iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

When I travel, I always check out the seafood section in the grocery stores. Here are some New Zealand green-lipped mussels for #MolluscMonday. #MarineLife #MolluskMonday 🦑🌊

A pile of mussels - elongated bivalve mollusks - with bright-green growing edges on their shells.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

For many years, we‘ve been working w/ an amazing artist to create an exhibit describing our research on #seaweed biodiversity. That exhibit - *Holdfast - Swept Away* - will be at Mendocino Art Center to coincide w/ North Coast Kelp Fest! #PhycologyFriday www.mendocinoartcenter.org/exhibitions/...

Mendocino Art Center
Saturday, October 10, 2026, 11:00 AM - Saturday, November 7, 2026, 10:30 AM
Gail Wight
Holdfast - Swept Away
At the Marine Biodiversity Lab at UC Irvine, Matt Bracken is studying the effects of global warming on the seaweeds of California's coastline. At Matt's invitation, artist Gail Wight has followed the lab's research for the past five years. Holdfast and Swept Away are Wight's interpretations of that research, influenced by the decades she's spent exploring Northern California's tide pools.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Beneath the canopy 🌴 (yes I know this is not a palm tree)

Looking up through the fronds of a tree fern

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Visiting some big trees 🇳🇿

Massive kauri trees growing in the Trounson Kauri Park, Northland, Aotearoa New Zealand

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

We kicked off spooky season with a visit to the Roger’s Gardens Halloween boo-tique in Newport Beach 🎃

Clock decorated with monarch butterflies

Creepy arch made of skeletons illuminated with red light

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Last night’s last light 🌅🌊

Sunset over rocky reefs and the Pacific Ocean

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Ibises ibissing in our neighborhood park. 🪶

A large group of white-faced ibises forages in the grass. These are medium-sized, long-legged wading birds with iridescent plumage and long, downward-curved bills.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Descending over the Rockies into Denver, listening to Tony Trischka & Sierra Ferrell perform “Amazing Grace,” I look out the window & see this: youtu.be/TDG0YBqPRXU?...

The setting sun bathes the mountains in golden beams of light.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Having a conversation w/ Tilly 🐓

Our cream legbar hen jumped up on the roof of the coop, so I coaxed her onto my forearm to have a little chat & lower her to the ground.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Applications for PSA Grants-in-Aid of Research are being accepted thru Nov 1 - a great way to fund thesis or postdoc projects! Applicants must be graduate students or postdocs studying phycology & members of the Phycological Society of America. #PhycologyFriday www.psaalgae.org/grantsinaid-...

APPLICATIONS OPEN:
PSA Grants-In-Aid of
Research
Supporting graduate students and post doctoral researchers in all areas of phycology
APPLY BY NOVEMBER 1, 2026
Learn more and apply on the PSA website

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Our neighborhood ibis friends are back! 🪶

A flock of white-faced ibises - medium-sized, long-legged wading birds with iridescent feathers and distinctive curved bills - struts along a street and grazes on the park strip.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This adorable ceramic crab box is from the Hoi An Hoard shipwreck, Vietnam, Hai Duong province, Chu Dau kilns, Later Le dynasty, late 15th century. #InverteFest #SciArt #MarineLife 🦀🌊🦑🐡

Lidded ceramic box in the shape of a crab, white with blue designs, including a bird motif on the carapace / lid. This piece is in the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This represents a seismic shift in how geosciences research is funded by the U.S. government. Will it be more efficient? It seems likely that subject-specific expertise in assessing proposals will be lost. www.nsf.gov/geo/updates/... 🧪

Effective Aug. 17, 2026, the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Geosciences (NSF GEO) published a new funding opportunity titled, Geosciences Research: Atmospheric, Geospace, Earth, and Ocean Sciences (GEO Core).

