I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

50+ scientific societies sign letter objecting to Aug 7 Trump executive order. Letter urges Congress to take action to safeguard integrity of independent peer-review system. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Thank you, @joshjohnsoncomedy.bsky.social, for bringing the Flowers Tour to Urbana, IL. I laughed a lot, and just as importantly, I felt uplifted by the energy and enthusiasm of the people around me - we all needed each other after a tough week, when we kept wondering, "Is this really happening?"

Battle doomscrolling by posting 5 small pleasures in life: 1. Cup of Blue Mountain coffee 2. My guy giving me a head massage 3. Beef patties on the beach 4. Zacappa rum (hold the ice) 5. Dutch vanille vla

Adrienne Rich on why an education is something you claim, not something you get www.themarginalian.org/2014/05/21/c...

Pushed out by Trump, New Jersey ecologist launches bid for Congress | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

She doesn’t need a hero, she is the hero we need. 🤩

What gif pops up when you type your name? Some days I feel this tone of derision of my inner voice quite strongly.

On Fri Aug 22nd, we're mothing for a *cause*. Norris Square has a dedicated group of volunteers that has helped the park become what it is today. They're raising money for a bulletin board! This moth night is a bulletin board benefit 😎 Come mothing AND support a Philly park! lu.ma/aafm15it

Contact your congress critters pls. This covers several areas of medical entomology, not just tick-borne diseases 🦟

of interest for the 🦟 feed: “Wednesday, August 20, is World Mosquito Day! We'll encourage Congress to support the reauthorization of the Kay Hagan Tick Act to address Vector-Borne Diseases carried by ticks and other blood-feeding vectors like mosquitos.”

Get ready to #EntVocate during Entomology Advocacy Week, August 18-22! Don’t miss the kickoff webinar next Monday, August 18 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Our panel of entomology advocates will share why and how to get involved at the local, state, and federal levels. Register: www.entsoc.org/events/webin...

Love this by @bug-gwen.bsky.social on the MASSIVE new stick insect scientists have found. We often ignore things that don't stick out! Stick? Out? Get it? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The quiet before the storm. #entvocate #entomology #insects With @insects247.bsky.social Buggapalooza at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago.

This week I'm celebrating 30 years of marriage (easy!) and 30 years at the University of Illinois! (wow!) The latter achievement comes with a "free" gift. There were some nerdy gift options... Reader, she went with the liquor decanter & glasses. No one is surprised. #WeAreRumPeople

Insect Advocacy Week is coming up! (August 18-22) @entsocamerica.bsky.social link below. Talk to your colleagues and friends ahead of the #EntVocate events. Maybe you can collaborate on some of the priorities and thus be more effective? entsoc.org/advocacy-ini...

New giant stick insect just dropped 😍 www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

Why stop now? #Euros25

“Tell me you’re European, without telling me you’re European”. #TeamPapaya #LeTour #SummerSundayMornings

Click Beetle In Da Club. 🕺 #Science #ItsComplicated

Confession time: he probably was my first celebrity crush. Rust zacht George Kooymans. Thanks for the music.

"To retreat from [diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts] is to close the door to possibilities for better science and a better future. This is not the time to step back. It’s unquestionably the time to step forward," writes Agustín Fuentes in a new #ScienceExpertVoices article. scim.ag/4kS8ZQi

A bulging buff beauty of a Poplar Hawk in today's otherwise fairly quiet trap #teammoth #mothsmatter

“In about the last hundred years, at least 80 percent of Dutch butterflies have disappeared.” (Article - with gorgeous visuals - in Dutch)

Looking forward to my Midtown Greenway ride the next time I’m in Minneapolis. This will definitely be one of the stops.

Can we please leave insects out of this? Us humans are doing a fine job as a species tearing down all that’s good & needed. In fact, we can learn lots from insects: how to make better decisions, how to collaborate, how to build stuff, how to make things move, how to use energy efficiently, etc.

Fascinating thread.

My brain hurts bc: 1. Trying to understand budget disaster 2. To feed brain, I'm reading Butler's "Parable of the Talents". Concl: We're currently ahead of PofT's 2032 SciFi world. 3. To relax brain, decided to watch "Idiocracy". Didn't work. Looks like IRL we are 500 yrs ahead of movie's world.

Great article on the rippling effects of ongoing insect declines. "People may not be motivated to save the insects for their own sake, but a world without insects is a world without birds. It’s a world where nature offers no song to the rising sun." 🪲🪳🐦 🌎 www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

Just gonna keep skeeting about amazing insects, while inside I rage. Meet the moths that use the stars to find their way economist.com/science-and-...

Vertebrated artists (unfortunate) Use one piece to convince people to follow you!

Nice explainer by my Congress rep for why rural hospitals are so vulnerable. Thank you!

If you’re, I don’t know, a health secretary, who would like to know how miasma theory made way for germ theory, I wrote this for you: asm.org/articles/201...

June evening in Central Illinois. ❤️💡Last night the trees seemed to be lit by holiday lights. An amazing sight. (Sound up!) (iPhone cannot really do the firefly spectacle justice, but I wanted to share this awe-inspiring experience during these bleak times. Find some peace outside, my dear friends.)

WE DID IT, FOLKS A song for the entomologists of the USDA m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYSI...

Isopod facts

It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand the meaning of this headline. Are other entomologists equally confused, or just me? (Glad everyone is Ok, and that none of the 200 flies were hurt in (my imagined) experiment.)

Dit plaatje laat duidelijk zien dat de meeste aandacht uitgaat naar de groepen die het kleinst maar het aaibaarst zijn. Terwijl veel van de andere soorten juist het fundament zijn van ecosystemen en de hele voedselketen. (1/4) nos.nl/artikel/2568...

Just over a week left to apply for this. Please get the word out there and tell your students :)

I have two options: gain back the weight (which I worked hard to lose during these past stressful times) or start smoking.

If you think COVID vaccines should continue to be available to all: take 5 min and add your comments at the link below. (Advice for what to say in the linked thread.)

The comment period for this ends in 3 DAYS. Please leave a comment telling them EVERYONE should be able to get covid boosters. www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

Do you like apples? Do you eat almonds? DOGE’d USDA’s honeybee programs could spell disaster for farmers of these crops (and many more) and for beekeepers, Joanna Thompson reports.

Nice "explainer" by ABCLab MS student. His research chapters on "electric moths" will be published later this year.

This is the same neighbor who wrote the best/worst song about periodical cicadas. I love my Urbana neighborhood. youtu.be/IU0GgUAOOJM?...

My neighbor makes awesome musical instruments. This one is my favorite.

Last week the Calstate Northridge Faculty Senate passed a resolution I led, objecting to the CSU's adoption of ChatGPT Edu as undermining our educational goals and misusing scarce funds, calling for the CSU to drop the $16.9 million subscription live-csu-northridge.pantheonsite.io/sites/defaul...

I am thinking a lot today about how heavy things feel in my world of faculty doing scientific research. There's the immediate chaos and panic about our ability to pay people and continue our research. But there's also a deeper grief at watching everything get bulldozed for no reason