1. Today I learned that my collaborator @jjinsing had his NSF postdoctoral position terminated in yesterday's round of cuts.
Jay is the lead author on a fascinating paper I was involved in, about how male mimicry by female hummingbirds provides the first example of a type of signaling system that we predicted from theoretical principles over a decade ago.
This is infuriating.
And I believe it's due to anti-trans bias.
Why do I say that?
A small fraction of the female birds of this species โ and in fact, many other hummingbird species as well โ adopt male plumage. It's a fascinating phenomenon and probably evolved because that females with male plumage are less likely to be chased away form food sources.
Photo: Michel Gutierrez, Macaulay Library.