K isn't real! What are we doing here? Why is a textbook wasting their time with these racist freaks and their nonsense

📣 EvolDir is now managed by @eseb.bsky.social!

We are delighted to be taking the reins and express our gratitude to both Brian Golding who began this service to the community in the mid-1980s and to @rdmpage.bsky.social who ran this account until now 👏

You can now find evoldir here: evoldir.net

“NSF Plant Biology Act.”
H.R. 7949
www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

This bill would expand NSF funding for plant and microbial biology grants with $150 million authorized each year from FY2026 through 2031.

Reach out to your representatives.

www.house.gov/representati...

For a project I started nearly 17 years ago, today I submitted a revised manuscript, responding to a R&R decision from a journal. Pretty good feeling! 🥂 I'll add that the work genuinely improved for all the time it took to get here #slowwork

I've seen this, this semester. Our large core bio class exams are timed, on paper, in person, and at least a few short answers were structured as, "*Positive statement about question.* I understand you are asking about *rephrasing of question.*" before maybe actually answering the question!

A photograph of the back of an infant's head as they hold a book open to a page that says oh is for octopus with an orange octopus constructed from two handprints. The octopus has a big smile in the middle of its mantle and at the bottom of the page it says smiling at you

The blood boils!

My bugbear is octopuses with big smiles on the side of their mantles. No! NO!!

Among Healey's 32 District Court nominees, "18 (56 percent) come from law enforcement backgrounds, almost all former assistant district attorneys. Just three (9 percent) come from legal services backgrounds, meaning institutional public defenders or legal aid attorneys. That is a ratio of 6 to 1."

chart showing percent change in birth rates by women's age.

Updating my birthrate fan chart.

Since 1989, birth rates for US women age 15-17 have fallen 87%. For those age 40-44 birth rates have increased 146%. The total (not shown) has fallen 23%.

A star scientist showed that better genetics lessons could reduce racism. It was the death knell for his career Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught.

“We’ve lost out on the ability to continue to improve this work to make it more effective, and to explore how to apply it to other areas…There are a lot of different ways that genetics has been used to justify prejudice and…that human-made social categories interface with biological categories“🧪

Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the ...

“They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science…And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees”

BREAKING: Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service The headquarters is going to Utah. Every regional office is being shuttered. The research program is being destroyed.

the trump administration is selling this country wholesale to rapacious, extractive industries that will destroy our collective resources for private profit morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/breaking-t...

In my own K-12 education, we somehow never got past WWII. It would always be the end of the semester and the teacher would be like, "oh I guess we don't have time for that." Never covered the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, etc etc etc. Definitely felt like ancient history!

NOW IS THE TIME FOR GIANT BUGGES

WE HAVE THE OXYGEN

WE CAN REBUILD THEM

Taking a break from quiz grading to stand on a soap box for a moment. So, with apologies to George Box:

All species concepts are wrong; some species concepts are in this thread.

Workforce Pay Increases - CUPA-HR This is the public version of this data. CUPA-HR is the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date source of higher education workforce salary data, collected separately for administrators, faculty,...

Staff and administrators saw one final year of pay raises exceeding inflation this year, but that won't happen again for a while.

Tenure-line faculty have had raises below inflation every year for the past decade. Tenure and promotion boosts are often modest (3-10%), and only happen twice.

Scientists Filmed a Whale Birth. The Surprise: Mom Had Many Helpers.

“11 sperm whales huddled together at the surface, strangely still and taking occasional shallow dives. After about an hour, the animals seemed to start thrashing, and a plume of blood reddened the water. The researchers feared trouble, maybe a shark attack. But it was something else.”

WHALE DOULAS!

I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.

The fact that Americans thought Auxin was a “Hoax from Europe” rightfully got some attention in my latest #PlantScienceClassics post. But it’s actually even funnier if you learn about the context & consequence of White speaking these words to Went at the AAAS Meeting in Pittsburgh. #PlantScience 🧪
🧵

Time sensitive: this is the last day to submit comments opposing the Bureau of Land Management's clearcutting of Oregon's ancient forests. This is a tool that educates you on just how diabolical it is, and it helps you submit your comment. morethanjustparks.com/oregon-old-g...

NIH grant terminations affected women scientists more than men, study finds A new paper shows that women, particularly those early in their careers, have been disproportionately affected by NIH grant terminations

A new paper suggests that grant terminations from the NIH over the past year may have further punctured the so-called "leaky pipeline" because women were more impacted by grant terminations than men

www.statnews.com/2026/03/23/n...

Three large green apples with some russet and a pinkish red blush on one side. Two are whole, one with the stem up, the other with the sepals up, the third is cut in half across the core, and set to show the core and the sepals. The apples are on a cutting board with a purple sticky note that reads "David's".

Can I tell you about one of my new favorite apples? We're still not entirely sure we know what it is, but it's wonderful and we have some good leads. And in a wonderful twist, it turns out I've been eating it since I was a kid.

It's amazing that, despite the exorbitant APC's authors pay, you can download a PDF of a 2026 open-access article from a
@nature.com portfolio journal and find that it's totally untagged and inaccessible. What kind of "open access" is this if they're invisible to screen readers?

the nature of my work is that sometimes I'll check a citation on wikipedia for a basic history fact, only to find that "source" is actually citing another source, so I'll check on THAT only to find, after reading 90 pages, that the basic fact is absolutely not in there. Thus there is NO SOURCE.

Broad claims about gender and behavior fall apart when studies include ethnically diverse samples Behavioral economics relies heavily on studies of Western, educated people. A recent analysis provides evidence that ignoring racial diversity within the United States has led to flawed generalization...

"The research suggests that generalizations about human behavior are often flawed because they rely on samples composed largely of White individuals."

A very thoughtful exploration on the value and limits of statistics in understanding the past!

Last point on this article: the two NSF admin guys more or less straight out admit they're going to follow Trump's 2026 budget for the agency, not the actual budget passed by Congress.

Which is, you know, not legal.

Amy Grant - The 6th Of January (Yasgur's Farm) YouTube video by AmyGrantVEVO

Very interesting that Amy Grant released this song as her first one in 10 years. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAl0... - it's a protest song that insists on subtlety. It's very very interesting coming from her since she made her name in Christian pop.

Psychedelic poster featuring Hallucigenia sparsa. Text is the species name and current affinity (Panarthropoda, Lobopodia, Hallucishaniids, Hallucigeniidae), age (middle Cambrian, circa 508 MYA), and locality (Burgess Shale). The full animal is on the right, rotated 90° counterclockwise, with its name in a wiggly arc above it. Another illustration of the front of its body, seen from above and with no spines, curves in from the bottom left, tentacles swirling around the text. The age and locality text is upside down. The art is black and white with turquoise spots.

The same piece, flipped around so the age and locality text are now right side up. The black bits are a dark red-pink in this version.

Reviving an old series of Wes Wilson-style posters for Cambrian weirdos! This is Hallucigenia, whose anatomy is so odd, it was originally reconstructed upside down and backwards. To pay homage to that, the art can be hung either way, even sideways if you just want the species name right-side up! 🐡🧪🎨

If you're an #EcoEvo #PhD candidate anywhere in the world looking for project funding, consider applying for the @asn-amnat.bsky.social Student Research Award.

Ten proposals for $2k in research funds will be awarded. Due 13 March 2026.

Please share widely! 🧪 #grants #ecology #evolution #behavior