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⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

@josephwb.bsky.social

2.5K followers 450 following 3.2K posts

Comp. evol. biol., fake ornithologist, LFHCfs, Luddite, CSH I get down methodically Without regard to my soul tinyurl.com/G00gleSch0lar HHGG bot: @whalepetunias.bsky.social pfp: Chickens exposed to natural beard hair on a mannequin hdr: socks & sandals

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⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · Dec 28

I made this over the break. Why would I do such a thing? Am I some sort of #phylogenetics dork? Well... yes, but that's not why. To fully explain I'll have to do one of those sewing-strings-wrapped-around-a-spool dealies. 1/ 🧪

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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 4h

Any Latin experts willing to check my translation of Sibbald (1692): the first detailed scientific description of a blue whale?

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Lori Batchelor🇨🇦 @lorichirp.bsky.social · 5h

For #WoodDuckWednesday, a lovely couple preening. This also fits the alternative theme of #reflection for #BirdOfTheDay! #birds #photography #EastCoastKin

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 4h

🚨🪲 COOL JOB ALERT 🪲🚨
3-year position at the Western Australian Museum working on an awesome beetle phylogenetics project, starting at $105k dollarydoos per annum: search.jobs.wa.gov.au/page.php?pag...

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Roshni Patel @roshnipatel.bsky.social · 8h

I'm recruiting a postdoc for my group (based in beautiful Eugene, OR). Please get in touch if you're interested, esp if you'd like to chat at #ASHG25!

Roshni Patel @roshnipatel.bsky.social · Aug 6

We'll primarily work at the intersection of statistical and population genetics, and we also have active projects related to the ethical and social implications of human genetics (ELSI). Please get in touch if that's a combination that sounds interesting to you!

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Alessio Capobianco @acapomorphic.bsky.social · 11h

Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

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Lucas Nunes @lucasjn.bsky.social · 19h

Here's a T. Rex bored to death trying to bite their own tail. My partner asked me to animate it in stop motion, after she watched a video about the very important topic of "could T. Rex chew its own tail like a dog". The puppet is still a work in progress 🦖

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Mason McNair, PhD (he/him) @sarraceniamason.bsky.social · 18h

Hey #Botany2026 we're actively looking for potential speakers at ALL experience levels for our proposed colloquium: Side-quest! – Level up your science!. If you have an interesting story, project, or idea to share that qualifies as a “Side-quest” we want to know about it!

More info below⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

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Dax Kellie @daxkellie.bsky.social · 16h

Still want to make cleaning biodiversity data shrimp-ler? 🦐

Good news: We just updated our Cleaning Biodiversity Data in R book, so you still can! We've updated data for 2025, added new content & fixed lots of silly typos 😀

Live the shrimp-le life:
cleaning-data-r.ala.org.au

#rstats #ecology 🧪🌏

The cover of the Cleaning Biodiversity Data in R book. It has an illustration of an Pacific Cleaner Shrimp in the middle of a navy background. The shrimp has a bright red-orange shell, pale-yellow body and white whiskers.

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Andrés Cuervo @amcuervo.bsky.social · 10h

museum job alert 🇨🇦
royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/XBR2Yc...

Curator of Birds - Royal Ontario Museum - Career Page

Apply to Curator of Birds at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, ON, Canada.

royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com

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Amanda Bretman @amandabretman.bsky.social · 10h

Out now - female fruit flies cluster their eggs together depending on their social environment 🪰🧪 Just wish they'd let us know why... led by @emilyrosech.bsky.social Emily Fowler, Lucy Friend and Tracey Chapman. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Female fruit flies use social cues to make egg-clustering decisions - BMC Biology

Background The ability to respond plastically to environmental variation is a key determinant of fitness. Females may use cues to strategically place their eggs, for example adjusting the number or lo...

link.springer.com

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Andrew Iwaniuk @evoneuro.bsky.social · 22h

Although most birders see grouse as rather spherical (or "borb-like"_, they do have quite long necks. This typically occurs when perched in a tree and anxious about a predator and helps them look more "branch-like".
#birds #birding #Alberta #wildlife 🪶🇨🇦

A mottled brown, grey, and white chicken-like bird is perched on a bare branch with its neck extended and crest up. This Ruffed Grouse is likely a female based on the lack of dark ruff feathers and the relatively short crest.

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⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1d

Have you seen Listers yet? bsky.app/profile/jose...

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 29d

This documentary on naive first-time (listing!) birders is pretty funny. Just regular dudes trying to figure out what birding is all about, including the less desirable aspects. So happy about how it ends :) Highly recommended youtu.be/zl-wAqplQAo?... #birding

LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching

YouTube video by owen reiser

youtu.be

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Tristan A.F. Long @thelonglab.bsky.social · 1d

Happy Battle of Hastings Day (to all who celebrate)! Here is a poster I did back in 2022 for a talk by Dr. Jennifer Geddes-McAlister in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry! #SciArt

Poster for a 2022 departmental seminar by Dr. Jennifer Geddes-McAlister "Overcoming Fungal Infections with Quantitative Proteomics" drawn in the style of the Bayeux tapestry

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CoreyWelch_STEM @coreywelch.bsky.social · 1d

We will start matching mentors and mentees this weekend.
We have 52 mentors and 91 students signed up so far.

