Calling all past, present, and future users of PLASIM-GENIE! We are looking into launching a user group to facilitate easier access to support when setting up and running the model. We would like input on what would work best, so please get in touch here or on email! bryony.blades@open.ac.uk

On my way to the Life and Planet meeting in London. Looking forward to a few days discussing the co-evolution of life and Earth 🌍 Let me know if you’ll be there!

Making the most of being on campus today with a walk through the @openlivinglabs.bsky.social . Nothing like a bit of nature restoration to inspire. You can read more about it here: openliving-lab.open.ac.uk 🌳

Heard a cuckoo whilst walking the dog this morning! Always a treat

Amazing to see this orange-sided comb-horn (𝘊𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘴) in our suburban garden this week! A Nationally Notable species of true crane fly, it is usually found in the rotting wood of ancient woodlands.

"But AI is so useful". "It's so fun." "It's my therapist." "You will be left behind if you don't use it". "You're doing bad science not incorporating it". "It's the future." "It's inevitable."

Jay@pescado70.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Our warmest and wildest 100th birthday wishes to Sir David Attenborough, vice-patron of our Society. Today, we are celebrating Priam's Birdwing, which he said he would include in his "ark" to protect from extinction. This illustration is from E Donovan's "An Epitome of...Insects of India" (1800).

Sir David Attenborough… on your 100th birthday, we thank you. For a lifetime dedicated to the natural world, and for sharing its story with such grace and wonder. Generations have fallen in love with nature because of you. Happy birthday, Sir. 🎉

𝘊𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪 demonstrating its remarkable defensive behaviour near Mwinilunga, Zambia. When threatened, it raises its front and rear ends, exserts yellow flagellae from the latter, and flicks them above its body. More about the life and taxonomy of this cool moth: dx.doi.org/10.4314/met....

Now May is here, it’s time to pause the seed and peanut feeders and switch to safer summer feeding with small amounts of mealworms or suet. Remember, feeders can spread disease, so keeping them clean matters. Click the link below for our full guidance on keeping garden birds healthy year round 👇

RSPB@rspb.bsky.social · 4mo ago

To reduce disease, we all need to make some urgent but simple changes to how we feed our garden birds. See our website for the latest guidance: brnw.ch/21x1t4w

Yesterday, we were so pleased to host Prof. Dan Lunt @climatesamwell.bsky.social as a visiting speaker for our @ou-eees.bsky.social School Seminar Series. Thank you so much for your engaging talk on modelling climate through the Phanerozoic and the great discussions afterwards!

Barn owls and their ethereal beauty have been a favourite of mine ever since my parents adopted 'Dusty' from the @barnowltrust.bsky.social as a gift when I was a young child. What a bird.

Dr Ian McCormick@wokestudies.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Three young Barn Owls looking out of the quatrefoil of a church in North Norfolk."

A bit of a change from my normal posts, but my husband is leaving the Royal Marines and is looking for a role in cybersecurity and tech. The post speaks for itself (and I know I am biased), but he would be a real asset to any company. Please share and / or reach out if you have any opportunities.

On this day 2 years ago I was in Madrid listening to the fascinating and diverse work going on at @mncn-csic.bsky.social, including #biodiversity #data extraordinaire (and all-round lovely person) @cristinaronquillo.bsky.social talking about her work with species occurrence records.

It was a joy to listen to Prof. Ara Monadjem, recipient of the @royalsociety.org Africa Prize, let us know just how much we still don't know about African biodiversity, a topic I thought about a lot during my PhD. Highly recommend catching up on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-oE...

Can any birders suggest what I might be hearing making a call with three low, slow, descending notes? 1st note is slightly longer than the 2nd, which is slightly longer than the 3rd. It sounds like a little like a lower version of a golden-crowned sparrow (but I'm in Oxford, UK). #ukbirds #birdcalls

Just seen my first swallow of the year!

When I was scrolling through very quickly, I thought for a millisecond that this said “postdoctoral sandpiper”. Good for that bird getting its PhD! (Also lovely photo 😍)

Ken Marsh@alaskaken.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A male pectoral sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, inflates air sacs in its chest to draw mates in a wetland near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska. Pectoral sandpipers winter in South America and migrate north to Alaska each spring to nest and rear young. #birds #birding #BirdPhotography #BirdsSeenIn2026

"under the existing laws, our analysis shows that the expected growth in data centers would lead to $118 billion in climate damages and $1.6 billion in health damages by 2050 due to air pollution and emissions from fossil fuel power plants in Michigan" blog.ucs.org/lee-shaver/a...

🎓 My PhD thesis is now available online at dx.doi.org/10.5287/ora-... ! If you're interested in anything biogeography, dung beetles, biodiversity data quality, landscape genomics, the Afrotropics, etc. etc. please have a read! Would love to discuss with anyone who has questions. 🪲🌍

Unsurprisingly, yet more news of AI misinformation. Google’s AI summary providing tens of millions of incorrect answers every HOUR.

Futurism@futurism.com · 4mo ago

This is catastrophic.

The amount of times I've seen people replace a simple Google search with a ChatGPT search recently (requiring roughly 10-20 times more energy, apparently) is infuriating/crazy/insert other outraged adjective here, especially when it's so much more difficult to verify the answers!!

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 4mo ago

Putting aside Sam Altman just continuing to emit huge lies constantly, this is an amazing example of what I mean when I talk about how GenAI is replacing *extremely low energy* digital tasks with *WAY WAY HIGHER ENERGY* replacements that *do not even work* Why TF is anyone using ChatGPT as a timer!

Oh look, more bad news about AI tools. The more we dig into these things the more we discover garbage like this. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

Hundreds of millions of people live close enough to data centres used to power AI to feel warmer average temperatures in their local area

AI data centres can warm surrounding areas by up to 9.1°C

Hundreds of millions of people live close enough to data centres used to power AI to feel warmer average temperatures in their local area

newscientist.com

That these patterns have been preserved almost 100 million years blows my mind!

Royal Society Publishing@royalsocietypublishing.org · 4mo ago

New Burmese amber fossils reveal ancient forms of scale and wing pattern of the family Mogoplistidae Costa, 1855 (Orthoptera, Grylloidea) royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... | #ProcB #Evolution #Palaeontology #Taxonomy

In Zambia a few years ago, we were looking for dung beetles, but we did find some colourful lepidopteran friends as well (Gonimbrasia petiveri, I believe)! A nice parallel to the lovely photos I'm seeing of British moths and butterflies as they emerge.

Fascinating article in yesterday evening's Nature Briefing on how we're no longer getting enough red light and the potential health benefits of red-light therapy. All the more reason to get outside and enjoy the first signs of spring! www.nature.com/articles/d41...