The RBA’s policy deliberately creates unemployment. So why do we treat the jobless so badly? The way we deal with rising inflation is highly problematic.

the policy was set in stone when the gig economy was the cash economy, when official figures did not remotely resemble actual economic-exchange-care activity. Now everything is transactionalised.

theconversation.com/the-rbas-pol...

ANU's $125 million budget improvement shows financial crisis overstated, job cuts unnecessary, says union | Region Canberra The ANU's staff union has seized on the university's much-improved budget position, calling the controversial redundancy program designed to save…

ANU's financial crisis overstated, job cuts unnecessary 👀 region.com.au/anus-125m-bu...

ANU delegates concluded two days of training in Canberra this week.

As we look ahead to the future of our sector, we’re committed to addressing the governance crisis and securing full-funding for our universities.

Join today: nteu.org/join

@nteuact.bsky.social

Biologists Confirm Not Much Evolution Happened Today STANFORD, CA—Calling it a “pretty slow one” as far as natural selection and genetic drift were concerned, biologists from Stanford University confirmed Tuesday that not much evolution happened today. ...

Biologists Confirm Not Much Evolution Happened Today — theonion.com/biologists-c...

@phylieu.bsky.social and I have another paper in our informal series, “we worry about diversification rates.” This time, how to get unbiased estimators of speciation & extinction, even when looking at small clades as part of MiSSE, CLaDS, etc. models.

Overview: brianomeara.info/posts/biasco...

Position of interest for plant evolutionary biologists: two assistant professorships are now open in the System Earth Science (SES) department at Maastricht University!

Interested? See the details here, or visit the QR code: vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Venlo-As...

GitHub - emitanaka/canvasquiz: Quiz For Canvas Learning Management System Quiz For Canvas Learning Management System. Contribute to emitanaka/canvasquiz development by creating an account on GitHub.

Since ANU has transitioned from Moodle to Canvas LMS, I’ve developed a set of #rstats functions to help me write quizzes directly into Canvas, and I’ve started packaging them up.

It’s still a work in progress, but I’d welcome any feedback!

github.com/emitanaka/ca...

If we want to conserve evolutionary history, we need to think about this: change the phylogenetic methods, and you change the conservation outcomes. New paper led by honours student Mina Kearns, with @alexskeels.bsky.social & @keaghanjames.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen , listed on FindAPhD.com

Are you (or something you know) looking for a PhD? Like trait macroevolution but also yearn for an applied topic? Think plants are neat?

Want to live in beautiful northeast Scotland?! 🌊🐬⛰️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I'm advertising a PhD in my lab! Deadline April 22, email me any questions. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Ancestral state reconstruction with discrete characters using deep learning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Join us on campus & online on Thursday, 2 April 2026 at 1pm for a seminar by Dr Thomas Schmidt from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney. Details: rb.gy/cjfh55

New rock monitor lizard species reveals remarkable evolutionary story The unexpected findings in the savanna country of north Queensland have changed scientists' understanding of rock monitors, but there are concerns the new species could be vulnerable to the pet trade.

Nice! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre‐Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea We use topological data analysis to reveal a persistent morphological gap in a major group of songbirds (superfamily Passeroidea). The gap remained unoccupied for millions of years, even though nearb...

Well damn, this is cool.

Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre-Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea | Chia et al., 2026 | Ecology Letters

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

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

😲

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A digital CAPTCHA verification window titled "Select all squares with PIPES" against a plain white background. The window contains a 3×3 grid of numbered squares, mixing literal hardware, smoking pipes, and programming syntax.

These captchas just keep getting harder #rstats

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

Kim is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia working on invertebrate cognition, with a current focus on intraspecific variation in cognitive ability. When she’s not staring at ants, Kim enjoys pilates, baking, and occasional photography. 🐜

Our new paper revealing major patterns of diversification across the Tree of Life is here!
doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Congratulations to @bjorntko.bsky.social for leading this ambitious effort, it was a pleasure to contribute alongside @acapomorphic.bsky.social, @hoehna.bsky.social & Luis Palazzesi.

New paper out from @hoehna.bsky.social Lab, led by the brilliant @bjorntko.bsky.social! We applied the Pesto software (Kopperud & Höhna, 2025) to look at lineage-specific shifts in diversification rate on large, densely-sampled phylogenies across the Tree of Life doi.org/10.1093/evle...

‘Complete joke’: Efforts to reduce funding wait times ends with longer blowout A long campaign to improve Australia’s sclerotic research bureaucracy has culminated in an extraordinary blowout to grant approval times, leaving scientists despondent.

“A complete joke”

After the starting gun fires, Australian researchers have to wait 2–3 years before even starting the race.

Really clear article explaining the impossibly long new time-frames for Australian Research Council grants.

By @liammannix.bsky.social

This Brazilian frog might be the first pollinating amphibian known to science Nectar-loving tree frog likely moves pollen from flower to flower

It’s the first time a frog—or any amphibian—has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023.

Learn more on #WorldWildlifeDay: https://scim.ag/4riUU1G

🌠 Meet our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

@simone66b.bsky.social is an Associate Professor at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland. Her work sits at the intersection of quantitative methods and evolutionary biology. Beyond academia, she enjoys modern jazz and punk rock. 🎷

🌠 Meet our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

@timtemizyurek.bsky.social is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland studying how eco-evo shapes individuals and populations of duckweeds. Outside of work he is interested in the extended evolutionary synthesis, philosophy of science and magic realism 🪄

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

Yong is a DECRA fellow at the University of Western Australia working on the impact of sexual selection on life history traits and their trade-offs. One current focus is the physiological mechanisms mediating these effects, such as diet and oxidative stress 🥦

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

@puttert.bsky.social is a postdoc at the Australian National University working on phylogenomics and conservation genetics mostly on amphibians and reptiles. He is originally from Thailand. Outside of academia, Putter loves SCUBA diving and football ⚽🍌

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

@hasbeanbeetle.bsky.social is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia currently working on sexual selection in cowpea seed beetles. He is not a father, yet still doesn’t have time for hobbies or interests of his own 🥀

She'll be coauthoring papers soon enough 😅

Dietary specialization drives adaptation, convergence, and integration across the cranial and appendicular skeleton in Waterfowl (Anseriformes) Abstract. Convergence provides strong evidence for adaptation, reflecting similar responses to recurring selection pressures. Waterfowl (order Anseriformes

I can finally share my main postdoc project! It took a while but we finally got it out

So if you want to read about an updated phylogeny for waterfowl and all the convergent evolution they get up to boy do I have a paper/thread for you

academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠

@damienesquerre.bsky.social is a lecturer and researcher in Biological Sciences from the University of Wollongong, focusing on evolutionary processes, specifically in reptiles and amphibians. In his spare time, he is an avid wildlife photographer 📷