#eDNA

The air is full of DNA — here’s what scientists are using it for Airborne genetic material can be used to paint a picture of ecosystem health, watch for invasive species and even identify humans.

Great historical narrative on the emergence of airborne #eDNA methods: www.nature.com/articles/d41... I'm happy to have contributed to the field and mentioned in this feature.

Texas Tech Directive Harms Education, Violates Rights FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Sharing this as a personal opinion; obviously not representing my employer) "Texas Tech Directive Harms Education, Violates Rights" aaup-texas.org/blog/f/texas...

Environmental DNA Metabarcoding Effectively Detects Invasive Species, Pests, and Community Changes in Taiwan's Rice Fields (A) Venn diagram of species detected in planting and harvesting fields. Circle and overlap size denote proportional species diversity representation across field types. (B) Sankey diagram showing the...

🌾💧🧬 New #eDNA Publication: Banerjee et al. 2026. Environmental DNA metabarcoding effectively detects invasive species, pests, and community changes in Taiwan’s rice fields. Ecology and Evolution 16: e73339. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 🧬💧🌾

The Trump Administration Has Abandoned Its Fight to Cap Overhead Research Costs at 15% The government did not appeal a court’s ruling against its controversial cap, which would have cost campuses billions.

Over and over again, we see that when universities (and most others, for that matter) push back against this administration, we win. Please keep up the fight in the #WarOnScience! www.chronicle.com/blogs/the-tr...

#seminario 'Gritando a los cuatro vientos: the emergence of airborne eDNA analysis'.
Por @drbarnes.org (Department of Natural Resources Management, Texas Tech University)
📆10 de abril, a las 12h
Presencial y online👉 www.youtube.com/live/DkHby6D...

Guy posing happily with Mentos candy and wet paint in stripes on his interview suit.

It's that time of year, so my most important piece of grad school interview advice is: if you get wet paint on your new suit, just finish the job evenly and nobody will notice.

It is absolute demagoguery to say that a foreign student took anyone's spot. Foreign students have enriched and, bluntly, funded U.S. universities. Those universities will be less successful and less desirable as a result of this rank protectionism.

#WarOnScience

Statistically significant chuckles: who is using humour at scientific conferences? Abstract. We’ve all been there: 11.47, swamped by a long stretch of dense scientific talks at a conference. Six slides into a hyper-technical presentation,

Possibly worth a read (and a laugh!) royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

What these admins will never tell you is that the *courses* in these majors are often full. Students don't *major* in these fields, but they really want to take the classes. They use number of majors as a metric on purpose so they can achieve their cuts.

We are submitting revisions to #eDNA today, and apparently graphical abstract has become a requirement since our last submission?

I'm a big #SciComm fan and try to practice often. BUT I just can't figure out the actual purpose of graphical abstracts. Who are they for? Do journals think non-experts are scanning ToCs?

It seems unethical and annoying to me when reviewers suggest that you cite ALL of their papers throughout the course of their review, and I wish more editors would call out this bad behavior.

Such poor, losing policy by the USA

Thanks to collaborators at Southwestern University, UT San Antonio, San Antonio River Authority, UT Permian Basin, and the Glass Sponge Foundation!

This news release gives me way too much credit, but happy to share on successes of undergraduate collaborators at the recent @txacsci.bsky.social meeting. www.depts.ttu.edu/agricultural...

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692

🧵 1/∞

New research published in Nature, analysing 33,000 fish populations across the Northern Hemisphere, found that fish biomass declines by around 7.2% for every 0.1°C increase in seabed temperature per decade. In some cases, losses reached nearly 20% in a single year.

Fascinating time to be an American teaching abroad in Spain...

The Texas Academy of Science is seeking passionate Texas scientists for the following leadership roles:

• Non-Academic Director
• Student Representative
• Academic Director
• Executive Secretary

Read about these roles here: www.texasacademyofscience.org/volunteer-jo...

‪Tell me the truth...I'm ready.

New IPBES report finds that $220 billion were directed to conservation & restoration of biodiversity in 2023...

yet $7.3 trillion flowed toward subsidies that directly harm nature.

IPBES Business & Biodiversity Assessment www.ipbes.net/business-imp...
@ipbes.net

🔬 Calling scientists & data managers

We need your expertise to:
✔️ Identify workflow gaps
✔️ Prioritize interoperability
✔️ Align data standards

Turn #eDNA potential into policy-ready solutions for #OceanDays!

📅 Deadline: 06/03/2026
🔗 tinyurl.com/5n7phwdd

#Science #Data

📣 New Publication Alert! 📣 Lee C, McIntyre NE, Barnes MA, and Luan X. 2026. Effects of land use on Eurasian otter presence in northeast China. Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity 19: 193-200. linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2287884X25001189

📢 An ✨ONLINE FIRST✨ Call for Collaborators!

Xin Sun & colleagues seek collaborators in #eDNA of #urban #soil

Check out the call HERE ⬇️

soil-organisms.org/SO/article/v...

One of the worst things about AI, for me, is that it takes away from people the sheer joy of writing. Schools don’t often make this point, but writing should be fun. Putting words together, finding ways to express yourself, the pure pleasure of a well-crafted sentence. 1/5

Aquatic reflectance derived from Sentinel‐2 Multispectral Imager data for inland waters in the conterminous United States Satellite-based earth observation is a robust tool for tracking change in ecosystems. While terrestrially focused applications of remote sensing have empowered wide adoption for research and manageme...

A challenge to remote sensing of #lakes #wetlands #rivers is that many of extant satellite products are corrected for land, making water signatures muted because water is dark. We constantly hear about how we need an aquatic reflectance product. So, we made one. doi.org/10.1002/lol2...
@aslo.org

USA wins Hockey Gold! 🦅🏒🥇

Opinion | Higher Education’s Compensation Charade We’ve come to accept illogical, unjust, and occasionally insulting pay practices. Why?

"Too many of us have become so inured to inexcusable and illogical practices that we’ve stopped asking questions." www.chronicle.com/article/high...

Doing things the "right" way, burning out and then realizing there is another option, coming back and winning it all with no fucks given? Yes please tell me that story forever.