make your #code more #reproducible? Check out our new and improved guide to Reproducible Code! 🧪🌍️ Find it here👇️ buff.ly/10TeNok @nhcooper123.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org

New pronoun labeler to replace the one that went down! Subscribe to it to see others’ labeled pronouns when you interact with them (rather than having to search their profile) Choose your own pronoun label by liking the correct post in the labelers’ pinned thread (instruction thread here):

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

It's MSCA results day. Congrats to all the successful applicants! Commiserations to those (including those I supported) who didn't make the cut. It was so competitive this year, even more than usual (>96.8% cut-off!). Be proud of your work and treat yourself to consolation cake/beverage/walk.

heated rivalry new season

We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT

Reminder: if anyone, particular ECRs, is interested in helping to refresh the Data Management booklet, please get in touch ASAP. Details of how to get involved in the thread below. @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org.

Excited about this. We're busy putting together and in person day at the Crick on the 21st April so block out the day in your diary now! #LNDOpenFest26

I'm giving two talks in London-- one today, one tomorrow! Research is a Land Relation 3 February 2026, 5-6.30pm, LSE, OLD 3.24 www.lse.ac.uk/geography-an... Counting across worlds IAS Common Ground, G11, South Wing UCL Wednesday, Feb 4 from 5 pm to 7 pm www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/counting-a...

Happy abseiling lesbians day to all who celebrate!!!

📣 registration for the rainbowR conference is now live 🎉 The conference is for anyone interested in R and/or analysing data to understand LGBTQ+ issues. The majority of speakers and workshop leaders are LGBTQ+, but you do not have to be LGBTQ+ to attend. pretix.eu/rainbowr/con... #RStats #LGBTQ

I got to use some really special specimens for this one. Only 10 specimens of greasefish exist! And the poor Christmas Island shrew is now extinct but this one was collected when there were so many, and they were so noisy, they kept people awake at night!

New episode today is ELUSIVE! @nhcooper123.bsky.social and @joshlukedavis.com share stories of strange fishes, noisy shrews, and mysterious trees www.youtube.com/watch?v=eORr... 🐟🌲🐀. In case there is any doubt, we do not recommend using any animals as candles...🕯️

Some initial reactions to the 'published on a Sunday afternoon' letter from the CEO of UKRI. 🧵 www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

I was a postdoc at Harvard (in human evolutionary biology) from 2010 to 2012 and it’s grim how many men I interacted with during that time are popping up in the Epstein files trying to prove disgusting evo-psych theories about women *shudder*.

For those just realizing how right I was about creeps like Lawrence Krauss & Richard Dawkins, you should know that I’m also right about good guys like Robin.

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

Less than a month to apply to join the BES editorial board as an Associate editor!🌳🌍 📖 If you're interested in contributing to any of the BES journals, check out the link below 👇 buff.ly/6ymRGcB

Cleansing image macaulaylibrary.org/asset/517971...

Link here action.goodlawproject.org/stop-sex-mat...

thecosmicshamblesnetwork.substack.com/p/a-difficul... a slight and far from full explanation on one of their silencing stories

When @joshlukedavis.com and @nhcooper123.bsky.social come to town, it's always a joy. Winston the Black Swan and I ended up giving each other some serious side eye. Stay tuned in June for the pod...

What do we know about mammal biodiversity patterns in the American tropics? Find out in the new book chapter by @liomys.mx and yours truly 👇 link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/... The whole book is a gem for those interested in the study of mammals of one of the world's most diverse regions!

Together with the @royalsociety.org, we invite applications for the International Fellowships 2026. The scheme supports international early career researchers in advancing their expertise through collaborations with UK partners. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3LaMIBC

So much fun chatting with Josh and Natalie for this podcast in this brilliant #podcast series! If you like monkeys with “trousers”, blue minerals, blancmange references, pufferfish and botanical art you won’t be disappointed 🤣 #collections #art #museumcolleagues #history #lovemyjob

One day I’ll learn to describe things without also doing the actions 🐡

Time for ARTISTIC! This week featuring special guest @andreahart.bsky.social from @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social who shares some incredible stories from our collections. m.youtube.com/watch?v=nVTU...

Oh hell yes

This was a very interesting read: An untold story in biology: the historical continuity of evolutionary ideas of Muslim scholars from the 8th century to Darwin's time 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

📢 Hello! Slightly unusual request from me, buttt we're likely to need a freelance writer to produce some content in Feb & Mar for the NHM's 'Find Your Climate Action' tool. If you've experience writing about the climate and inspiring action, please send me a message! www.nhm.ac.uk/take-part/fi...

A typical reaction “but if the government bow to prisoners being held indefinitely without trial, then simply everyone will go on a 71 day hunger striker to the point of death to get what they want”

This is a great group to get involved with. Particularly looking for ECRs and people based outside the Uk to apply. But everyone welcome!

Are you into macroecology and/or macroevolution? Want to make our field a better place? Please consider joining the BES Macro SIG Committee! We're currently recruiting for a vice chair and ordinary member(s). More info and how to apply (deadline Jan 20th!): mcusercontent.com/a9537304d9bd...

This seems like a really great initiative! If you know any Trans scientists who might be interested in joining a broader community, please pass along! transscientistcollective.carrd.co

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

African lioness 'Semira' playing football #PaigntonZoo #lioness #mammals

This week's episode is WILD. Enjoy @nhcooper123.bsky.social explaining how incredibly complex and amazing biology can be, and @joshlukedavis.com sharing some wild stories of some of his favourite species. A nice Mediterranean thread running through this too! www.youtube.com/watch?v=prVe... 🐘 🐝🥬🐜.

I spend a fair amount of time talking about this amazing ant paper from last year: www.nature.com/articles/s41... where the females produce offspring of two different species! Wild! 🐜

After last year's successful refresh of the BES Reproducible Code guide (www.britishecologicalsociety.org//wp-content/...), this year we're going to refresh the Data Management guide (www.britishecologicalsociety.org//wp-content/...). Exciting! See below for how to get involved...

💡 If you care about transparency, rigour, and equity in science, join SORTEE! You can join for free if you like, no questions asked, and your support really helps us a lot 💙 👉 sortee.org/join/ Find more about why in the link #OpenScience #SORTEE

📖Published📖 Carter et al. present tidypopgen, a new R package for population genetic analysis of SNP data which combines existing methods for computational efficiency with an easy to use object structure 🧬 🌍 🧪 buff.ly/huubYjs

I wrote a resignation speech that Stewart Lee thought was too long — STEWART LEE! TOO LONG! The cheek of it Read about it here thecosmicshamblesnetwork.substack.com/p/a-difficul...

2025 has been a good year for the taxonomic work I have been involved with 13 new 🐸 4 new 🦎 1 new 🐍 Some of the species are covered in this article by @joshlukedavis.com

Our scientists have been busy this year! From dinosaurs to diatoms, they have helped to describe an amazing 262 new species from all around the world! 🪸🐠🦎🦋🪱 Read more about this year’s new species list 👇🏻 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

pour one out to an icon www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

We are recruiting several PhD students. If you are interested in conservation conflicts, population ecology, quantitative ecology, or biodiversity, check these projects out (links in the thread, feel free to reach out):

🎄Merry Christmas everyone🎄 If you're lying in a food coma and need some entertainment, then look no further! Me and @nhcooper123.bsky.social filmed a fun-filled festive episode with singer rather special specimens 🍄🪱🦆 youtu.be/ekkC636bC34?...

Merry Christmas! If you need a distraction today please enjoy our rambles (also on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts). 🎄🎄🎄