Im passionate about biological diversity--always poking my macro lens in the faces of insects and spiders to reveal the details. My academic research focus is population genetics. Because I work at a university that (historically) has been teaching focused, my research questions and methodology are relatively simple.
I'm active on iNaturalist, posting observations of as many different species as I find and providing identifications of others' observations.
I was honored to edit this new essay by
David Shiffman in American Scientist.
Out of ignorance or malice, many people ridicule the funding of basic research. Shiffman discusses how to explain its value--and why the looming cuts will be so devastating.
(If you live in the US: Call your representatives!)
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/%E2%80%9Cwhy-are-we-funding-this%E2%80%9D #science #Trump
I'd like to take a moment to congratulate all Americans for now legally being defined as women.
According to Executive Order 14168 (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/30/2025-02090/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal), the "biological truth" of the genders has been legally defined:
(d) βFemaleβ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) βMaleβ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
Here's the problem, turns out that the universe isn't taking attendance at the time of conception and handing out little pink and blue genderino badges before your gonads even exist. At the moment of conception, EVERY embryo's default state is set to produce, eventually, the larger reproductive cell (the ova). It's not until 6-8 weeks AFTER conception that the Y chromosome, if present and activated, decides to show up to the party and begin the process of differentiation into a body that will, eventually, produce the smaller reproductive cell (the sperm).
So, once again, I'd like to congratulate literally everybody in America for, at this moment, being legally AFAB.
Hide-and-seek sunset.
The ash in the high atmosphere is still knocking down a lot of the color across the broader sky, but it also brings some extra color and depth to the sun itself, especially when it's setting in a cloud layer like this.
June 16, 2025. Wolverine Lake, Michigan.
#sunset #sun #photography #summer #michigan #cloud #clouds #wildfire #wildfires #art #MastoArt
I was initially flabbergasted that the band at Trump's parade played "Fortunate Son." That could, of course, have been a screwup by someone who either didn't listen to the lyrics or did but ignored all of them other than "hail to the chief." But I choose to believe that the band's setlist was put together by someone in the actual military who knew perfectly well what the song is about, and included it as a not-so-subtle dig at the whole bone spurs thing.
I've written up a few words about the #iNaturalist backlash in light of them wanting to do "generative 'AI'", and how it ties into better shared decision making: https://tzovar.as/inaturalist-backlash/
A couple of days ago, iNaturalist β a citizen science project/platform for observations of living beings in the natural world β announced that they were going to be part of a grant/program of Google to implement generative βAIβ (or βGenAIβ1) into their tooling. Since then, many users of iNaturalist, including...
EyeoftheEagle
Corey S Powell
πΏπΆππΆ "not yet begun to fight"
Carl Zimmer
cohan
Patioboater
Hailey
ππ¨π§ πππ«π ππ«
Bastian Greshake Tzovaras