Donald Trump wants to use your tax dollars to pay off January 6th rioters who beat cops with flag poles, and the GOP at large has nothing to say about it. They don't care, it's that simple.

A juvenile Red-tailed Hawk enjoying a meal close to the path. The parents are still bringing in food while the young ones learn to hunt.

Sustained investment in specimen-based taxonomic research is key to moving towards effective conservation. iucn.org/news/202607/...

Magic traits, search costs, and the persistence of species in secondary contact Jack R. Farley, Darren Irwin bioRxiv 2026.07.23.740407 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Magic traits, search costs, and the persistence of species in secondary contact

When two populations come into secondary contact, assortative mating can act as a barrier to gene flow. However, when assortative mating is incomplete, associations between preference and cue loci can...

biorxiv.org

Say's Phoebe landing in pleasant evening light

Phylogeny, classification, and evolutionary history of Neogastropoda: doi.org/10.1093/zool... #evolution #phylogenetics #systematics #mollusca

Say hello to Quentin’s Diamond Frog, Rhombophryne quentini. 🧪🐸 #NewSpecies

hammertail robberfly on Mojave Yucca, single shot I've found that robbers like Yuccas, and have simultaneously discovered that getting stabbed by these hurts, for a long while have recently taken to sliding my clarity to the left in my LR macro post-processing ... kinda liking the look

A old-timer's concern about science as a chronic social medium, leading to the advice to spend time alone with nature and ideas. waynemaddison.wordpress.com/2026/07/25/s...

Science like no one is watching

I grew up largely unwatched. As children, David and I would go out and play unsupervised, free-range. We would go down to the ravine to explore nature. It was fun, but more than that, I think it wa…

waynemaddison.wordpress.com

"Scientific systems rarely collapse through a single dramatic event. They decline incrementally: one technician dismissed, one laboratory left unrepaired, one instrument taken out of service, one young scientist deciding to build a career elsewhere." physicsworld.com/a/letter-fro... ⚛️🧪

Letter from Argentina: 'an empty desk and an idle electron microscope signal the erosion of the country's science' – Physics World

Faramarz S Gard laments the decline of Argentine science

physicsworld.com

Arthropod Photo of the Week: July 22, 2026 Dancing white lady spider Leucorchestris arenicola Araneae: Sparassidae Observed in Gobabeb, Namibia By Brent Sinclair (coldbugs.com), New York, USA #arthropodPOTW

Unrequited spider love This is a pair of flea jumping spiders (Naphrys pulex). I found the male first, on a pine tree, and he led me to the female. He was on the hunt for a mate, but she was more interested in a meal than company Ultimately, he lived to woo another day, so I'd still call it a win

Congratulations to @samjakeengland.bsky.social for his @currentbiology.bsky.social cover😍after @atal-pande.bsky.social's new paper! This leggy fren is a wolf spider (Pardosa) featuring in several projects in @multipleye-lab.bsky.social, so it's lovely to see her getting the limelight she deserves 💃

Current Biology@currentbiology.bsky.social · 2w ago

Arachnophobes, avert your eyes! NEW issue just dropped🕷️👇 www.cell.com/current-biol... As usual, casting a wide net, across all of biology!🧬 🕸️

It may be surprising to some that there are thousands of undescribed species just sitting in museums awaiting description. One of the main reasons this problem exists is that taxonomy is undervalued and underfunded, a trend that coincides with the devaluing of studies on natural history.

🌿🐙 I got back Friday after 5 days in Lincoln, NE, at the American Arachnological Society annual meeting. It was my first scientific conference. I have had a not-great 2026, and while some might not think a week full of spiders & scorpions would be good for the soul, it healed mine. To a person--

Yesterday the US Administration supercharged its explicit effort to bar international students from staying in the US after graduation. All Americans should know: 1/3 of *all* STEM PhDs working in the US are immigrants who graduated from US universities, then stayed. www.piie.com/index%2Ephp/...

The little volcanic plug habitat island that sits in the middle of California’s Sacramento Valley. So many amazing disjunct populations there. Great example of how a very small habitat patch provides a disproportionate number of unique biogeographic insights

California Landscapes@calandscapebot.bsky.social · 3w ago

Sutter Buttes, Sutter County, CA 🗺39.2055, -121.8205 🧭49° ⛰2001 ft https://ops.alertcalifornia.org/cam-console/1738

🐠 Without a doubt, Museum Collections help us study human impact on wildlife. Dr. Bill Ludt, Associate Curator of Ichthyology, shares the ongoing microplastic research which samples specimens from the 1940s to present.

Scientific fashions, perfectionisms, and the value of traditional morphological taxonomy. #evolbio #philsci 🧪 waynemaddison.wordpress.com/2026/07/16/s...

Scientific fashions, perfectionisms, and the value of traditional morphological taxonomy

Like any conversation, science goes through wave after wave of fashion. One decade, it will be all the rage to study one type of question, and to shun sloppiness of one kind but tolerate another. A…

waynemaddison.wordpress.com

this little fellow struck me as quite arrogant, for some reason ...

Hey team - it’s looking very likely that I’ll be hiring not one but two four year postdocs! We’re a fun lab with tons of theoretical and applied pop gen projects - broadly in polyploid, conservation, and human evo. Competitive salary, sunny San Diego! Do share with your about to defend grads!

Scoville units. Nightshades. Hot ones. Sweet ones. Scandalous data. Burning remedies. Weird history. It's #Capsicumology (🫑CHILE PEPPERS🌶️) with The Chileman himself, Dr. Paul Bosland of @nmsu.edu. Also: I abuse myself with Ashes 2 Ashes. A BANGER, folks. www.alieward.com/ologies/caps...

Capsicumology (CHILE PEPPERS) with Dr. Paul Bosland — alie ward

Scoville units. Nightshades. Hot ones. Sweet ones. Scandalous data. Pull up a seat for a wild, hot ride through New Mexico. Pepper expert, horticulturist, and Capsicumologist Dr. Paul “The Chileman” B...

alieward.com

was happy to see flowering white sage on July 4, and capture this nice Bombus in action. I guess that it's pollinating, and not nectar thieving ..

🧪 Physiology is a hidden dimension of diversity in the radiation of woodland salamanders | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Physiology is a hidden dimension of diversity in the radiation of woodland salamanders | PNAS

Morphological evolution can be explosive, producing visually spectacular adaptive radiations like Caribbean anoles, Malagasy vangas, and African Ri...

pnas.org

Awesome new American cavefish! New genus and species just under our noses and feet Surprising cryptic cavefish diversity in a long-studied karst cave ecosystem of northern Alabama Niemiller et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Surprising cryptic cavefish diversity in a long-studied karst cave ecosystem of northern Alabama - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Surprising cryptic cavefish diversity in a long-studied karst cave ecosystem of northern Alabama

nature.com

robber flies are always wringing their little foretarsi together .... "who shall I capture next ...."

Harsh critics

Here it is! 4.2 billion years in the making - Evolution. I had the privilege to be part of an incredible team who brought these stories to life. And of course, I got to look after a whole new host of delightful creatures - can't wait for you to meet them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG8s...

Evolution: Official Trailer | BBC Earth Science

YouTube video by BBC Earth Science

youtube.com

was happy to get this close to a flower-visiting Ammophila ... I typically find them quite fast & skittish around flowers check the excellent brushes on leg I, for their nests in often sandy soils 5 eyes, come on now ....

serious pollination party going on here ... Anza Borrego Desert State Park