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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁

@alexsmithants.bsky.social
8.3K followers 5.7K following 769 posts

Assoc. Prof of #Biology at UofG, Guelph, ON, Canada. Inspired by the #Biodiversity in ACG, Costa Rica. #Ecology, #Evolution, #Entomology Opinions my own & do not overlap with my employer. he/him www.malexsmith.com www.youtube.com/@Alex_Smith_Ants

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Dr Sho Jacobs 🍁 @shoshanahjacobs.ca · 09/10/2026
#HigherEd Admin: we're growing enrolment by 6000 students. Collegial governance: reads about it in the news. news.ontario.ca/en/release/1...
news.ontario.ca
Ontario Newsroom
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Andrew D Thaler @drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Seems important, re: deep-sea mining: Spontaneous combustion of metal sulfide minerals and implications for seafloor massive sulfide mining: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Spontaneous combustion of metal sulfide minerals and implications for seafloor massive sulfide mining - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Spontaneous combustion of metal sulfide minerals and implications for seafloor massive sulfide mining
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EcoEvoRxiv @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Life-history traits do not always evolve in response to changing thermal environments doi.org/10.32942/X20...
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Liam Dougherty @liamdougherty.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
New pre-print led by the amazing @patricepottier.bsky.social - very little evidence for evolution of life history traits in response to warming, even in insects. Rapid adaptation is unlikely to mitigate the continuing impacts of climate change 🔥🔥🔥
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Could also be a nascent administrator’s cover letter. 🤔
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Catelli @catelli.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"I don't understand how anything works, I refuse to accept the explanations, and I know how to fix it all." www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
ANALYSIS | How anti-COVID activism injected life into Alberta's separatist movement | CBC News
They fought vaccines and public health restrictions. Over time, their push for freedom shifted to independence.
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David Elfstrom 🍁 @davidelfstrom.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Yeah, that coughing and "something going around" discussions is COVID. That nice low summer is over. Toronto's wastewater viral load is showing a consistent upward trend in COVID-19 and nearly zero levels of influenza A & B and RSV. wwater.ca/Ontario/Toro...
Most recent wastewater virus levels for Toronto, with date ending week ending September 27, 2026, showing a clear upward trend in COVID-19 and minimal for influenza and RSV.
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zoë @zo-e.xyz · 07/10/2026
okay so this anecdote in Margaret's obituary has me crying because this is exactly what it's like being in tech and trying to anticipate failures and having men basically tell you you're being hysterical and then you have to fix it later
"the Lauren error": One day, her daughter Lauren, then four years old, was playing with the command module simulator at the
Instrumentation Lab when she somehow activated a pre-launch program, called P01, while the simulator was in midflight - which
crashed the simulator altogether. Hamilton created a program add-on in the technical documentation warning users not to launch P01 during flight.
She also proposed a software fix to prevent the error happening during a real mission, but she was overruled on the grounds that the highly trained astronauts were never going to make that same mistake. Yet during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, that's exactly what happened: Jim Lovell inadvertently launched P01 during the flight, causing the on-flight navigational data to vanish. Hamilton and her team were called in to solve the error, and after that her proposed changes were integrated into the program. This was an early example of "defensive" programming, the
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 08/10/2026
RIP Margaret Hamilton. Lead software engineer for the Apollo program. Here she is standing next to the code she wrote to send humans to the moon. Barack Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. news.mit.edu/2026/margare... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margare...
Margaret Hamilton. Lead software engineer for the Apollo program. Here she is standing next to the code she wrote to send humans to the moon.
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James Pirruccello 🎃🦇🧹 @jamespirruccello.com · 08/10/2026
news.mit.edu/2026/margare...
news.mit.edu
Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90
Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.
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snoopy44.bsky.social @snoopy44.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The Woman Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions Has Died www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/o...
nytimes.com
Margaret Hamilton, Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions, Has Died
Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the space project at M.I.T., was 90.
