This is good news!

Stephen Heard@stephenbheard.bsky.social · 5d ago

This is a big one! I'm very excited: I can finally announce that I'm writing another book - "The Mammoth-Shaped Hole in the World", about our 500-year quest to understand past life and how discovering that extinction can happen revolutionizes our view of the world. scientistseessquirre...🧪🌍️

Sampling night 3. A lot more clouds today, and I can already feel the difference it makes compared to yesterday. Way more horseflies also. And midges, didn't see many of those over the past two days to be honest... Glad my body doesn't respond to these bites very much.

Working on a Minotaur Beetle (Typhaeus typhoeus) Those iconic prothoracic horns aren't just for show — males use them to lock horns and defend their deep underground burrows. Focusing on getting the thoracic sclerites and leg ornamentation right. #SciArt #Entomology #Insects #Coleoptera

Light attraction sampling night 2: go! Already much cooler than yesterday, despite similar daytime temps. More moisture too. 766 ppm CO2, you can tell rightaway why we should not be draining peatlands... 😠

🦎*Please share!*🦎 The Swierk Lab is recruiting 1-2 PhD students for Fall 27 / Spr 28 to study Neotropical anole 1) body coloration and visual signals or 2) predator avoidance, diving, and respiration. Please contact only by email. More info and contact details here: drive.google.com/file/d/1TGmC...

This is going to be a rough night sampling. The weather is great. The temperatures are very doable. It's humid as hell, and the horse flies are already eating me alive. My element is a strange place.

- Copper coins from any country, best if slightly oxidized - Batteries, empty. Plus several half-empty new packs - Bicycle lights, only those that fit none of the installed holders - Those leftover screws from that one furniture thing I assembled once. - Seven bad screwdrivers, none fitting

Steve@stevetypesstuff.bsky.social · last wk.

For a junk drawer to legally qualify as a real junk drawer, what is the ONE absolute mandatory item it must include? * A small rubber foot from something (I meant to glue back on) * A 7.2V transformer (unbranded) from something we recycled years ago. * Spare door keys (from old locks I changed).

Tonight will be the first in a series of sampling events for a global light attraction study that I partake in. It took me time to get permits done, and given the restricted moon phase windows, I was worried that it wouldn't work out this year. Here we are! Weirdly nervous-excited!

Just framed a bunch of art my son brought back from his first year in primary school. I want these awesome creatures on a wall somewhere 😄.

I would much rather have my language imperfections shine through my writing (virtually nobody cares), than risking *any of this*... If you can't (or don't want to) judge quality of AI output, maybe don't use it.

Sholto David@sholtodavid.bsky.social · last wk.

A tool used to rephrase plagiarised text changed "final solution" to "mass killing of an ethnic group" in a chemistry paper. Now retracted thanks to a PubPeer user who spotted this. pubpeer.com/publications...

This may become a record review request week for me. It is only Tuesday morning, and I have received my eighth request just now. I was quite excited about one of them, so I even said yes in my last week before summer vacation. Seems many editors have just returned (to a backlog of editor stuff).

I would love to see one of these awesome creatures in the wild. Rio Grande lesser siren. Photo by Nick Stacey.

I think more mentees, mentors and leaders need to understand the importance of this. IMO being a good leader means seeing the success of your people as the most important contribution to your own continued success. Support and build your people!

Ana Pineda, PhD@anapineda.bsky.social · 2w ago

Friday dare for postdocs: if you're doing the supervision, you had the idea, but someone else holds the senior author spot… have the uncomfortable conversation 💬 And always in good terms ❤️ Your future grant CV will thank you #Postdoc #NewPI buff.ly/rzySkgF

Don't get me wrong, I loved the original study that this articlewas based on. I was very supportive of it when it was submitted to our Biol Cons special issue. I think the results and interpretation, however, requires a bit more nuance than presented here, it is by no means a 'solved problem'.

