More devastation to science

🚨JOB alert🚨

We have three (yes, THREE) 🌟lectureships🌟 advertised in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol.

Broad remit, including #AnimalBehaviour & #GlobalChangeBiology

⏱️Deadline: 8th March 2026
🙏Please circulate widely

😊Come join us!

Full #job details: tinyurl.com/y3us95rc

Apply for the Career Diversity Travel award to attend the Animal Behavior Society Conference in Cincinnati, July 14-18, 2026. Deadline: March 23, 2026. More info: www.animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/awards-career-divers... #conference

A little blue flash of joy

Careers - Satellite Imagery and Monitoring | Planet We image the world everyday and make global change visible, accessible and actionable. We understand that images can tell the most powerful stories and we are dedicated to being a voice for our Planet...

Friends in the USA - @planet.com is hiring for a (remote) education and research program manager, which seems like a sweet gig. 🧪🛰️ www.planet.com/company/care...

In 2025, departures of govt scientists outnumbered new hires by a ratio of 11 to 1. This reduction in STEM PhDs translates to 106k yrs of federal work experience across 10,000 employees. These talents will take their expertise elsewhere. Experience is indispensable.
🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Did you know there's a searchable library of science stories about failure? It was truly an honor to contribute my story to Fail-Safe Science, "an initiative designed to normalize experiencing and overcoming challenges in science graduate programs." risecenter.asu.edu/fail-safe 🧪

If you are a student whose NSF GRFP application was returned without review for vague 'eligibility' reasons:
1) Let your department chair & Graduate School know. Encourage them to contact NSF & congress
2) Write to your congressional reps.
3) Write to grfp@nsf.gov to request re-consideration;

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

It’s going to be political hacks. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Biologist kidnapped in Mexico In the mountains of central Veracruz, scientific work is rarely abstract. It means walking narrow paths through cloud forest, speaking patiently with communities, and learning to read landscapes that…

Biologist kidnapped in Mexico news.mongabay.com/short-articl... 🧪🌎

Stanford Data Science Fellow for Graduating PhD students
Deadline: February 16th, 2026
Duration: 1 year (starting September 1st 2026)
Location: Stanford, CA
datascience.stanford.edu/programs/dat...

ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS.

I cannot imagine knowing stuff without getting sucked into a citation rabbit-hole / wonderland and then reflecting on how these works engage with each other.

A lot of folks here probably don’t know I wrote a paper about using the game of Mastermind to teach logic & experimental design & interpretation: 🧪
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization Nature Neuroscience - Parcellation of the cortex into functionally modular brain areas is foundational to neuroscience. Here, Hayden, Heilbronner and Yoo question the central status of brain areas...

New Perspective from myself, Sarah Heilbronner and @myoo.bsky.social . “Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization” in Nature Neuroscience. 🧵

rdcu.be/eVZ1A

Best.movie.ever

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

Sex-Based Gene Expression Influences Monogamous Bonding In a groundbreaking study, researchers led by C.L. Malone have unveiled compelling insights into the role of sex differences in the expression of mRNA relating to both structure and receptors within

See Candice Malone's paper published in Biology of Sex Differences on California mice: Social bonding, perineuronal nets and the anterior cingulate cortex. Congrats Candice!
scienmag.com/sex-based-ge...

Ellen Ketterson smiling while holding a plate with cake frosted in cream and crimson.

A cake with cream and crimson frosting and a frosting photo of Ellen from the early ‘90s. ‘Happy Retirement Ellen’ is written on the cake.

Today the members of the Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior graduate program at Indiana University celebrated the upcoming retirement of Dr. Ellen Ketterson. Ellen was a bastion of civility and scientific excellence. The program would not be what it is without her presence over these past decades.

In case anyone is interested, I ran a journal club in my classes that went well, structured to reduce reliance on AI.

1: Students sign up in groups of 5

2: Each student does hand-drawn mind map of each section (intro, hyp, methods, results, disc)

3: Each brings mind map to class

1/2

NSF bio hour - NSF BIO lost 40% of its staff 😑

This is the account that auto-posts my blog posts. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Came here to say this too

Poster advertising doctoral positions in 2026 at the International Max Planck Research School for Evolutionary Biology.

Up to 10 doctoral positions at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology now open for application!

Start date September 2026.

More info here: www.evolbio.mpg.de/imprs

Chimps are sticking grass and sticks in their butts, seemingly as a fashion trend | CBC Radio A group of chimpanzees in Zambia have resurrected an old fashion trend with a surprising new twist.

2026 Hallowe'en costume just dropped www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha...

Blue and orange bird (Eastern Bluebird), perched on a box.

Poke, gape, or escape? Diurnal anthropogenic noise disrupts Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) incubation and nest attendance behavior | Journal of Field Ornithology | doi.org/10.5751/JFO-... | #ornithology #fieldwork #nestingbirds

Major AI conference flooded with peer-reviews written fully by AI Controversy has erupted after 21% of manuscript reviews for an international AI conference were found to be generated by artificial intelligence.

What can researchers do if they suspect that their manuscripts have been peer reviewed using AI?

go.nature.com/4pxUNyD

Time series of annual GISTEMP data from 1880 onwards with an estimate for 2025 based on Jan-Oct data showing that it will be cooler than 2024, but probably a little warmer than 2023.

Now that the Sept and Oct data are (belatedly) in, it looks like 2025 will be the second warmest year in the record (~80% probability). The last three years are in a class of their own.

Some people are replying here with things already addressed in this thread and paper, so please click through bsky.app/profile/oliv...

MAGA’s ongoing war on academic freedom, reflected in headlines from the last 24 hours.