"The lesson: stay the hell away from AI.”

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 5d ago

I've written a longer piece on the book that's been pulled due to "AI" use allegations, what that means particularly for newer authors, and what, if anything writers can do in the "AI" era to prove their work is their own: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/31/a...

Absolutely stunning images from @schmidtocean.bsky.social's expedition 800 miles off Brazil. 🌊🐟🐙🌎 They discovered 2 hydrothermal vent fields, recorded 2 bigfin squid, & captured the first footage of a species of barreleye fish. Read the release and see the footage: schmidtocean.org/the-doldrums...

Pseudotriakis microdon @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 954 #deepwonders #MarineLife

Bathynomus @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 954 #deepwonders #MarineLife

I've been enjoying @outsidemag.bsky.social classics -- a round up of their best stories of all time. This cave diving story is one of the most gripping, moving articles I've ever read. @earthist.bsky.social's ability to bring us into that cave is unmatched. 🌊 www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adve...

Horrible new bullshit from the sea every time. It’s never ‘oh we found a new pink fish that is so happy’ it’s always stuff like this, the crush-depth screw-headed dongwongler, and it’s got to have big long creepy bits. Sick of the ocean tbh.

🚨Not one, but two Magnapinna squid! 🚨 the #doldrums team observed 2 elusive Magnapinna sp., commonly known as bigfin squid, at approximately 4,300 m (about 2.7 miles). Magnapinna is the deepest-dwelling squid. Sightings of these animals are extremely rare — seeing two in one dive is extra exciting!

Use BRUVS? Our new study uses barracuda spots to check independence among BRUVS. TLDR; sometimes we saw same fish on different cameras but BRUVS 500m apart can be considered independent. But count individuals rather than using MaxN if you can! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @fiu.bsky.social

Our family horse is obsessed with cake! He gets a cupcake (or two) every year on his birthday. #horsesdeservecaketoo

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2mo ago

Perhaps the greatest newspaper editorial of all time theonion.com/i-work-very-...

With deep sea corals, as with real estate, location is everything. In my new piece for NOAA NCCOS we highlight some incredible new models that help us predict where deep corals might be found in the Gulf, allowing for targeted restoration. 🌊🦑🧪 Read it here: coastalscience.noaa.gov/news/where-i...

Where in the Gulf are Deep Sea Corals? How Models are Supporting Deep Coral Restoration - NCCOS - National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

With deep sea corals, as with real estate, location is everything. To thrive, corals need the right combination of seafloor substrate, depth, slope, and structure, and finding these habitat sweet spot...

coastalscience.noaa.gov

It's great to see this paper out in Animal Conservation @zslofficial.bsky.social! We show that prey availability is an important correlate of shark abundance and hence the need for a holistic management approach. doi.org/10.1111/acv.... Read more at @fiu.bsky.social news news.fiu.edu/2026/sharks-...

The Need to Manage Prey Fish Biomass to Support Shark Conservation

Along with reducing exploitation, maintaining prey abundance may also be important for increasing populations of upper trophic-level predators, but we typically have little information on their prey ....

doi.org

Excited to share The Incredible Octopus won the 2026 Delaware Diamond Book Award in the 3-5 grade category! The students vote for the winners, which makes this extra special. So happy they enjoyed learning about the weird & wonderful octopus 🐙 www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/erin-... 🦑🌊📚

Playing around with motivational plant posters this weekend

Horrible, horrible news out of USF marine lab. Thankfully, no one is believed to be injured. But the fire today likely "total loss" -- thinking of all our colleagues who are grappling with the loss of their labs, gear, samples, and their research "home" 🐟🌍🌊🐙 www.tampabay.com/news/educati...

Fire breaks out at USF St. Pete Marine Science Lab. Building likely ‘total loss’

More than 60 units and 200 firefighters were called to the scene.

tampabay.com

Today is One Tribe One Day, @wm.edu's annual day of giving. I am excited to support the Institute for Integrative Conservation, all gifts today support the Conservation Research Program that funds student teams working on real-world conservation challenges. 🌍🌊🐟 donate.wm.edu/schools/Will...

Institute for Integrative Conservation

Join me and make a gift to One Tribe One Day 2026

donate.wm.edu

New fish news: Salmon on cocaine swim 1.9x further than those not on cocaine (!?!) An example of how human habits can affect fish & other marine organisms. 🧪🐟🌊🌍 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Cocaine pollution alters the movement and space use of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in a large natural lake

Brand et al. show that environmentally realistic benzoylecgonine exposure increases movement and dispersal of Atlantic salmon smolts in a natural lake. Exposed fish swam and dispersed farther than con...

cell.com

Florida wildlife officials are trying to determine who scattered hundreds of toxic mothballs Monday across a stretch of St. Pete Beach near a colony of protected black skimmers that had gathered near the dunes. 🌍🌊 @tampabaytimes.bsky.social @maxchesnes.bsky.social www.tampabay.com/news/environ...

