Kinsey Brock
@doc-brock.bsky.social
Artíst 🐸 Asst. Professor 🐊 Curator of Reptiles & Amphibians at San Diego State University 🦎 Wild 4 wallies 🦎 Eco-evo in new and ancient cities 🐍 www.kinseybrock.com 🐢
Γνῶθι σεαυτόν 🧿
Γνῶθι σεαυτόν 🧿
Pinned
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
By combining mark-recapture and genetic parentage data from wild #lizards, we show that the offspring of older parents do not have lower survival or reproductive success than the offspring of younger parents:
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Crain et al. 2025
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Crain et al. 2025
Parental age effects on offspring fitness in a wild population of a short-lived reptile
Abstract. As organisms age, the fitness of the offspring they produce can decline, which is often attributed to parental senescence. However, few studies h
doi.org
November 11, 2025 at 10:34 AM
By combining mark-recapture and genetic parentage data from wild #lizards, we show that the offspring of older parents do not have lower survival or reproductive success than the offspring of younger parents:
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Crain et al. 2025
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Crain et al. 2025
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Very cool to see this "Research Highlight" of our recent @animalecology.bsky.social paper that tested the potential for social buffering of maternal glucocorticoids in a facultatively social lizard. Grateful for this feature by Lange & Aracena! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
Maternal glucocorticoid exposure drives social tolerance and growth with limited evidence for long‐term social buffering
Research highlight of MacLeod, K., Bouffet-Halle, A., Wapstra, E., Uller, T. and While, G. (2025). Maternal glucocorticoids have persistent effects on offspring social phenotype irrespective of oppor...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Very cool to see this "Research Highlight" of our recent @animalecology.bsky.social paper that tested the potential for social buffering of maternal glucocorticoids in a facultatively social lizard. Grateful for this feature by Lange & Aracena! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
"Hiring professors with PhDs is meaningless if administrators are the ones deciding what gets taught,” he said. “Faculty will start asking not, ‘Is this accurate?’ but ‘Will this get me in trouble?’ That’s not education, it’s risk management.”
#HigherEd
#HigherEd
Leonard Bright, president of the Texas A&M Chapter of the AAUP said faculty were not consulted on the proposed changes, which he called “a direct violation” of their expertise + freedom to teach. “If that’s the case, there’s just going to be a further black eye on higher education here in Texas.”
Texas A&M to vote on banning “race and gender ideology”
The proposal appears to mark the first time a Texas university system offers definitions of what kind of instruction related to race and gender should not be permitted.
www.texastribune.org
November 11, 2025 at 12:57 AM
"Hiring professors with PhDs is meaningless if administrators are the ones deciding what gets taught,” he said. “Faculty will start asking not, ‘Is this accurate?’ but ‘Will this get me in trouble?’ That’s not education, it’s risk management.”
#HigherEd
#HigherEd
My citrus trees are starting to produce. I love this time of year. 😍
November 10, 2025 at 4:39 PM
My citrus trees are starting to produce. I love this time of year. 😍
SWOB2025 was such a great meeting - blown away by the student talks in particular! Thanks @sicb.bsky.social and @funecology.bsky.social for the support.
Proud of my student @amberlsingh.bsky.social who gave a nice presentation of her first PhD chapter ! 🦎 🌆
Proud of my student @amberlsingh.bsky.social who gave a nice presentation of her first PhD chapter ! 🦎 🌆
November 9, 2025 at 3:35 AM
SWOB2025 was such a great meeting - blown away by the student talks in particular! Thanks @sicb.bsky.social and @funecology.bsky.social for the support.
Proud of my student @amberlsingh.bsky.social who gave a nice presentation of her first PhD chapter ! 🦎 🌆
Proud of my student @amberlsingh.bsky.social who gave a nice presentation of her first PhD chapter ! 🦎 🌆
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
A terrestrial adult Coastal Giant Salamander (Dicamptodon tenebrosus) crossing a road last night
November 6, 2025 at 4:35 PM
A terrestrial adult Coastal Giant Salamander (Dicamptodon tenebrosus) crossing a road last night
A big day for the lab! Feeling very happy for my first MS student, Alyssa Head, who put together a great written proposal and oral presentation of her thesis research. ! 🦎
November 7, 2025 at 1:57 AM
A big day for the lab! Feeling very happy for my first MS student, Alyssa Head, who put together a great written proposal and oral presentation of her thesis research. ! 🦎
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Congratulations to @doc-brock.bsky.social on advancing her first MS student to candidacy! Such cool work with introduced Italian wall lizards across native and invasive ranges - looking forward to seeing what Alyssa and Dr. Brock will discover!
a person is holding a lizard in their hands
ALT: a person is holding a lizard in their hands
media.tenor.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Congratulations to @doc-brock.bsky.social on advancing her first MS student to candidacy! Such cool work with introduced Italian wall lizards across native and invasive ranges - looking forward to seeing what Alyssa and Dr. Brock will discover!
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
This program has spread nationwide, with many institutions, including my own, following this model. It’s been spectacular for my department and for my college.
A devastating set of decisions on the part of UC leadership to withdraw support from our nationally recognized postdoc program that prioritizes research excellence combined with addressing our university public service mission. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program
Established in 1984 to encourage women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academia, the program has attracted right-wing criticism for prioritizing diverse candidates.
www.insidehighered.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:36 PM
This program has spread nationwide, with many institutions, including my own, following this model. It’s been spectacular for my department and for my college.
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Today we described three new toad species that give birth to fully formed toadlets, from the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania! 🇹🇿🧪🐸
vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1670...
vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1670...
