A large white waterfowl with orange feet stands in front of a door. On the door is a cardboard sign secured with tape that reads, "DO NOT LET THE DUCK IN." Adding insult to injury, I think the duck might be a goose.

Whatever you do,

Check out my latest article on moa de-extinction, which is out now in the Autumn issue of @forestandbird.bsky.social Magazine.

Te Naiti o Pūrēhua: Rare whale named by Waipiro Bay descendants A hakurā or spade-toothed whale, one of the rarest species in the world, never seen alive in the world and only seven records of the specie, has been named by Te Whānau a Iritekura

www.teaonews.co.nz/2026/04/16/t...

Want to do a PhD @universityofotago.bsky.social on climate impacts on #NZ vertebrates w/ Michael Knapp, @plubbe.bsky.social, @atennyson.bsky.social & me? Comes w/ fully funded scholarship & will investigate climate extinction risks using genomics & niche modelling evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

Jane Ward Tost was a trailblazer in natural sciences – until history forgot her An expert taxidermist, she was the first professional female employee at any Australian museum – and was paid as much as the men.

theconversation.com/jane-ward-to...

I get it, it's hard of people who value nothing but wealth to even conceive of people who are motivated by other things (which is how we ended up with an Epstein Class). But for someone who is self-styled as a visionary, that comment displays a remarkable lack of imagination.

Peter Thiel is Funding the Comeback of the Woolly Mammoth It looks like the Silicon Valley billionaire wants to disrupt extinction.

While we’re on the topic of funding, George Church also took seed money from Peter Thiel:

From skin biopsy to iPS cell proposals: emails involving George Church’s Personal Genome Project and Jeffrey Epstein - The Niche Biologist discusses how the Epstein files show that the convicted sex offender interacted with George Church and especially Joseph Thakuria.

In the late February Epstein Files drop, new information came out indicating that Harvard scientist (and Colossal Biosciences co-founder) George Church continued to take money from Epstein long after he knew about Epstein’s crimes.

Ah, yes, we’re all just secretly jealous we didn’t make the varsity team and don’t have any valid critiques whatsoever about unorthodox approaches to research or animal welfare by a company that’s running on CIA venture capital and co-founded by a Harvard professor in the Epstein files.

And I have heard that COLOSSAL's plan involves setting up a Dodo preserve in Mauritius to keep out invasive species, good luck with that, have you ever seen a macaque move?!

Can scientists really resurrect the dodo? No.

This article is the latest to give a platform to the (shifting) goalposts of Colossal Biosciences, this time focusing on ecological function.

I wrote a long post about de-extinction. Here's the ecological function part:

bsky.app/profile/ferv...

Can scientists really resurrect the dodo? Inside the company that says it can Colossal Biosciences’ CEO says its work follows a ‘moral obligation’ while critics say it’s ‘tech bro’ hype that could undermine conservation

This story is a good example of why it is so difficult to communicate genuine science to the public. Despite every scientist not on the company payroll decrying it as a bogus and unscientific project, the story presents it as some sort of both-sides issue.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Any person who understands contamination will be gobsmacked. This is epic fail in proper protocol at a very early stage in a process. 🤯

This is so creepy from Colossal and these scientists on their Scientific Advisory Board need to immediately speak out and demand answers: @lovedalen.bsky.social @smatthewliao.bsky.social @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social @roneilllab.bsky.social @kennethlacovara.bsky.social @elinork.bsky.social.

For the record, this is my comment to the journalist on Colossal’s dire wolf.

This is not a “semantics issue.”

There is no point to de-extinction if your aren’t actually restoring anything that matters, biologically or ecologically.

If Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi are Colossal’s yardstick for successful de-extinction, then the whole endeavour is pointless

Can scientists really resurrect the dodo? Inside the company that says they can Colossal Biosciences’ CEO says its work follows a ‘moral obligation’ while critics say it’s ‘tech bro’ hype that could undermine conservation

Colossal Biosciences on its "moral obligation" to generate clickbait for would be investors, sorry, on its moral obligation to revive facsimiles of extinct species people have heard of to cosplay Jurassic Park.

Spot the walk on roles for Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson and George RR Martin.

Librarian finds ‘preposterous number’ of fake references in paper from Springer Nature journal Gunnar Ridderström/Pexels As a hospital librarian, Jessica Waite is typically successful at tracking down elusive articles for clinicians at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in England. So when a colleag…

Fake references make Waite’s job as a librarian “so much harder,” she added.

