On Martin Nowak, the evolution of cooperation, Jeffrey Epstein, and the corruption of mathematicians. liorpachter.wordpress.com/2026/04/10/n...

The paper is great because the story is now more like okay I'll play scissors... unless there are a lot of rock, and then I'll switch and play paper instead.

The genetics, evolution, and maintenance of a biological rock-paper-scissors game Side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana) play a biological rock-paper-scissors game in which three differently colored male morphs utilize alternative mating strategies. We identified the genetic basi...

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Another reason to be skeptical of solutions to a 3 body problem.

It was great to catch up 😁 Lemme know if you're out my way again some time!!

What a spectacular way to end the trip. Seeing my friend and colleague @soulsynapse.bsky.social at the social insect research group at ASU for showing me around their labs and facilities on my way out of Arizona. Really cool work with social behavior and it was amazing to see their ant colonies.

🔬🌑

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

I'd love to hear about the theoretical background here- I'll be looking through your prior work. I run two very large science-adjacent communities and at first blush this sounds like what we do.

Deflate style hand vacuum as an electronic aspirator. Best of both worlds. Needs a pooter with a filter built in. #entomology #antkeeping #ants

Interestingly weavers can climb up a thin oil film alone

Corn starch baby powder works great as an ant barrier. Comes off easily but at least it's not a known carcinogen 😅

A seed passes inspection (Pogonomyrmex barbatus)

Social control drove ant evolution | PNAS Social control drove ant evolution

Fantastic piece (doi.org/10.1073/pnas...) by @tlinksvayer.bsky.social on @arthurmatte.bsky.social and my recent paper in PNAS (doi.org/10.1073/pnas...). He really pulls together the threads of how we believe that socially transferred materials #socialfluids entrenched social complexity in ants. 1/2

We don't know much about these odd-looking Zasphinctus ants, except they seem to raid other ant nests, steal their larvae and eat them... Their narrow elongated bodies probably help them enter small galleries.

#ants #myrmecology non #armyants #fourmis #science

a pronged adapter for an air hose

cut away

Finally taking the time to learn Fusion360. Design for a co2 hose that will make noise (so people don't forget to turn it off) but diffuses the flow to knock out ants.

Today, the USDA lost experts in Psylloidea, Thysanoptera, Cerambycidae, Hymenoptera, Pseudococcidae, and Malacology. This is a devastating loss of expertise, occuring without warning. Their union's official statement on the issue can be found here: aginspectors.org/2-14-2025-a-... #entomology 🧪

Extremely ant-like dark-colored wasp with long antennae, on a dried leaf stem.

High quality An't 🖤
Gelis species ichneumonid wasp.

A timely assist.

This is a derivative work of a friend's that I'm not able to give out, but I'm making my own design and I'll tag you after I've tested it.

Ant feeder covered in Pheidole rhea

Ant feeder top view with cute ant heads visible drinking

My hand holding a small liquid ant feeder with a 3D printer in the background

Pretty happy with this feeder. Ants seem to like it too.

Currently figuring out how to print this in high enough quality that it does it justice

Diverse species of Drosophilidae

#PhD Advert: Please share! Are you looking for a PhD studentship in comparative- or population-genomics, using 300+ species of #Drosophila and 1000+ genomes of #melanogaster? #Entomology #Genomics #PopGen #Phylogenetics

Pheidole rhea annoyed that I'm looking at em.

A figure panel titled Escape-and-radiate, showing a series of radiations in parallel plant and herbivore lineages, illustrated with Keynote silhouettes of a plant and a beetle, and with stars and arrows indicating the origins of novel anti-herbivore defenses and herbivores' counter-defenses

No, YOU'RE making increasingly elaborate conceptual diagrams instead of grading papers

Gonna repost this every so often until it's full:

If you're into ecological niche modeling / species distribution modeling (ENM or SDM), here's a starter pack for you! And if you're an investigator in the field and you'd like to be added, please let me know in the replies.

bsky.app/starter-pack...

An ant that is at least half transparent!

Cephalotes clypeatus?! 🤯 via @alexwild.bsky.social

I'm doing a Reddit AMA tomorrow 1:30-3:30 Eastern. Looking forward to answering some questions!
www.reddit.com/r/askscience...

Action Intent Links | Bluesky Authors, websites, and apps can use action intent links to implement "Share on Bluesky" buttons, or similar in-app actions. Logged-in users will be directed to the corresponding action view in the Blu...

We strongly suggest that academic publishers and other platforms that host research rapidly implement a Share to Bluesky button for their articles. Here's how:

docs.bsky.app/docs/advance...

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics

Well, it is sufficiently costly for scientists to be wrong. It is not sufficiently costly for news orgs to spread lies. The voters eat the cost of those lies; temporal discounting alone makes it hard for any reasonable string of accountability, à la an iterative prisoners dillema.

Science is neither red nor blue Long before the 5 November US presidential election, I had become ever more concerned that science has fallen victim to the same political divisiveness tearing at the seams of American society. This i...

I agree with this article. It is time for scientists to build trust - we only do it by bringing everyone in and teaching the scientific method. We only beat misinformation and authoritarianism with the freedom that science brings. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...