This solicitation calls for proposals in three programs:

Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) Program;
Earth Sciences (EAR) Program; and
Ocean Sciences (OCE) Program.
GEO Core will continue to support the breadth of geoscience research topics, including those that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. This new funding opportunity simplifies the submission processes by consolidating and soon replacing 15 funding opportunities, which will be archived no later than Sept. 25, 2026:

PD 24-7790: Atmosphere Cluster.
PD 24-7789: Geospace Cluster.
NSF 22-570: Solar, Heliospheric, and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE).
NSF 22-537: Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM).
NSF 25-510: Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR).
NSF 23-602 Facility and Instrumentation Request Process (FIRP).
NSF 25-517: Life and Environments through Time.
NSF 25-518: Structure and Physics of the Solid Earth.
NSF 25-519: Water, Landscape, and Critical Zone processes.
NSF 25-516: Chem Evolution of Solid Earth and Volcanology.

PD 23-1650: Biological Oceanography.
PD 17-1620: Marine Geology and Geophysics.
PD 98-1670: Chemical Oceanography.
PD 98-1610: Physical Oceanography.
PD 98-1680: Ocean Technology and Interdisciplinary Coordination.
Principal investigators may submit to any of the active funding opportunities until Sept. 25, 2026, or submit to GEO Core, which welcomes proposals at any time throughout the year. From Sept. 26, 2026, onward, only GEO Core will be accepting proposals. The NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) contains specific guidance for developing and submitting proposals.

GEO Core programs
GEO Core comprises three programs, which together cover the breadth of science that was offered through the 15 programs that are being archived.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

#Seaweed (-ish) decorations on the to-go cups at High Tide Coffee. #SeaweedSaturday #MarineLife 🌊🦑

Coffee cups with pink lids are stacked on a counter. They are labeled “High Tide Coffee” with a pattern of waves, and they are decorated with fronds in various colors that resemble seaweeds.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

We have a bit of additional hardware to install, but this season’s #SwelterShelterNSF fieldwork is pretty much complete: three sites in each of four regions spanning > 23 degrees of latitude along the West Coast of North America. Many thanks to our amazing field team! 🙏🏻🌅 #MarineLife 🌊🦑

The sun sets over the Pacific, viewed from a jet landing in Orange County, California.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Plenty of *Pisaster* in the Salish Sea 🌊⭐️ #SeastarSaturday #MarineLife 🦑

The underside of an intertidal boulder at Larrabee State Park is swarmed with purple sea stars.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Introduced false cerith snails covered the eelgrass at a site we visited today. #SwelterShelterNSF #MarineLife 😈🐌 🌊🦑

Long, gray-brown, conical snails sit atop green blades of eelgrass.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The aggregating sea anemone (*Anthopleura elegantissima*) usually hosts dinoflagellate (olive-brown) &/or green algal unicellular symbionts. It gets most of its color from the symbionts, but when buried by sand - as these individuals were - it loses the symbionts & is white w/ pink tentacle tips. 🦑🌊

A cluster of white sea anemones with bright pink tentacle tips.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Clues to an ocean voyage: bull #kelp (*Nereocystis luetkeana*) grows in shallow water, attached to the rocks w/ its light-capturing blades on the surface. But this kelp is covered w/ pelagic barnacles that only grow on floating debris in the open ocean. This #seaweed has been drifting out at sea! 🌊🦑

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Baby toad! 👶🏼🐸 (fir needle for scale)

This tiny toad (pretty sure it’s *Anaxyrus boreas*) was resting on a rock - not much bigger than my pinky nail.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Note the sign to the right of the car wash entrance... 😬🤔

Car wash entrance. Sign to the right reads “no logging trucks.”

Close-up of the “no logging trucks” sign

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

@coastalpaleo.bsky.social There are a lot of pieces like this one in the Point Arena formation in Mendocino County. They look sort of bone-like, but I really don’t know what to look for. Thoughts?

A pitted, circular rock is embedded in a sedimentary matrix.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Echinodermata = “spiny skinned” (ochre seastar, *Pisaster ochraceus*) 🌊⭐️ #MarineLife 🦑

A zoomed-in view of a purple seastar’s “spiny skin” - decorated with white, calcareous nodules.

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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Surrounded. (🌊🦔)(🌊🦔)(🌊🦔)(🌊🌸)(🌊🦔)(🌊🦔)(🌊🦔) #MarineLife

A giant green sea anemone sits in a surge channel, completely surrounded by purple urchins.

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