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bryan newbold @bnewbold.net · 07/10/2026
ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...
old photos of a woman (Margaret Hamilton) standing next to a tall stack of books (printouts of Apollo space mission software source code)
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 08/10/2026
Margaret Hamilton, who led the 100-person team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, has died.
nyti.ms
Margaret Hamilton, Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions, Has Died
Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the space project at M.I.T., was 90.
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Jente Ottenburghs | Avian Hybrids @jenteo.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
New story on the Avian Hybrids blog! How convincing is the evidence to split the Gentoo Penguin into four species? (bis) avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2026/10/07/h... Based on the Communications Biology paper by Daly Noll and her colleagues | #ornithology
avianhybrids.wordpress.com
How convincing is the evidence to split the Gentoo Penguin into four species? (bis)
New evidence to support a taxonomic change.
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Germán Orizaola @gorizaola.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Our recent @currentbiology.bsky.social paper (www.cell.com/current-biol... on how beauty bias in butterflies can affect public attention and alter conservation priorities, featured @environment.theguardian.com
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Jhan C. Salazar, PhD @jhancsalazar.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Happy to share that the last chapter of my dissertation is finally out in Evolution! 🦎⛰️ I'll share a longer thread soon about what we did and found. Huge thanks to all my coauthors: @jblosos.bsky.social, @juvelas.bsky.social, Steven Poe and Adam Algar doi.org/10.1093/evol...
doi.org
Repeated evolution of high-elevation occupation in tropical lizards
Abstract. Since Darwin and Humboldt, researchers have sought to understand how species adapt to elevation. Although tropical reptiles are typically most di
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Casey Dunn @caseywdunn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Our new tool corpus makes biodiversity literature searchable by AI agents via MCP, with provenance to source text and figures. With @shchurch.bsky.social , Felipe Zapata, and Maciej Mańko. In @currentbiology.bsky.social - www.cell.com/current-biol... Code: github.com/caseywdunn/c...
cell.com
Extracting AI agent-accessible data from biodiversity literature with corpus
Church et al. present corpus, a tool that converts a library of biodiversity literature PDFs into a searchable knowledge base of text, figures, and references. It connects to an AI agent through a Mod...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
🧪 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 Some correspondence this week in @pnas.org about assumptions underlying how many species of insect. Here's our reply to Fattorini and Borges "Conditional CIs and sensitivity analysis characterize uncertainty in global insect richness estimates" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
three panel image of fig tree at 1000m on Volcan Cacao at the top, on the bottom right a Malaise trap at 1300m on Volcan Cacao and on the bottom left the microgastrinae parasitoid wasp Snellenius robertoespinozai named for much missed parataxonomist Roberto Espinoza. last paragraph of the response reading: In summary, because we were aware of the problem of propagated uncertainty in multistep estimation, we designed the study to rely on the absolute minimum number of inferential steps, capped by a sensitivity analysis across upscaling reference groups where quantitative uncertainty could not be estimated. The range of our estimates of global insect richness is wide, but even the lowest estimate—14 million species—is more than twice the previous consensus estimate. Moreover, our assumptions about collection methods, DNA barcode-based species delimitation, and biogeographical comparisons were—at every turn—far more likely to bias our estimates downward than upward.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Here’s #DougTheDog loving his frisbee. A very good boy!
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Cam Walker @walks30.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
34 years ago the Hip released Fully Completely, one of their best The Tragically Hip “At The Hundredth Meridian”
youtu.be
The Tragically Hip - At The Hundredth Meridian (Official Video)
YouTube video by TheTragicallyHipVEVO
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Canadian History Ehx @cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
On this day in 1992, The Tragically Hip released their third studio album Fully Completely. One of the greatest Canadian albums ever made, it sold 200,000 copies within three months. It reached #1 in Canada, eventually selling over one million copies for Diamond Status.
