Echo chambers Inaccuracy tolerance LLMs replacing search engines & encyclopedias ... and other possible effects of creeping normality of AI. #AcademicSky

Alan McElligott@amcell.bsky.social · 3d ago

2026. The creeping normality of AI in the life sciences. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🧪 🐵🫂

Ailie McWhinnie@ailiemcwhinnie.bsky.social · 2w ago

Chimps and bonobos hug and hold hands just like us, easing tension in anticipation of competition. It's hard to be mad following a hug! www.science.org/content/arti...

🧪 Investigate biodiversity in urban green spaces 🎓 Support graduate access 🦊 Take videos of cute species Just a regular day in the office at @ox.ac.uk ♥️ @biodivoxford.bsky.social #academicsky

Oxford Lifelong Learning, University of Oxford@lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk · 2w ago

Hazel, our UNIQ+ intern, is working on a collaborative project between Ecological Survey Techniques and Sustainable Urban Development, looking at urban green spaces and how they support biodiversity. As a part of this, she set up some camera traps in one of the gardens, capturing this little visitor

Read my book, remain scarred for life. I present the tongue-eating louse. 🧪 😝 👀

Oxford Lifelong Learning, University of Oxford@lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk · 3w ago

Louse got your tongue? 😝 Enjoy this horrifying fish fact from @joannabagniewska.com to start your weekend... Joanna's book The Modern Bestiary is available online from most bookshops. #EnvironmentalScience #Bookstagram #Bookish #OxfordLifelongLearning #OxfordUni

Geologists have a higher death rate in movies than Sean Bean 💀 Of the 202 geologists in 141 movies released between 1919 and 2023, 69 die or are found dead, resulting in mortality rate of about a third. Movie geologists were mainly male, white and in khaki. 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Geologists on the silver screen—the sequel

As geologists, our interest is piqued when geological processes—with varying degrees of accuracy—are portrayed in movies and especially when a geologist unexpectedly appears on screen, even in a mino...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Orangutans are solitary species, so, theoretically, opportunities for early socialisation are scarce. What do orangutan mums do? They go out of their way to arrange playdates for their kids. Research by @oddjacobson.bsky.social @bjjbarrett.bsky.social et al: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪🌏🐵

Could be a good early stage #scicomm opportunity. #AcademicSky 🧪

The Linnean Society of London@linneansociety.bsky.social · last mo.

Call for Writers! 📣 Are you a student or early career researcher? Science communicator? Know someone who is? We're looking for our next round of Guest Bloggers for our journal blog The Paper Trail! Check out our vacancies page to apply, and read some of our latest posts here: buff.ly/7JVQmSx 🧪 🌍

It's been ten years since the #Brexit referendum. I'm still waiting to find a single positive thing that came out of it. Anyone? #academicsky

Do you know about the Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social? A great resource for nature-related collaborative work, with biodiversity literature and images made publicly available. www.biodiversitylibrary.org Drawing of a dusky titi monkey, from Description des mammifères. 🧪🌍🪶🦊

I will speak. It shall be entertaining. 🪧The Animal Butt Compendium: the ABC of Zoological Rear Ends 🍑From species that breathe through their bums, to those using their derrieres as weapons and ones that communicate through farting - there's something for everyone. 📆 1 Jul, London 🎟️ Tickets below.

Oh look, a girl spider, and her private bits look like the most adorable fox pawprint! 🐾 🦊 Yes, arachnologists spend way too much time looking at epigyne (🕷️ lady parts). Mammalogists, on the other hand, get excited when something looks like a track. 🧪

AJCann@ajcann.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My first Clubiona subtilis. Rare in #VC55. #Arachnids #Spiders

The Nature Festival is back, courtesy of @biodivoxford.bsky.social 🥬 Oxford folk, ready yourselves for the last week of June, with nature walks, talks, workshops and activities (including those from the @oxon-mammal-group.bsky.social). The programme caters to all ages. 🧪🌏 thenaturefestival.org

Home - The Nature Festival

A celebration of nature in Oxford. The Nature Festival is a collaborative, volunteer-led event celebrating nature in Oxford and the people working to protect and restore it. The festival’s main […]

thenaturefestival.org

Exciting stuff - British pounds are getting a revamp and will feature wildlife. You can pick two animals in each category (mammals, birds and what looks like "creatures without eyelashes"). Vote here until July 3: www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/he... 🧪💷🌏

Dear @rspb.bsky.social, why would you choose to use what looks like AI-slop in your marketing, instead one of the amazing pictures you have of actual, real birds? Blue tit chicks are nothing like this awful misrepresentation. I quit my membership over this. #AITA? 🪶🧪🌏

