Monarch caterpillar nursery is open for business! Not pictured are one teeny caterpillar and one chrysalis. The 6 of these have all come from a single cluster of swamp milkweed that is a perennial favorite of the local monarchs.

Woke up to AQI nearing 1200 this morning in Duluth. Highest in the US again. Air quality all around the Great Lakes is awful this morning.

Air quality in Duluth is abysmal right now. AQI over 800 due to smoke from wildfires in the BWCA. Currently the highest AQI globally. Very smoky at the lab today, including inside the building. Can’t see Superior, despite being <500 feet from the shore.

🧵 New paper out in Global Ecology & Biogeography! 27 years of EPA & USGS fish and macroinvertebrate data across US rivers and streams. And re-introducing the associated R package, finsyncR. A resource years in the making. 🧪 doi.org/10.1111/geb....

27 Years of Freshwater Fish and Invertebrate Assemblage Data in the United States

Motivation United States federal biomonitoring programs assess the status of freshwater ecosystems using standardised sampling protocols. While most data from these efforts are publicly available, n...

doi.org

The 2026 Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics has been awarded to the R Project. #RStats www.rousseeuwprize.org/2026

Please don’t rely on this outdated @NYTimes article! Pitcher filters can’t reliably remove #PFAS from drinking water. Under-sink systems can, specifically reverse osmosis systems or multi-stage ones that involve carbon. 1/

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2mo ago

If you’re concerned about forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, in your tap water, you can take several practical steps. Even inexpensive pitcher filters can do the job. nyti.ms/4dCpW0U

The tech industry is gutting our public science infrastructure and hijacking the NSF to be their own R&D department. Not paying taxes is apparently not enough; they need both hands in our pockets. (There’s nothing wrong with funding those fields; it’s funding them only at the expense of others).

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

After USDA request, Indiana plant biologist locked out of lab by school

Move comes after Roger Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs

scim.ag

Losing hope is exactly what they want us to do. While the vote against the Boundary Waters is fresh on our minds, the work continues.    Headed to Greater Minnesota now to keep up the fight. We have so much to do to tackle corporate greed in areas like housing and health care.

From the new issue: scientists finally understand why birds were the only dinosaurs to pull through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

Why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive mass extinction

Scientists finally understand why birds were the only dinosaurs to pull through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

scientificamerican.com

NASA's Artemis II mission aims to send four astronauts around the moon on a roughly 10-day journey that could help pave the way toward a future lunar landing. n.pr/3PIci2C

NASA's Artemis II astronauts are hours away from moon launch. Watch it here

NASA's Artemis II mission aims to send four astronauts around the moon on a roughly 10-day journey that could help pave the way toward a future lunar landing.

n.pr

The is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled. A truly extraordinary moment. We aren't on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. Act like it.

Blizzard conditions continue to pummel Duluth and the North Shore, closing schools and knocking out power to thousands. The winter storm also prompted state transportation officials to close Highway 61 between Duluth and the Canadian border.

Highways and schools closed as blizzard conditions wallop Duluth, North Shore

Blizzard conditions continued to pummel Duluth and the North Shore on Wednesday, knocking out power to thousands and prompting state transportation officials to close Highway 61 between Duluth and the...

mprnews.org

An observer arrested in Suth Minneapolis. Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune

The RFK, jr effect.

"The Great Lakes Science Center in Michigan would lose 108 of 137 positions." via @eenews.bsky.social

E&E News: USGS science centers face Trump’s chopping block

Interior has indicated that it plans to lay off employees in science centers across the country, including deep cuts at some offices.

subscriber.politicopro.com

How #climatechange is reshaping fish communities in the United States as temperatures rise and non-native fishes proliferate: @ian-vaughan.bsky.social overviews recent extensive work by @rumschsl.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Changing water temperatures and human-driven introductions of fish have altered the composition of fish populations in streams and rivers across the USA over the past three decades, a study in Nature suggests. go.nature.com/47ZCcWH 🧪