The image is the album cover for "Fully Completely" by The Tragically Hip. It features a vibrant, surreal artwork with multiple figures in dynamic poses, surrounded by musical instruments and abstract elements. The background includes a mix of red, purple, and green hues, with the band name "The Tragically Hip" at the top and the album title "Fully Completely" below it.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Fantastic weather, fantastic people and a fantastic time last week with #invertebrate students in #ZOO3700 last week in the #Guelph #DairyBush #highered 🐞🐛🐜🦟 🧪
Three panoramas of students sampling in the dairy bush forest 
Infrequently cut field and frequently cut field 
Images four sessions of invert class around a maple tree
That germinated in 1785 in the guelph dairy bush forestPhoto of four insects
Found in the dairy bush field
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Formerly known as Truly S. @notincleveland.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
And stop calling the Epstein survivors "young women," too! Some of them are young women now, but they were girls then!
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Dr Sho Jacobs 🍁 @shoshanahjacobs.ca · 03/10/2026
Stop calling them boys
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It’s #DougTheDog enjoying his frisbee!
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Had my umpteenth conversation with a colleague drawn to join the staff of a charismatic TED Talk-made lab director — at a uni famous for building labs around charismatic figures — only to learn that that charisma cloaked an egomaniac con artist w/ nightmare managerial skills. Tale as old as time ⌛️
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever
A tweet by SarahStarberry that says "oh god read the vertical axis" on top of a chart measuring AI models' release dates and model numbers rather than any real capabilities
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Dr Sho Jacobs 🍁 @shoshanahjacobs.ca · 02/10/2026
Contributing authors: Chinelo Onwualu Jennifer Gouge Heather Clitheroe Monique Cuillerier Premme Mohamed Rosemary Mosco Sagan Yee Sneha Subramanian Kanta This free Open Access Anthology celebrates the ingenuity of transdisciplinary collaboration in a time of crisis. Join us. You belong here.
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Dr Sho Jacobs 🍁 @shoshanahjacobs.ca · 02/10/2026
To learn more about #ManufacturedEcosystems, please visit our website: www.manufacturedecosystems.com
manufacturedecosystems.com
Manufactured Ecosystems
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Dr Sho Jacobs 🍁 @shoshanahjacobs.ca · 02/10/2026
What will our world feel like when the Climate collapses? Sci-Fi authors partnered with artists and scientists to imagine. They created the prototypes of our uncertain future #ManufacturedEcosystems is funded by @sshrc-crsh.canada.ca New Frontiers in Research books.lib.uoguelph.ca/manufactured...
books.lib.uoguelph.ca
Manufactured Ecosystems
Manufactured Ecosystems offers seven visions of ecosystems services in the future by science fiction writers from across Canada and North America. Featuring stories by Chinelo Onwualu, Jennifer Gougé,...
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Dr Sho Jacobs 🍁 @shoshanahjacobs.ca · 01/10/2026
I teach 400 1st-yr #HigherEd students Community at this scale doesn’t just happen: it needs resourcing Next year, I lose access to the tools I use to do this, unless I pay for them myself So these small acts of community building may be some of my last I present: collaborative drawing.
screenshot of my starting slide for an online class. the students have been colouring together, using the zoom annotation tools. There is a tropical fish and, importantly, my avatar has been given a snorkel.
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Sphagnum Moss @mosssphagnum.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Im hearing coughing & seeing symptomatic students show up in school. And a colleague borrowed my aranet4 whi ch showed high CO2 levels (& potentially infectious aerosols) even 5 mins after students left the class
A graph showing 2601ppm at 309pm
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Tod Maffin 🇨🇦 @todmaffin.com · 30/09/2026
In 1973, Phyllis Webstad, age 6, arrived at residential school in a new orange shirt her grandmother had bought her. To her, the shirt stood for belonging. It was taken away on her first day. Today, in part, is about what was taken from children. 🪶 READ: orangeshirtday.org/about/phylli...
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Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Vaccines work" isn't a political statement. "Immigrants do not increase crime" isn't a political statement. "Climate change is real" isn't a political statement. "Genocide is bad" isn't a political statement. Stop neutralizing the power of facts by framing them as "politics." Reality matters.
