Andrew L. Jackson | Lightnews

Andrew Jackson

@yodacomplex.bsky.social

930 followers 210 following 88 posts

Professor. #Zoology, Theoretical #Ecology & #Evolution, Trinity College Dublin.

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Environmental science 56%

Geography 14%

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Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 2d

Quite the thread!

Westerns & the Old West @davidlambertart.bsky.social · Dec 3

On May 11, 1950, while working on the Rawlins National Bank in Wyoming, a construction crew unearthed a whiskey barrel that contained a human skeleton with its skull cap sawed off & an odd pair of shoes. Dr. Lillian Heath, now in her 80s, was asked if she knew anything about it...🧵

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 9d

And even then, we already know that people will wilfully ignore their and their family’s ancestry to further their political ambitions. I suspect we have learned nothing of any academic value from this project.

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 9d

While there _might_ be some value in using these tools to answer specific questions, maybe such as to verify his ancestry, there is absolutely no value in a tabloid style National Enquirer type “exposé”.

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 9d

This whole project is grotesque and a classic case of just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Prof King’s justification of: well someone was going to do it eventually it might as well be me is lame in the extreme www.bbc.com/news/article...

Should Hitler's DNA have been studied?

Ground-breaking research has made some fascinating discoveries on the dictator, from his ancestry to possible neurological disorders.

www.bbc.com

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Andrew L. Jackson

Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · 10d

Valuable reporting here from @cathleenogrady.bsky.social for @science.org, adding context and other important voices to our perspective piece (linked further below, with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social and @deevybee.bsky.social)

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

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 11d

I saw this on LinkedIn yesterday in support of GAMs.

Someone did crimes against maths and statistics. A straight line is fitted to a sine wave as a way to show that GAMs are superior. For good measure they also fitted a neural network model to show that it overfits.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Eldar Rakhimberdiev @eldarrak.bsky.social · 20d

Want your modelling to save birds? PhD with me at UvA (Amsterdam): build spatial integrated population model for black-tailed godwits with world-class dataset and strong team here & @birdeyes-gfn.bsky.social/RUG). werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies... Apply by 1 Dec 2025: #Ecology #Bayesian #Conservation

a couple of individually marked godwits. Photo by J. Seenstra

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Oct 23

And our paper is out! One curve to rule them all: a simple universal thermal performance curve for ectotherms that explains at least 2700 datasets across 39 phyla and myriad measures of performance. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Biological performance across the tree of life collapses onto the Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC). Shown are approx. 30,000 performance measurements derived from seven kingdoms, 39 phyla, and 2,710 experiments. Performance is represented by diverse rates including metabolism, individual growth, foraging intensity, voluntary activity, and population growth (see SI Appendix for data grouped by phylum and performance metric). Data are presented on both axes relative to the parameters (Topt, Tc and Pfmax ) estimated by fitting the UTPC equation to each of the 2,710 experiments; the UTPC is overlaid as a yellow line and fits the rescaled data extremely well. Data are colored by the relative density of neighboring points showing very high density of points close to the line and relatively few datapoints further from the line.

Data collapse, and models converge, onto a Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC), which only requires optimal and critical temperatures as parameters. Top panels show empirical data on thermal performance encompassing (A) specific growth rate of proteobacteria (), (B) biochemical rates of photosynthesis in plants (), (C) running speeds of lizards (), and (D) population growth in insects (). Lower panels (E–H) showcase the rescaled data from the processes exposed on top, along with their corresponding alignment to the Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC) equation. Datasets are from Kontopoulos et al. (21) for proteobacteria and from Rezende and Bozinovic (6) for other groups. The upper panels of the raw data show substantial variation in the shape and location of the thermal performance curves. The lower row shows that rescaling the data using the simple model results in the data conforming to a single underlying curve with very little variation from the model.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Science Magazine @science.org · Oct 21

Static electricity may be key to helping a tiny roundworm latch onto its insect hosts.