Our research group just published a study in Nature on how fish biodiversity in U.S. rivers and streams has been changing over the past 27 years (1993–2019). The results show sharply diverging trends depending on historic and changing water temperature. 🧵 rdcu.be/eH0l8

Exciting collaboration with colleagues from the US and Frederik de Laender - lead by S. Rumschlag and Mike Mahon - on how climate change has lead to alterations in US fish diversity over the last decades. Paper just out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Diverging fish biodiversity trends in cold and warm rivers and streams - Nature

In the past three decades, fish abundance, richness and uniqueness have diverged across cold and warm streams, and the effects on native fish communities of stream warming and increases in introduced fishes have magnified each other.

nature.com

EPA has ordered scientists in its Office of Water to immediately pause almost all research & stop publishing studies. Researchers were told that, unless scientific journals had already returned proofs, studies will be subject to an additional EPA review. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

EPA tells scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say

Staff from the EPA’s Office of Water were summoned to a town hall meeting this week and told to pause the publication of most research, pending a review.

washingtonpost.com

Looking for a great photo of a freshwater fish (North American) to submit as a journal cover image for a manuscript on fish biodiversity trends! If you have one you’d be willing to share (with credit, of course!), please reach out. 🎣📸 #fishphoto #freshwaterfish #scicomm

NEW: per multiple sources, apparently there may be punishment/retaliation coming for EPA employees who signed the Declaration of Dissent this week. People are starting to get letters putting them on administrative leave, seems like potentially targeted at those who signed with their names.

Amazing: MIT researchers revealed how ChatGPT etc are destroying our brains and booby-trapped the report to expose those who want to use AI to ostensibly summarize the results. t.co/JXeTALBPds

Authorities have taken 57-year-old Vance Boelter into custody in Sibley County. He's the suspect in the targeted fatal shootings of Minnesota House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her spouse, and the shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman and his spouse.

Vance Boelter, suspect in shooting of Minnesota lawmakers, taken into custody in Sibley County

Authorities have taken 57-year-old Vance Boelter into custody in Sibley County. He's the suspect in the targeted fatal shootings of Minnesota House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her spouse, and the s...

mprnews.org

Make it seven: DOJ just sought emergency relief from #SCOTUS in the AFSCME/mass-RIFs case. It’ll be docketed as 24A1106. In case you’re keeping score, this marks the 15th emergency application from Trump in 16 weeks. Across 16 *years,* the GWB and Obama administrations filed a total of … eight.

Lawrence Hurley@lawrencehurley.bsky.social · last yr.

There are now emergency applications pending at SCOTUS on SIX different Trump policies. That must be an unprecedented number. -birthright citizenship -agency firings -Alien Enemies Act -TPS for Venezuelans -DOGE access to SSA data -Ending parole for 500k immigrants

FLASH: Federal judge blocks RIFs/Trump administration reorganization plans for 20 federal agencies. SF-based Judge Susan Illston (Clinton) says they appear to exceed executive branch authority to implement without Congressional approval. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Glad to see the MRCC is back up! Funding restored by NOAA/Dept of Commerce. But ridiculous that funding for regional climate centers was removed in the first place.

Dr. Robin Tanamachi 🌪️@tornatrix.bsky.social · last yr.

“That to me is like burning all the books in a library, but even worse because U.S. taxpayers paid for all those books then the government decided to burn them.” www.jconline.com/story/news/e...

New preprint finding that eliminating US global health funding over the next fifteen years would cause: - 15.2m deaths from AIDS - 2.2m deaths from TB - 7.9 additional child deaths

From the editorial: "If the Duluth EPA lab is being indiscriminately targeted, the cutting and slashing (in D.C.) clearly isn’t being done with the care, consideration, or thought such a process demands."

Our View: Threats to Duluth water lab not well-thought-out

From the editorial: "If the Duluth EPA lab is being indiscriminately targeted, the cutting and slashing (in D.C.) clearly isn’t being done with the care, consideration, or thought such a process demands."

duluthnewstribune.com