Is social media dying? How much did Twitter change as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation?
Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has changed
Here are the key take-aways 🧵
Full paper out now in in JQD:DM!
A spreadsheet with 10,000 rows of data
And I’ve hit the 10,000 specimens mark in the Norfolk Plankton Image Library (NPIL)! #marineplankton 🦑
Earth day is a great day to share what I saw in the Chicago Botanical Garden the other day: an Agave was making an impressive inflorescence that touched the ceiling, so they opened up the ceiling to let it continue to grow. Glad to know there are still people having the right priorities! 🌱🌵🌳🌎🌲
'The NSF has only committed $500 million of the $8 billion it was appropriated for the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. The NSF will lose the billions of remaining funding if it does not spend it by Sept. 30.' thehill.com/homenews/adm...
So glad to have this published in the J. Biogeography! We use genomics to elucidate patterns of diversification and dispersal in the Indo-Australian Archipelago and reject notorious biogeographic hypotheses in the region! Amazing job to all of the coauthors. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The XKCD Lucky 10,000 comic, about how for each thing everyone supposedly knows by the time they're adults, each day there are approximately 10,000 people in the U.S. hearing about it for the first time. The second panel usually shows someone asking about diet coke and mentos and their friend saying oh man, come on, we're going to the grocery store. In this one, diet coke and mentos has been replaced with The Mini frog genus, and the grocery store has been replaced with Madagascar.
Had one of those moments where I thought SURELY everyone must know about the frog genus Mini, home to tiny frogs Mini mum, Mini scule, and Mini ature, only to text several friends and realize this isn't common knowledge. So now you, dear BlueSky friends, get to learn too. 🐸 🧪
When Shape, Size, and Time Meet: Phylogenetic Analysis of the Evolution of Embryonic Shape Ontogeny in Physalaemus (Anura: Leptodactylidae) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42003037/
Science-folks: If we run 100 experiments, we might find 1 or 2 of them may have results that can make many dollars.
NZ Govt: Excellent. We will fund those 1 or 2 experiments.
Three cool scientists introduce their work "Our new theory has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, but we feel its depths and intricacies are best appreciated on the limited-edition vinyl release."
My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com
This paper is now out in @elife.bsky.social 🦀🦑🧪
elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
three almond shaped fish specimens are set in a row. The top has a dark body and blue fins and face with pink tips while the bottom two are silver with dark stripes. The lowest one looks like a juvenile
a screenshot showing search criteria fields down the left side of a map of Florida with red pins clustered along the south east edge of the coastline and a small number in the north central heart of the state
Museum Resource 🐟 Fishes in the Fresh Waters of Florida
Explore our state's freshwater fish species, including collection records, photos and map.
Shown: Mozambique Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus), non-indigenous to Florida's freshwaters
🔗 Info & browse:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fis...
Cocaine Bear and Cocaine Shark might have just been campy horror films, but Cocaine Salmon are the real deal. 🐟🧪
CIPRES is shutting down at the end of June: www.phylo.org .
It's been such a good resource for the phylogenetics community. Thanks to #NSF and Simons for funding it and for all the people who have worked to grow and sustain this for so long.
This is fascinating. When legal protection is given based on species status and a species name, what happens if the naming isn't valid? When a subspecific form (maybe) is culturally important? www.nytimes.com/2026...
1/2
Genome-wide genealogies reveal deep admixtures forming modern humans www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...
I am hiring a popgen postdoc!
Looking for a creative scientist to join us at USC to investigate recessive variation and complex traits in model or non-model species. The project is funded by a multi-year NIH grant, contract can be renewed.
Job add & details 👇🏽
usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...
David Boyd and Maddie unpacking fish in cheesecloth
Undergrad Maddie With a wrasse that kept its blue coloration
A cooler full of fish specimens with labels
Specimens from my labs 2025 trip to Taiwan 🇹🇼 arrived. Always fun to begin the unpacking and now we can say the trip was a success. Batfish, wrasses, ponyfish and much more!
Also cool that my undergrad Maddie was there on the trip and is here to unpack the specimens she collected.
#ichthyology
If you are around New Haven on Wed, April 22 come see my public Yale University Peabody Museum talk in O.C. Marsh Hall at 5pm!
peabody.yale.edu/news/bass_le...
🤖 The Orbitoscope is a new open-source robot that creates detailed 3D models of insects without ever having to touch or move the specimen.
📷 This system rotates the camera instead of the insect and allows incredibly accurate measurements.
➡️ Learn more: doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1277.177740
This is one of my favorite puns in phylogenetics
Tired of the uncertainty in dating? This one weird trick will bring back the confidence to your dating!
New preprint led by Hrushikesh Loya, me, and Simon Myers where we introduce GhostBuster! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The idea is to find all the different ways a target individual relates to reference groups in genealogies, to "bust the ghosts" in our ancestry.
A page of beetle specimens with the details of BHL Day 2026 overlaid.
How do scientists use biodiversity literature?
At #BHLDay2026, Lauren Hughes, Principal Curator In Charge @nhm-london.bsky.social, will explore how BHL is the bridge between taxonomy @marinespecies.bsky.social & the evidence behind it.
📅 29 April: London + online
🎟️ Register now: bit.ly/bhlday2026
WANTED: Lead Collections Manager. Smithsonian NMNH Botany is looking for a Supervisory Museum Specialist to manage the United States National Herbarium and a top-notch collections team. For more information, visit USAJOBS (www.usajobs.gov/job/864499200). Applications due in two weeks (1 May 2026).
Graph transformer for ancient ancestry inference https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41993422/
Our review on adaptive introgression in the context of climate adaptation is now published in Mol Ecol:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
In a nutshell: often invoked theoretically, rarely unambiguously demonstrated empirically!
Many thanks to everyone who shared feedback on earlier versions
Picture of a rubber mallet with SSB on it, on a table with a rasp, a file, and a sanding block
I still have (and use) the SSB ( @systbiol.bsky.social ) mallet Luke Harmon gifted me for being the “hammer of SSB” (sending “not angry, just disappointed” emails to our then-publisher who was having issues putting our papers in the right journal, with correct authors, etc.)
#ScientificPublishing
Circular seabat a flat fish from the front
How Female Anglerfish Evolved to Have It All www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/s...
"1 copy sold = 1 real tree planted. I will personally be planting the trees on local farms and schools, and looking after them for years to come."
ok but what if we "accidentally" make this game blow up
Hypancistrus margaritatus, which we named for the pearl-like spots all over its body:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypanci...