Like a heat-seeking missile, the parasite zooms up to 10 millimeters in the air before getting yanked toward its target by nothing more than the electrostatic charge of its host. https://scim.ag/3WKFVjZ

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Oct 17

Speed 3

Reposted by Steve Peers, Colin Murray, Andrew L. Jackson

Andrew Jackson @andrewlrjackson.bsky.social · Oct 9

Happy to see this new article published yesterday - co-authored with @orlakelleher.bsky.social

“The implications of the European Court of Human Rights' climate rulings for climate litigation in Ireland: a new legal reality”, in the Irish Planning and Environmental Law Journal

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Gavin A. Schmidt , and 25 more Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Gavin A. Schmidt, Tom Clark, Tom Shakespeare, Leigh Sparks, Elizabeth Stokoe, Peter Campbell, Greg Walker, Kelly Smith, Andrew L. Jackson, Elaine Treharne, Smith, James O’Sullivan, Margot C. Finn, Talbot Imlay, Jutta Haider, Fiona Moore, David Rosnick, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, Calvin Jones, Banu Özkazanç‐Pan, Thomas Masterson, James Connelly, Catriona Seth, Isabelle Poutrin, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Jarome R. Ali

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · Oct 8

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Andrew L. Jackson, Matthew J. Silk , and 1 more Ben C. Sheldon, Andrew L. Jackson, Matthew J. Silk, Valeria Mazza

Greg Albery @gfalbery.bsky.social · Oct 3

I'm v excited to be recruiting a PhD student to work on badger behaviour and ecology! Starting date is March 2026; see the ad here, or message me for more details: www.gregalbery.me/s/March-2026...

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

SADIE 𓅐 @cicadie.bsky.social · Oct 3

Would you believe this spindly guy is an assassin bug? I picked him up initially thinking he was a phasmid…then I got a closer look at the face and saw the rostrum, and the raptorial forelimbs started to make sense! He's a member of emesinae, a reduviid subfamily I didn't know about before!
#bugsky

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Oct 2

haha. oh, sorry. I can make it worse... ive recently gone over to native pipe |> over maggritr %>% too...

Reposted by Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott , and 3 more Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott, Lesley A. Hall, Andrew L. Jackson, Federica Genovese

Liam Thorp @liamthorp.bsky.social · Sep 29

Very good stuff from Sadiq Khan at the Labour Irish society event. He said there are two reasons he loves coming to Labour Conference.

“One is the reception at the Labour Party Irish Society reception.

“The second is to get away from all the Sharia Law in London”

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Sep 29

“Milibandwidth” : the smallest amount of attention someone will pay to be of their ideas

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson, Trevor A. Branch

Marshal Hedin @mhedin.bsky.social · Sep 23

let me share a little story about a remarkable wasp that I encountered yesterday in our local deserts

I stumbled across her, and scrambled to get a few crappy photos .... but then realized that she had a burrow, perhaps a better photo op was possible ??

here she is at her burrow entrance.

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Andrew L. Jackson, Marta Maziarz

Steve Portugal @sjportugal.bsky.social · Sep 19

We're looking for a new postdoc on our new BBSCR grant (Graham Taylor/Tim Guilford/Cait Newport). See link below!

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Reposted by Brendan J. Godley, Karen A. Kidd, Andrew L. Jackson

Daniel Padfield @padpadpadpad.bsky.social · Sep 16

I have an MRC-funded PhD project available (www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...) on how warming will change the problem of AMR. Join a small and friendly group (padpadpadpad.netlify.app/about) in (sometimes) sunny Cornwall. 🧪🦠 #microsky

Please share the ad below with anyone who may be interested.