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Carol Off @caroloff.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My new book describes the journey of a young country finding its place in the world. The story I tell is historic but it's also personal; how I came to truly, patriotically, love this country. On sale October 13 but you can pre-order at your favourite bookstore.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
What an album. #NauticalDisaster youtu.be/e8Fi46BFAF0?...
youtu.be
The Tragically Hip - Nautical Disaster (Official Video)
YouTube video by The Tragically Hip
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Ctenophores Rock! @ctenophoresrock.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is Bob. They are a hermaphroditic comb jelly that recently underwent reverse development from adult lobate to larval cydippid, following a period of stress. The event reduced our colony to just Bob. Once our food source stabilized, Bob began to flourish & what was 1 Bob is now 500+ Bobettes! 🦑
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
So happy to be able to wear my newly arrived #ctenophore t-shirt in #ZOO3700 lecture today! Check them out! @elizabethbeston.bsky.social t supporting the Plankton Project theplanktonproject.teemill.com/collection/a...
screen grab of a lecture where there is a plot of host mass against parasite size and students have annotated their expectation.  top right hand corner speaker is wearing snazzy ctenophore tshirt!
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/alex...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
🧪 Preparing students to work on a project on the #DairyBush this fall (a natural woodlot on the #Guelph campus) and want introduce them (& you) to this sugar maple that is estimated to have germinated in 1785. This 241 year old 🍁 (older than 🇨🇦 , than lithography, than …) is part of your campus.
Image looking up the trunk into the canopy of a sugar maple that germinated in the UofG Dairy Bush in 1785
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Waking up to learn of ANOTHER case where a paper has been published using my data and samples without attribution, biological data or context (let alone inclusion or consultation) ..... digs further & finds another one. how's your Saturday?
static.klipy.com
Man's Frustrated Outburst of Anger
Alt: Man's Frustrated Outburst of Anger
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
my favorite type of bivalve :) can YOU find the staphylinid?
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Dr. Jen Irwin @drjenirwin.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“Air sampling at four US airports in 2023 and 2024 detected SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in over 98% of samples and influenza A in over 17%, according to a study published in PLOS Global Public Health” www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/air...
cidrap.umn.edu
Airport air sampling captures COVID, influenza viruses
Researchers say air monitoring complements wastewater testing in detecting respiratory pathogens from diverse populations, including asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Hope it fits the need!
static.klipy.com
Sesame Street Cookie Monster's Crazy Eyes
Alt: Sesame Street Cookie Monster's eating a cookie with… gusto
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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Did a brachiopod write this? 😅
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So the banana bread cookies (or banana brookies as the kids have named them) recipe from today’s Globe and Mail is fantastic! 🎁 link through paywall because… 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/c231c7b...
An image of the banana brookies cooling on a drying rack
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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · 16/09/2026
An update following feedback from several kind people. As before, reuse as you see fit..
An infographic showing the number of described and estimated species for major animal groups. There are more insects than anything else. Of the remaining groups, arachnids and nematodes are the most diverse.
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James Umbanhowar @jumbanho.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
If you are mad at how expensive bike repairs cost, recognize that bike mechanics are basically the most poorly paid mechanics in the country and bike shops are not high margin.
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Dr. Jessica L Ware @jessicalwarelab.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I love this new journal---https://journaloflostspecies.org/index.php/jls/index
journaloflostspecies.org
The Journal of Lost Species
A peer-reviewed record of the contemporary biodiversity crisis.
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Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 14/09/2026
Obituary: Robert Ricklefs (1943–2026) www.nature.com/articles/s41... Polymath ecologist whose research and textbooks integrating ecology and evolution have inspired generations of students. Free to read: rdcu.be/D33fLgYcv4Ba
nature.com
Robert Ricklefs (1943–2026) - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Polymath ecologist whose research and textbooks integrating ecology and evolution have inspired generations of students.
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