“I expect this on the wider internet, but not in reputable scientific journals,” she told us. “…It’s really worrying.” retractionwatch.com/2026/03/06/l... #medlibs

Marsupials previously thought extinct for millennia discovered in New Guinea The chances of finding one mammal species thought to be lost was ‘almost zero’ and finding two is ‘unprecedented’, biologist Tim Flannery says

"Two charismatic marsupial species that had been thought extinct for 6,000 years are alive in rainforest in remote West Papua."

Oh yeah this is super cool as both the pygmy long-fingered possum and ring-tailed glider were previously only known from fossils 🤯🧪🐀
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

#ColossalBio keeps on keeping on with their #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign. Their GMOs aren't #DeExtinct species; they're just making designer transgenic animals. 🦣 🦤🐺 🧟 🧪

Jeffrey Epstein’s tissue samples ignited a furor in the Harvard lab of George Church - The Boston Globe Internal pushback succeeded in stopping any special treatment for Epstein.

Though funny that NPR doesn’t mention Epstein friend George Church’s deep involvement in Colossal.

A reminder that captive births are very far from risk free in elephants. You cannot do a c-section if e.g. development or delivery goes wrong (=death to mum for sure).

Honestly, this would not pass an ethics committee in the UK, I am sure.

I hope this is just more of the usual nonsense

Rare fossil discovery rewrites history of NZ bird evolution The discovery of a rare fossil in an ancient Otago lake shows the evolutionary history of Aotearoa birds is much more dynamic than once thought.

www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

A new species of the diving duck Manuherikia and evidence for geese (Aves: Anatidae: Anserinae) in the St Bathans Fauna (Early Miocene), New Zealand A new species of the diving duck Manuherikia, larger than its two congeners, is described based on a humerus and several referred ulnae from the St Bathans Fauna, lower Bannockburn Formation, Manuh...

An earlier theory argued that the St Bathans goose represented the direct ancestors of the giant flightless Cnemiornis geese, implying this lineage had a very long history (at least 14 Mya) in NZ www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/... 7/13

Humans, rats and dogs pushed the takahē into Fiordland – new genetic research maps its dramatic journey Examining the DNA of the takahē has upended long-held beliefs about how the flightless bird ended up on the southwestern tip of New Zealand. This new knowledge can help future conservation efforts.

While many species of birds have been arriving in NZ throughout geological history, the ancestors of some of our large birds have only arrived here surprisingly recently - in the past 4-5 Mya - including takahe, Eyles' harrier & Haast's eagle theconversation.com/humans-rats-... 6/13

Loss of forests brought new birds to NZ during the last Ice Age – we’re witnessing a similar process now When landscapes change, exotic species take advantage of new habitats. Such a pulse of colonisation coincided with the Ice Age some 2.6 million years ago.

Our research, along with recent genetic research, shows the evolutionary origins of NZ birds are more dynamic than previously thought theconversation.com/loss-of-fore... 5/13

The St Bathans goose is not closely related to the recently-extinct giant flightless NZ geese (Cnemiornis species) or their Australian cousin, the Cape Barren goose. Artwork by Paul Martinson/Te Papa CC BY-NC-SA. 4/13

Welcome to the world Meterchen luti, the St Bathans goose that lived in subtropical New Zealand 14-19 Mya (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....), making it ten waterfowl species that lived around the giant palaeolake Manuherikia. Artwork by Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa CC BY-NC-SA. 1/13 🧵

Meet the ‘Old Mother Goose’ from NZ’s subtropical prehistoric past The newly described fossil goose Meterchen luti lived alongside crocodilians and turtles on the shores of the ancient Lake Manuherikia.

Our new St Bathans Miocene 'goose' reveals a complex history of geese in Zealandia theconversation.com/meet-the-old...

From skin biopsy to iPS cell proposals: emails involving George Church’s Personal Genome Project and Jeffrey Epstein - The Niche Biologist discusses how the Epstein files show that the convicted sex offender interacted with George Church and especially Joseph Thakuria.

George Church (founder of 'de-extinction' company Colossal, i.e. major global palaeontology & genetics funder) involved Jeffrey Epstein in his 'Personal Genome Project' ipscell.com/2026/02/from...