While we do not agree on all issues, I want to publicly thank UNC-CH Chancellor Lee Roberts for clearly stating today in Faculty Council that UNC cannot and will not sign Trump's Compact, because it raises irresolvable issues of academic freedom. That was important for faculty & students to hear.

bioRxiv partners with Dryad to enable easier, better linking to curated datasets connect.biorxiv.org/news/2025/09...

Opinion: Trump budget cuts threaten to kill Blue Ridge Parkway, National Park System
www.citizen-times.com/story/opinio...?

👀 Ok, if true this is a shocking way to blast through the forest canopy, remove lianas, & dominate "The idea that lightning strikes give almendros a competitive advantage-The almendro tree is so tolerant of strikes, in fact, that it may well be summoning lightning" www.science.org/content/arti... 🌐🧪

Marching for Science in Raleigh

Upon learning that yesterday would be my last day as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, I shared this parting message with my colleagues. The next few months will be frenetic and stressful for them. Here are some things that you can do to help them with the mission ahead. (1)

The merits of this #polyploidy model aside, what an odd place to publish a paper on the topic. Would never have seen it if I hadn't been married to a physicist. physics.aps.org/articles/v18... 🧪

Great read on the lost sunken continent that was supposed by Haeckel to be the cradle of human evolution. With some unexpected digressions to Theosophy and legends about Mt Shasta. And it's all thanks to slender lorises! bigthink.com/strange-maps...

To conserve natural areas, it needs to work for local communities--here is a nice story about how that can happen 🧪
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Bohemian Stomata www.exploratorium.edu/video/bohemi... 🧪

Natural history collections are foundational data for biology. We use museum and herbaria specimens for more now than could have been imagined when they were collected. Not valuing collections ultimately means no primary data for ecology, evolution and biogeography.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Oh my god this is so cool www.inaturalist.org/blog/87155-e...

The biology building at IIT Hyderabad is looking very meiotic

Somehow missed the announcement for this 'Molecular Mechanisms in Evolution' @OfficialSMBE Regional Meeting in Uttarakhand, India, Dec 16-17 www.ashoka.edu.in/event/molecu...

What a fantastic short documentary about conservation of the Ecuadorian cloud forests. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntdz...

Take your class on a virtual fieldtrip of the Galapagos Islands. www.google.co.uk/maps/about/b...
#edusky

Just now appreciating the lo-o-ong and extraordinary career of statistician and sometime population geneticist C.R. Rao, who passed away in August at nearly 103. I confess I thought his many contributions over ~75 years were from multiple people with the same name. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

“What would you do if you walked outside, and you found the world swarming with flying Hershey’s Kisses?” www.science.org/content/arti...

In honor of M. S. Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution, who has passed away at age 98, a brief explainer of his greatest accomplishment (among many): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq5A...