November 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Today we described three new toad species that give birth to fully formed toadlets, from the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania! 🇹🇿🧪🐸
vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1670...
vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1670...
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
A new high resolution digital dataset and map — named Itiner-e — of roads throughout the Roman Empire around the year 150 CE is presented in research published in Scientific Data. The findings increase the known length of the Empire’s road system by over 100,000 kilometres. 🏺 🧪
Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire - Scientific Data
The Roman Empire’s road system was critical for structuring the movement of people, goods and ideas, and sustaining imperial control. Yet, it remains incompletely mapped and poorly integrated across sources despite centuries of research. We present Itiner-e, the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire. It was created by identifying roads from archaeological and historical sources, locating them using modern and historical topographic maps and remote sensing, and digitising them with road segment-level metadata and certainty categories. The dataset nearly doubles the known length of Roman roads through increased coverage and spatial precision, and reveals that the location of only 2.737% are known with certainty. This resource is transformative for understanding how mobility shaped connectivity, administration, and even disease transmission in the ancient world, and for studies of the millennia-long development of terrestrial mobility in the region.
go.nature.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:21 PM
A new high resolution digital dataset and map — named Itiner-e — of roads throughout the Roman Empire around the year 150 CE is presented in research published in Scientific Data. The findings increase the known length of the Empire’s road system by over 100,000 kilometres. 🏺 🧪
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Funds available for grads and postdocs to visit @burkemuseum.bsky.social collections! Applications due Dec. 15th. Please share!
November 6, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Funds available for grads and postdocs to visit @burkemuseum.bsky.social collections! Applications due Dec. 15th. Please share!
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
A devastating set of decisions on the part of UC leadership to withdraw support from our nationally recognized postdoc program that prioritizes research excellence combined with addressing our university public service mission. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program
Established in 1984 to encourage women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academia, the program has attracted right-wing criticism for prioritizing diverse candidates.
www.insidehighered.com
November 5, 2025 at 6:53 PM
A devastating set of decisions on the part of UC leadership to withdraw support from our nationally recognized postdoc program that prioritizes research excellence combined with addressing our university public service mission. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
I heard rumors about this but devastating to see it happening.. “the PPFP faculty hiring incentive is sunsetting as of fall 2025” 💔 www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program
Established in 1984 to encourage women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academia, the program has attracted right-wing criticism for prioritizing diverse candidates.
www.insidehighered.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:54 AM
I heard rumors about this but devastating to see it happening.. “the PPFP faculty hiring incentive is sunsetting as of fall 2025” 💔 www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
10.8 Million projected now. My goodness...
Holy shit, the Prop 50 turnout was massive! NYT projecting 10.6 million votes, CA GOV 2022 was 10.9M votes.
November 5, 2025 at 4:52 AM
10.8 Million projected now. My goodness...
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Good things are possible and we don’t have to settle.
November 5, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Good things are possible and we don’t have to settle.
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Every single county in Virginia shifted Blue.
November 5, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Every single county in Virginia shifted Blue.
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Warning. ⚠️ If you are writing an NSF GRFP, new this year, you need official transcripts to apply. Beware. They will not review applications without official transcripts. ‼️
November 4, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Warning. ⚠️ If you are writing an NSF GRFP, new this year, you need official transcripts to apply. Beware. They will not review applications without official transcripts. ‼️
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
After invasive predators (cats) are removed from an island, an endemic pigeon species recovers rapidly. Adult pigeon numbers rose from 111 to 966, and juvenile counts jumped from 9 to 189.
November 4, 2025 at 1:31 AM
After invasive predators (cats) are removed from an island, an endemic pigeon species recovers rapidly. Adult pigeon numbers rose from 111 to 966, and juvenile counts jumped from 9 to 189.
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
Higher ed and science journalists - this is the first report I've seen that the UC is thinking about cutting their internal postdoc program, which has been a roaring success. Something to look into?
UC Provost Katherine Newman has announced plans to defund this program, a preemptive capitulation with the feds that has not been ordered and should not occur. Newman has done this with zero consultation with campus-level leadership and none with any faculty — mentors or former fellows included.
November 2, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Higher ed and science journalists - this is the first report I've seen that the UC is thinking about cutting their internal postdoc program, which has been a roaring success. Something to look into?
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
UC Provost Katherine Newman has announced plans to defund this program, a preemptive capitulation with the feds that has not been ordered and should not occur. Newman has done this with zero consultation with campus-level leadership and none with any faculty — mentors or former fellows included.
November 2, 2025 at 11:01 AM
UC Provost Katherine Newman has announced plans to defund this program, a preemptive capitulation with the feds that has not been ordered and should not occur. Newman has done this with zero consultation with campus-level leadership and none with any faculty — mentors or former fellows included.
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
So let’s come back to the analysis of why PPFP is on the chopping block. It’s not due to poor ROI or outcomes; as noted, the program results in almost 100% tenure rates of those who go through it. It’s a brilliant cosy-effective way to get and keep top talent within UC. It’s highly competitive.
November 2, 2025 at 11:15 AM
So let’s come back to the analysis of why PPFP is on the chopping block. It’s not due to poor ROI or outcomes; as noted, the program results in almost 100% tenure rates of those who go through it. It’s a brilliant cosy-effective way to get and keep top talent within UC. It’s highly competitive.
Reposted by Kinsey Brock
More so than any sport, baseball does the absurd so well
November 2, 2025 at 3:40 AM
More so than any sport, baseball does the absurd so well
Oh my goshhhhhh ! ⚾️ 😱
November 2, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Oh my goshhhhhh ! ⚾️ 😱