Photo by Mark Scherz et al. You can read more about these tiny dudes at pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... and also here: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...

an extremely tiny frog sitting on the tip of a person's thumbnail. It's like, half the size of the nail? Two-thirds? It's little. It has a dark brown mottled belly with lighter brown/tan back, and its iris is red around a black pupil. It's really stupid how cute it is.

Mini mum, Mini scule, and Mini ature are 3 frog species endemic to Madagascar. They got their names because they are teeny tiny (Mini mum tops out at ~9mm in males and ~11mm in females! The frog in this photo is on a thumb!!) and because their namer, @markscherz.bsky.social, was truly inspired

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. 🐸 🧪

yessssssss

Nine people standing in a row in front of a vast glacier with jagged mountains in the distance

Woman standing on a rock in front of a glacier running through a wide valley, with dark moraines and arcuate ogives on the surface of the ice

I haven't seen enough Juneau Icefield Research Program on hype on BlueSky!

Are you a student interested in polar science? Are you a researcher imagining future field work? Are you an educator looking to teach the best and brightest?

JIRP is for you! Deadlines are soon!

www.juneauicefield.org 🧪⚒️

Oooh an EXCELLENT choice

ok yes this is a good good choice

brb gotta google

elmo is wearing a chef 's hat and holding a glass of orange juice Alt: elmo is wearing a chef's hat and saying that's a big word for elmo

Today's #scicomm / science question: what are your favorite science/ecology/climate words? For their beauty, their utility, their awe-inspiration, or simply because they're fun to say? 🧪🦑

Some of mine: solastagia (neologism), pyrocumulonimbus (awe+beauty+horror), albedo (important+fun to say)

Thank you! Just messaged you 🪼🪸

Thank you! I just emailed you.

Ooh thank you! I love "super fast biological systems" as a field of study

thank you!

a close up of a sea anemone with a lot of tentacles Alt: a close up of several sea anemones in different colors (white, yellow, brownish orange) waving their tentacles

Science and marine life folks! Does anyone on here study sea anemones (or know someone who does)? I'm particularly interested in talking to someone about the biomechanics of their tentacles and stinging cells. 🧪🦑

Also hi @lisasheffieldguy.bsky.social it was wild to come across your name when I was just casually looking for info about giant green anemones

the paper describes two nestling birds that were consumed by giant green anemones at the base of Haystack Rock: a cormorant in 2013 and a glaucous winged x western gull in 2003. It also postulates that this probably isn't entirely uncommon.

Anemones! They're opportunists I guess

screenshot of a scientific paper heading, reading: contributed papers. giant green anemones consume seabird nestlings on the oregon coast. authors: Lisa Sheffield Guy, Lisa Bullis Habecker & Gretel Oxwang

WHAT

(this paper isn't new, it's a decade+ old, but also still WHAT WHAT WHAT) 🧪

Hey, I know books are expensive and money is tight right now.

But if there's a brand new book you really wanna read — including my own Lessons in Magic and Disaster — you can help get the book into way more hands by requesting it from your local library!

It's easy! Check your library's website.

Quite the opposite, which is why I really feel for whoever had to do this

wait no I take it back, upon further review some of the scats were "moist upon collection" and got frozen, not dried out

reading a study about coyote diets, and my condolences to the person who had to do this part: "Prior to extraction, we homogenized the scat (hand-mixing it from outside of the collection bag for 10–15 s)"

The scat was dried out at this point and they presumably were wearing gloves, but still

🧪

ohhhh I love this (the picture and this tactic of yours) so much

walking up to my computer sideways in a slight crouch, eyes averted, trying to trick myself into writing

ohhh yes very much so

a black and white image of half a raccoon's face VERY CLOSE to the camera

Currently reading a study about mesopredator (raccoon, coyote, skunk) cognition and please enjoy this photo of a raccoon in a box scientists built for it to press buttons in

(study is Stanton et al, Variation in Reversal Learning by Three Generalist Mesocarnivores) 🧪

Bethany Brookshire for Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and action…

Heyyyyyy if you're in Takoma Park next Thursday and want to support a small bookstore, head to People's Book, where I will be talking with @haruspex.bsky.social about my BOOK at 6pm on 9/25!!!

peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/animal...

Political violence is abhorrent. I have not celebrated Kirk's death.

But Newsom calling for his followers to "continue Charlie Kirk's work," someone who praised stoning gay people as "god's perfect law," who called for men to "take care of" trans people like they did in the 50s and 60s, is not it.

a ridiculous looking pigeon. It is mostly white with a few dark feathers on its wing and tail, and a few golden feathers in its ruff. Its ruff is the bizarre part—it has fluffy-looking feathers sticking out all around its neck in a collar that makes it look like it's wearing a Elizabethan ruff.

This is your regular reminder that Jacobin pigeons exist, and they ARE coming to steal your husband 🪶

(photo via WikiCommons: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_...)

at their core, trans rights, abortion rights, and vaccine rights are actually all the same issue: they’re all about bodily autonomy, and the willingness to concede any of them puts the others at risk.

YES those are so good!