🪶 Birds masturbate. 🦜 This is normal, and not (as often is believed) a maladaptive behaviour only found in captivity. 🍑 Pet bird owners - chill, and let your budgie have some fun. 🧪 Study of masturbation in 120 bird species, by @matildabrindle.bsky.social: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Have you heard of OneZoom Tree of Life Explorer? It's a great tool for visualising how all biodiversity in the world is related. And since it's #BiodiversityDay, well... Find yourself a friend whose love language is "I sponsored a slime mold for you". www.onezoom.org 🧪🌏 🦊🐦🐝 #biodiversity

🧪 In a study, bumblebee queens were overwintered in refrigerated test tubes - but an experimental mishap led to four tubes accumulating water. 🐝 Now we know that bumblebee 👸 can survive being submerged for a week - which makes sense, because in the wild their burrows may get flooded. 🌍 #WorldBeeDay

🕷️You're a smallish spider with big decoy ambitions 🕸️You patiently weave bits and bobs into your web to camouflage yourself, or to appear bigger 🏵️Your elaborate web decorations (stabilimenta) are made of delicate silk What do you get called? A "TRASHLINE orb weaver". 🤦‍♀️ Arachnologists... 🧪🌍

Future conservationists - here's a FREE resource to get you started on your career. Launching your career in wildlife conservation - an online course training.wildteam.org.uk/course/launc... 🧪🌍🪶 #AcademicSky

Launching Your Career in Wildlife Conservation

From exploring the right role and building your competencies to preparing a strong application, performing at interview, and assessing an offer. This course can also be used as a training aid for anyo...

training.wildteam.org.uk

The first species to be named after David Attenborough (in 1993) is Attenborosaurus conybeari. The Attenborosaurus is an extinct marine reptile from the Early Jurassic. Over 50 species have been named after Sir David - who turns 100 today. Happy birthday! 🧪🦕🌍

Have you voted yet? @ianopolous.bsky.social and I have! #Oxford #election 🗳️

#academicsky 🧪

John C. Baez@johncarlosbaez.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Stanislaw Ulam on the dangers of too much concentration when working in cafes with Banach, Mazur and other mathematicians. This was the mathematical scene in pre-WW2 Poland - more specifically, Lwów. Then the Nazis invaded and exterminated many people. Now it's the Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Your name in Landsat, courtesy of NASA: science.nasa.gov/specials/you... Addictive. 🧪🛰️

It's #EarthDay, so here's an invite to a topical (and free!) event. 🥬Lessons in resilience: Nature, heritage and sustainability - a panel discussion 📆 6 May, 17.30-18.30 📍The Hub, @kelloggoxford.bsky.social What can nature and our shared past teach us about surviving change? Come and find out. 🧪

What larks! Howling mice, self-decapitating slugs and butt-poison-firing beetles. All in @joannabagniewska.com's modern bestiary and another cracking @pubsci.bsky.social.

IanVisits rates it one of the "Top things to do in London" tomorrow — so grab your ticket for @joannabagniewska.com's talk on beasts, bestiaries, and "crazy-but-true" creatures which wouldn't be out of place alongside the hippogriffs of a medieval manuscript! pubsci-april2026.eventbrite.co.uk

15th April – The Modern Bestiary with Joanna Bagniewska

Meet some of the weirdest, wildest, most wondrous living creatures that share this amazing planet with us!

pubsci-april2026.eventbrite.co.uk

Now, was the grebe hungry, or was it just sick of the chiffchaff yelling its own name over and over and over again? #birdsaredicks 🧪🪶🌍🐦

Megan Shersby@meganshersby.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A birdwatcher and photographer managed to capture the unusual behaviour of two great crested grebes hunting common chiffchaffs. The grebes would stealthily approach the chiffchaffs (hunting for inverts over the water's surface), catch one, drown it, then swallow it – albeit with difficulty.

The Modern Bestiary: like the medieval bestiary, but with less moralising and more wildlife. Also more butts, sex and grossness. I will be talking about bestiaries in general and The Modern Bestiary in particular at @pubsci.bsky.social in London on 15 Apr. Booking link below. #SciComm 🧪🪶🦊 #BookSky

These snakes are both more organized and more toxic than me: 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/thes...

These snakes steal poison from their prey—here's how they know they have enough

Snakes that gain poisons from eating toads seem to know when they’re toxic by keeping track of what they last ate

scientificamerican.com

📣 Call for writers! Are you an early career researcher? University student? Science communicator? Know someone who is? We're always looking for new Guest Bloggers to contribute to our journal blog The Paper Trail! Have a read below, or check out our vacancies page to apply. buff.ly/7IohkLQ