Hundreds of mothballs scattered on St. Pete Beach. Wildlife officials are investigating

A wildlife officer on the case believes they were placed across the beach to deter protected birds from nesting.

tampabay.com

Great hammerhead sharks outperform the curve journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Great hammerhead sharks outperform the curve

An animal's body temperature controls all sorts of processes, from how they digest food to how fast their muscles contract. Marine creatures that rely on the temperature of their surroundings to…

journals.biologists.com

Great hammerheads maintain peak hunting across wide temperature swings, biologging data suggest: New research published in the _Journal of Experimental Biology_ reveals that great hammerhead sharks exhibit remarkable "thermal hustle," maintaining peak hunting performa… https://ranked.news/470836?u=b

Biologging data indicate great hammerhead sharks maintain high hunting performance across a broad range of ocean temperatures, suggesting notable thermal flexibility compared to other predators. doi.org/hbvhnf

Great hammerheads maintain peak hunting across wide temperature swings, biologging data suggest

Most predators slow down when ocean temperatures shift. Great hammerhead sharks don't—not significantly anyway. These ocean predators are masters of the "thermal hustle," maintaining peak hunting performance across a surprisingly wide range of ocean temperatures between winter and summer months, according to new research published this week in Journal of Experimental Biology.

phys.org

Thermal performance and activation energy explain flexible thermal habitat use in great hammerhead sharks journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...

Thermal performance and activation energy explain flexible thermal habitat use in great hammerhead sharks

Highlighted Article: Performance data from great hammerhead sharks indicate a thermal optimum of 29.3°C; however, they have low activation energies compared with other large sharks, enabling high…

journals.biologists.com

"It’s a bright spot on the moon,” CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen said, his voice breaking up, “and we would like to call it Carroll.” The crew all shared a hug after. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/s...

Astronauts Dedicate Moon Crater to Carroll Wiseman, Wife of NASA Commander

nytimes.com

New piece from BBC wildlife about our recent publication looking at great hammerhead thermal performance 🌊🦑🧪🐟 www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts...

Researchers tracked 9 great hammerhead sharks off Florida and the Bahamas. Here's what they discovered | Discover Wildlife

Scientists wanted to learn more about how the largest hammerhead species on the planet may cope as the climate changes.

discoverwildlife.com

New paper out today! Using accelerometers to generate thermal performance curves in great hammerhead sharks. Their low activation energies may explain why they can perform well across seasons.

The final chapter of my PhD is published in Journal of Experimental Biology! And, we got the cover! We used biologgers to estimate great hammerheads' temperature “sweet spot.” We saw they can perform well at a range of temps, which supports observations from the field. (1/2) 🌊🦑🧪🐟

New article presents an image guide from trenches in the NW Pacific. It includes 100+ taxa and is a way to ID organisms in future biodiversity studies. See examples below, including chordates, arthropods, and "rarities and peculiarities." Read it here: bdj.pensoft.net/article/1821... 🌊🦑🐟🧪

Absolutely spectacular images from @schmidtocean.bsky.social's recent expedition in Argentina. The team documented the largest known Bathelia candida coral reef (nearly the size of the Vatican!) and 28 suspected new species. Learn more in their expedition recap: schmidtocean.org/argentinas-d... 🌊🦑🧪🐟

New study quantifies the impacts of mining on deep sea organisms. Researchers found: 🪱number of organisms decreased by 37% in mining tracks ⚖️number of species decreased by 32% in mining tracks, making the remaining community more unbalanced Read the paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌊🦑🧪

Impacts of an industrial deep-sea mining trial on macrofaunal biodiversity - Nature Ecology & Evolution

A species-level dataset of sediment-dwelling macrofauna, sampled 2 years before and 2 months after a test of a commercial deep-sea mining machine, reveals losses of macrofaunal density and species ric...

nature.com

What can you do to helpt turn climate change around? 🌱 Use GIS! 🌐 Register for our free course and learn how. We'll provide all the data and software you need: ow.ly/r4lf50Y6zUz #gischat #geogsky #geosky 🧪 🦑 ⚒️ 🌊 🌎 🌍 🌏