A teal flyer for a PhD opportunity to investigate how warming may change antimicrobial resistance. The project will use experiments on Klebsiella bacteria to answer questions about how temperature affects their response to antibiotics, plasmid transfer, and fitness costs. The research involves microbiology lab work, bioinformatics, and mathematical modeling. The flyer includes contact details for Dr. Daniel Padfield and the logos of the sponsoring institutions.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

T. Greg Doucette @gregdoucette.bsky.social · Sep 15

So you know how there's a running gag about trying to run old school Doom or Wolfenstein on things never intended to run video games?

This guy has managed to code a web server that runs from a disposable vape 🤯

bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/project...

Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape

Someone's trash is another person's web server.

bogdanthegeek.github.io

Reposted by Anders Levermann, Tim Bale, Andrew L. Jackson , and 10 more Anders Levermann, Tim Bale, Andrew L. Jackson, Molly Scott Cato, Calvin Jones, Wolfgang Huber, Greg Linden, James Connelly, Georg Weizsäcker, Tim Stephens, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Bartosz Bartkowski, Maria Sobolewska

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · Sep 15

Time for the world to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity
2004: A year
2010: ~ a month
2015: ~ a week
Now: A day
ourworldindata.org/data-insight... 🧪

Line chart showing that there's been a rapid escalation in how quickly the world installs a gigawatt of solar power capacity.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · Sep 13

Elon Musk, "There's got to be a change of government in Britain"

"We don't have another four years or whenever your next election is, it's too long, something has got to be done"

"There has got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held"

Reposted by Axel Bruns, Andrew L. Jackson, Thomas Hegghammer

Stuart K Watson @chimpsahoi.bsky.social · Sep 4

Feeling seen by the Oxford Uni job portal

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Natural History Museum, London @nhm-london.bsky.social · Aug 27

It suggests early ankylosaur armour could have been used to show off to mates, like a peacock's tail feathers.

Later ankylosaurs might have moved to more functional armour as more advanced predators evolved.

Discover what else this amazing ankylosaur reveals 👇 (4/4)
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

“Bizarre” armoured dinosaur Spicomellus afer rewrites ankylosaur evolution | Natural History Museum

The world’s most unusual dinosaur is even stranger than first realised.

www.nhm.ac.uk

Reposted by Meredith Broussard, Daniela Gabor, Tom Shakespeare , and 10 more Meredith Broussard, Daniela Gabor, Tom Shakespeare, Andrew L. Jackson, Magnus Johansson, Samuel Workman, Victor Galaz, Els Torreele, Melanie Simms, Jonathan Birch, Peter Jacobsen, Ann Bartow, Andrew Baillie

Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · Aug 20

MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing

There’s a stark difference in success rates between companies that purchase AI tools from vendors and those that build them internally.

fortune.com

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Josh Luke Davis 🏳️‍🌈 @joshlukedavis.com · Aug 19

I am obsessed with this plant.

A species of cucumber, it fruits up to 90cm UNDERGROUND. Why does it do this? Because the only animals known to eat them are AARDVARKS 🤯

THAT'S RIGHT, THIS IS AN AARVARK CUCUMBER. And I got my hands on a specime for the @perfect-specimen.bsky.social 🌿🎙️🧪

A dried plant specimen. It is a long vine, with a few large leaves coming off its side.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Aug 18

There was definitely a Wendy's in Dublin (on Grafton St I think near whats now Burger King) in the (early?) 90s. Along with Dunkin Donuts it didnt last. www.rte.ie/news/busines...

Corrib Oil to open Wendy's restaurant in Cork in October

Service station and energy company Corrib Oil is opening a Wendy's fast food restaurant in Mahon Point Shopping Centre in Cork in October.

www.rte.ie

Reposted by Richard J. Butler, Lesley A. Hall, Andrew L. Jackson

Dr Elsa Panciroli @elsa-panciroli.bsky.social · Aug 14

Rare as hen's teeth: an Assistant Curator job, with our fantastic team at National Museums Scotland! Closing date 24th August #museums #museumjobs
careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553

Assistant Curator (Vertebrates)

careers.nms.ac.uk

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