Just DM if that works

In any case I suspect this is probably the most intellectually stimulated pet octopus in the world

(Also, scrolling through the comments, it looks like the YouTuber tried contacting octopus cognition researchers for help and they declined. I'm guessing there's a reason why? I could imagine there'd be fear, esp. before seeing the video, that this was going to be cruel/inhumane? Is it?)

She's such a striking tortie. Those amber eyes!

Our species in one picture, tbh.

Sure, I can't promise anything (as always with these sorts of things), but I posted this hoping people would send me their papers, so send away!

I would hope most scientists would feel this way about their work tbh!

Just realized I missed out on an opportunity to do some alliteration with puke and pterosaur and feeling sad about it

*fine* a pterosaur is not actually a dino but still

This definitely sounds up my alley!

You could make this argument for kangaroos, I guess, but not for placental mammals with random X-inactivation.

ideally I'd find stuff that's cool but doesn't sound cool

Not in placental mammals like humans — dad's X is just as likely to be expressed as mom's outside the placenta.

You can visibly see this in tortoiseshell cats. The patches of brown/black are expressing one parent's X, and the patches of orange are expressing the other parent's X.

The placenta preferentially silences dad's X. I'm not sure of other body parts, I was taught that X-inactivation in placental mammals is random.

But in marsupials it's the dad's X that gets preferentially silenced.

I'm interested in frontier research, basic science, etc. — big questions kind of stuff. I'd love to feature diverse identities, career paths, ages, locations, etc.

DM if you're interested.

Comment if there's a researcher or even just a topic or field you'd like to see in a Q&A!

The next one is going to be on culture and how it interacts with human evolution 👀

Last month's Q&A with @spintheory.bsky.social dug into the ~physics~ of polarization in the US Senate and what it has to do with the simple neural network models that sparked the AI boom:

My first Q&A was with @anaisbailles.bsky.social about her amazing work on regeneration in Hydra (which I cannot stop thinking about, those animals are so weird).

(just in case you wonder if maybe there's something better to do with your cash than subsidize the NYT's discussion rounds on whether or not women have ruined the world yet)