Out today! Future Challenges and Opportunities for the Viability of Animal Populations in Zoos and Aquariums. Check out section 3! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Future Challenges and Opportunities for the Viability of Animal Populations in Zoos and Aquariums

Maintaining sustainable animal populations is fundamental to zoo and aquarium missions in education, visitor engagement, entertainment, scientific advancement, public health and wellbeing, advocacy, ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

The findings suggest that, despite severe population declines, the Pacific pocket mouse has retained the ability to adapt to environmental change, with a little help from conservationists to protect and distribute genetic diversity. @sandiegozoo.bsky.social @thatlionlady.bsky.social

And while you're there check out our latest paper led by Erik Funk, "Historical and contemporary genomes of an endangered rodent reveal shifts in environmentally associated genes"! @arynwilder.bsky.social

Science Magazine@science.org · 6mo ago

Foxglove plants evolved a mammalian-like cholesterol-to-steroid conversion pathway that synthesized cardenolides by mimicking mammals’ endocrine signaling axis. Learn more in this week’s issue of #ScienceAdvances: https://scim.ag/4vr7Ndj

Hold up, my 2020 lion paper made it into #2026MMM! Too bad it was for an eventual lion demise against croc...

Anne Stone@acstone.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Severe declines of lion populations have been documented over the last century. Curry et al. (2020) used microsatellites & mtDNA to show a significant diversity ⬇️ in the nuclear genome & more structure (less gene flow) in modern compared to historic lion pops. doi.org/10.1093/molb... #2026MMM #RIP

Capping off Cats with not one, but TWO lion posters at #PAG33! Someone else is presenting on lions other than me. Yay!

You can tell a lot about a person based on who their favote Muppet is.

a cartoon character with a knight 's helmet and the words " and i am cute too "

ALT: a cartoon character with a knight 's helmet and the words " and i am cute too "

media.tenor.com

Drew Anderson@andersonevolve.bsky.social · 10mo ago

You can tell a lot about a person based on who their favorite Muppet is.

Genomes from museum specimens reveal hidden lineages and ancient connections in the endangered Pacific pocket mouse—reshaping what 'historic range' means for it's recovery. academic.oup.com/jhered/advan...

Past Genomes Guide Future Conservation: Insights from Extinct Populations of the Endangered Pacific Pocket Mouse

Abstract. Efforts to recover endangered species often rely on restoring populations to their historical range, yet reestablishing lost genetic variation is

academic.oup.com

Restoring an endangered species takes more than improving genetic diversity. This week on the @science.org podcast, we visit the endangered Pacific pocket mouse breeding facility at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to learn about their reintroduction project. www.science.org/content/podc...

Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a 🌟comic🌟 about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.

Check out our new paper out today in @science.org!

Aryn Wilder@arynwilder.bsky.social · last yr.

Excited to share our new paper on genetic rescue in the Pacific pocket mouse! To conserve this endangered species, we sought to understand whether small populations at risk of outbreeding depression are better managed in isolation or with gene flow. @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fascinating thread! You might enjoy my recent Science piece on AI "gaslighting": www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Why AI chatbots lie to us

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine needed to collect and format some data from a website, and he asked the latest version of Anthropic’s generative AI system, Claude, for help. Claude cheerfully agr...

science.org

Stay classy, San Diego. #NoKings

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

If you are sincere about wanting to make America healthy, the last thing you should do is cause millions of people to lose health insurance.

Well well well how the turntables.

Colossal scientist now admits they haven’t really made dire wolves

Despite a huge media fanfare in which Colossal Biosciences claimed to have resurrected the extinct dire wolf, the company's chief scientist now concedes that the animals are merely modified grey wolve...

newscientist.com

NIH, NSF, NASA, NEA, NEH If it funds thought it’s under attack

Sarah Hörst@planetdr.bsky.social · last yr.

NIH, NSF, NASA… If it funds science it’s under attack.

What a line from Warren Buffett this morning: “Be kind, and the world is better off. I'm not sure that the world will be better off if I'm richer." [applause] 🙏🏼

🦖🧪🧬☄️🚀🦍🖥️🦧 Unity is beautiful.

Our entire profession is under attack. Any scientist, in any field, is a target. Ideologues hate and fear the idea of objective reality. Stay strong, my friends. 🧪👊

Wyoming Wormboy@wyomingwormboy.bsky.social · last yr.

BTW. If you’re a scientist and are feeling hollowed out, depressed, fried, frustrated, confused, and simply exhausted by everything, I understand you. You are perfectly sane and you are not alone.

And now, a note on Bill Owens who, until this past week, was the executive producer of 60 Minutes. We’ll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.

Well, I’m shocked. The Endangered Species Act is under attack (again). By redefining the meaning of “harm” to remove protections for habitat, the path to recovery for listed species is grim. It would be like burning down your house and expecting you to thrive. We are living The Lorax. #Resist

Given that habitat loss is demonstrably the single biggest threat to endangered species, this move effectively ends protection for most species, and a lot of things will go extinct.

Jade Walker@jadewalker.bsky.social · 2y ago

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA said that a narrower interpretation of harm — to mean intentionally killing or hurting a particular animal rather than degrading a habitat a species needs to find food, breed and thrive — reflects “the single, best meaning” of the Endangered Species Act

the kind folks at the @sandiegozoo.bsky.social have now sent out a longer video of the elephants' reaction to the earthquake outside of #SanDiego. In this video, you can see that they remained in their alert circle for nearly five minutes. sandiegozoo.app.box.com/s/7ehiskw6fx...

San Diego Zoo Safari Park Elephants_2025_04_14_10AM_08_28.mp4 | Powered by Box

sandiegozoo.app.box.com

sending out elephant videos after an earthquake? now THAT'S is how you're supposed to do communications. everyone say "thank you, Emily." (yes, the elephant video will be in the next post.)

OPINION @marthagill.bsky.social “Resurrecting” extinct #wildlife is essentially a “vanity project”? (& in vain?) There are myriad existing species urgently needing our interventions & conservation? #nature #habitat #extinction www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Why resurrect the dire wolf when existing animals are facing extinction? | Martha Gill

It’s not as sensational as recreating long-dead species, but conserving modern-day fauna is far more pressing

theguardian.com

They are a real life InGen from Jurassic Park, completely missing the point of conservation. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, and by creating they are actually destroying, because it takes away from real conservation.

Riley Black 🏳️‍⚧️ 🦖@restingdinoface.bsky.social · 2y ago

Of course mainstream media keeps rolling over for Colossal, providing uncritical hype and coverage in exchange for exclusivity and “wow.” What Colossal is doing is wrong and they can’t even deliver what they promise. How many times do we have to go over this?

This article and thread explains the deeply flawed process behind the so-called #DireWolf story. We don't need glossy PR. We need actual conservation #NotADireWolf bsky.app/profile/rest...

Public service announcement. They are not Dire Wolves. They have 20 single letter changes in their entire genomes. I’ve done shits with more mutations. Every time journalists write up a Colossus press release, They are making people stupider. Client journalism by a ridiculous company.