The Dark Sky Ambassador@darkskyambassador.bsky.social · 2w ago

Amber LED street lights could save millions of insects. New research shows 1800K amber LEDs cut insect attraction by ~40% compared to standard white LEDs, emitting almost no blue light. The study tracked 71,000 bugs across 6 German railway stations. #LightPollution #Insects #Wildlife #DarkSkies

Full of despair today. Massive lay offs in social sciences and humanities across the country, Burnham puts out a video saying 'AI can write an essay', and my university is busy integrating co-pilot into all staff and student computers. We are being told we're defunct and there's no resistance.

Europe is losing more than €50 billion annually because of its degraded soils write leading scientists in an op-ed for Euronews. www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...

Degraded soils : Europe is losing more than €50 billion annually

Europe is losing more than €50 billion annually because of its degraded soils write leading scientists in an op-ed for Euronews. They found a way to deliver healthier soils using AI. They say AI-drive...

euronews.com

I am in the final stages of writing an invited review with a limitation of 2000 words and about 50 references reflecting the past two years of research. I know that writing reviews can be challenging, but this is not the "sure, that should be easy" I thought it would be.

#Birdoftheday #Grey

Rob Crank Photography@robcrank68.bsky.social · 3w ago

Good morning folks, I will try and find some time today to reply/repost some of the contributions. Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Grey, any bird with Grey in its plumage. The Alt theme is #RedBeaks, any bird with a Red Beak. #birds #ECK #CanonR5mkii #ukbirding #photography @rspb.bsky.social

Plunge-diving gannet composite. Flamborough Head, East Riding of Yorkshire, yesterday morning. #birds #ukbirds #wildlife #seabirds

It’s hard to fathom how much of the world is burning right now. Every wildfire is a reminder that the way we and ecosystems will experience climate change is via extreme events not changes in average conditions.

Are AI generated images reproducible? If not, see that one rule below.

Overly.Honest.Editor@editoratlarge.bsky.social · 3w ago

Editor Cat-ski's simplified version: One rule to avoid AI image mistakes in science: just don't use it. #ScientificPublishing #ResearchIntegrity Three tips to avoid AI image mistakes in science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Also, justifying gen-AI use as it "increases the speed of scientific output" might not be the flex you think it is. I already lack the time to read all the relevant literature (find peer reviewers) I should as an author (editor). Clearly, so do you, in my experience as both reviewer/Editor.

Mike Fowler@theorecol.bsky.social · 3w ago

Are AI generated images reproducible? If not, see that one rule below.

This article is free to access for one month, until August 23. Download now! 🌏🧪

Nature Reviews Biodiversity@natrevbiodiv.nature.com · 3w ago

New online! Status, threats and conservation of Earth’s migratory birds

Back in Gran Paradiso after 13 years. Still one of the greatest National Parks in the Alps. But unbelievably dry and not much left of the glaciers.

I have been looking into proper book shelving options lately. What stands out is that this stuff does no longer exist. Everything is IKEA rubbish, but a good old-fashioned simple wooden structure with cabinets and shelf space is virtually impossible to find.

I like gulls. #birds #Birdoftheday

Mark Levine@marklevinephotos.bsky.social · 4w ago

Today's #BirdOfTheDay is going back to basics with a theme of #Gulls, any Gull will do. Here is a Ring-billed Gull, making friends with a couple of small frys. #bird #birdphotography #ringbilledgull

Two more birds I captured recently. The Common reed warbler was feeling extremely comfortable around me, and I liked the oddness of reed poking through the image. The Spotted flycatcher was a first to photograph (and to be fair, a first to consciously spot one as well). 170+ species this year...

The weather sucked big time yesterday at Chiemsee. Still, I managed to take shots of these two beautiful birds, both of which I had not yet photographed - ferruginous duck and black-necked grebe. Not great shots, but shots nonetheless.

I was just walking along the verge of a German road. A lady approaches from behind, slows down and opens her window, calls me "Arschloch," and drives off. A new low for Germany, the only country you will get cursed at for not taking the car.

Are our ecological conclusions built on shaky foundations? Our latest paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social highlights that Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment, crucial for ensuring the internal validity of research, is almost never used in #systematicreviews in eco & evo 📉 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/2041...