We can support more mentors and students (UG, Postbac, & Grad).

CoreyWelch_STEM @coreywelch.bsky.social · 19d

Attending SACNAS conference? Sign up ->

10th Annual SACNAS 1-on-1 Mentoring Workshop. Need 100+ mentors. Oct. 30th, 5:30 - 7:00 PM, N. Short Ballroom

Mentors Link (Faculty/Postdocs/Staff): 1 min to fill out forms.gle/daTSoT8yniJ8...

Each mentor is assigned 1-2 students.

Sign-up to be a MENTOR: "10th Annual 1-on-1 Mentoring with a SACNAS Leader" Mentoring Undergraduates using a modified-IDP

Meet for 35-40 minutes with an Undergraduate/Postbac/Grad student to discuss their career goals. You will meet with 1-2 individuals during the 90 min session. We have a much bigger space this year so ...

forms.gle

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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 1d

Spooky bird stories. Last year's Halloween comic.

A comic titled Spooky Bird Stories. In panel 1, a turkey vulture is telling stories to other vultures, and it says, "She walked toward the source of the terrible smell. She got closer and closer, and then, to her horror, she saw... No dead body." A black vulture says "No!" and a turkey vulture says "Did someone already eat it??"
In panel 2, a northern cardinal is telling a story to some songbirds. It says "They peered through the windows of the house at the gory scene. Zombies had smashed through the door in the night. The homeowner was dead. But worst of all... He hadn't refilled the feeders." An eastern bluebird says "Aaah!" and an American goldfinch says "It can't be!".
In panel 3, a screech owl is telling a story to other owls. It says "And then the ghost fluffed itself up really big to appear scarier." A saw-whet owl gasps, and a long-eared owl says "Horrifying!".
In panel 4, a downy woodpecker is telling a story to other woodpeckers, and says "The eerie sound rang through the dark woods. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. It was the distinctive two-part knock of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The species had returned from the dead... FOR REVENGE." A red-cockaded woodpecker says "Yesss".

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⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1d

Dang that cover rulez

FishEvo Zuzana Musilova @fishevo.bsky.social · 13d

Our Special issue on Visual Ecology in Challenging Environments is out: #coral reef & #deep-sea fishes, #reindeers on polar daylight, #bioluminescence, non-visual #pigments & life in dark caves. Happy to co-edit with Sara Stieb + thks to all contributors! See in Functional Ecology: buff.ly/z5AYxZQ

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Dr. Elizabeth Santos @lizmillermacroevo.bsky.social · 2d

New paper on deep-sea fish diversity out now in @sse-evolution.bsky.social, with @cmartinez.bsky.social and @sarahtfried.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Distinct evolutionary signatures underlie body shape diversity across deep sea habitats

Abstract. The deep sea is known for extreme biological conditions such as high pressure, little-to-no solar light and cold temperatures. Despite these chal

academic.oup.com

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Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 1d

Sweet pdoc fellowship! Would be really excited to work with someone interested in applying ancestral recombination graphs to messy, real-world data in plant genomes. Happy to chat if you might be interested!

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology on Simons Foundation

www.simonsfoundation.org

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 1d

Updated tutorials for nQuack today. Want to predict ploidy level of sequence data? See this new tutorial on how to process and model data faster: mlgaynor.com/nQuack/artic...

a little boy is driving a red toy car on the street .

Alt: a little kid is driving a red toy car on the street.

media.tenor.com

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⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1d

Judging books by their covers actually has a pretty good success rate.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1d

Gail would be a shoe-in for the Ig Nobel Prize, which aims to "honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."

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Sean A. S. Anderson 🍉 @seananderson.bsky.social · 2d

Now available in Systematic Biology, a new paper (and R package) in which we outline an approach to account for non-independence in comparative analyses of lineage-pair traits academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

The Comparative Analysis of Lineage-Pair Traits

Abstract. For many questions in ecology and evolution, the most relevant data to consider are attributes of lineage pairs. Comparative tests for causal rel

academic.oup.com

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Angela Collier @acollierastro.bsky.social · 2d

how do I get smart people to hate me instead. I'm tired of reading dumbass comments.

Did I hear right? You got a flu and covid vaccines? Why? A young and healthy adult is at exactly zero risk from either flu or covid.
The only thing that can make you sick is the vaccines themselves - case in point, that's what happened. Jeezus. So dissapointing. I feel an urge to unsubscribe.
PS I now wonder if you can tell what a woman is...

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⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 2d

youtu.be/z1cP4xKd_L4?...

The 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony (2025) FULL SHOW

YouTube video by Improbable Research

youtu.be

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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 2d

🦕 For #PalAss members:
Are you planning to participate in #PalAss2025? 🌍
Don’t forget to check this option ✅

💡 All information can be found here ⬇️
🔗 palass.org/palaeontolog...

#palass #conference #bursary #possibility #apply

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