iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 1h

You reach the Gates of Hades & find them guarded by this: (📷: USFWS)

Spooky Season has officially begun, and we’re kicking things off with a three-headed ferret.

OK, technically it’s three black-footed ferrets, but October calls for a little imagination.

Once thought to be extinct, black-footed ferrets are one of North America’s rarest mammals. At the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center, staff work to breed and recover these endangered little creatures and return them to the wild.

Cute? Absolutely. Three-headed monster? Only in October.

Photo by USFWS

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Simkaye 🌈 @simkaye.bsky.social · 21h

anyone else feel like this

A digital illustration of a quetzalcoatlus perched on telephone wires among a flock of crows

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 16h

This will never stop blowing my mind. A 12-year sequence of real telescope images of a star 133 lightyears away. And around it, four planets slowly orbiting. Four real exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, imaged as they move around their host star.

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Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · 6h

Good morning! 🪶

Burrowing owlet about to pounce on a dirt mound.

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European Space Agency @esa.int · 30/09/2026

Our Smile mission is ready for science. Its ultraviolet camera has already captured this substorm rippling through the northern lights around Earth’s North Pole. @science.esa.int 🧪🔭

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Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 15h

oh and he and Snoobug get along pretty well so far btw

Cooper and Snoobug! Snoobug is on the left, and she’s a corgi shepherd mix. Cooper is in the right tucked under her. He’s a lab hound mix.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 18h

These prairie dogs aren't in love. They aren't even in an open throuple with a nearby badger. They're greeting each other. The French custom may be a kiss on each cheek, but prairie dogs really get in there, swap some spit. Prairie dog for "hello". Let's talk about it. (📷: Jennifer Verdolin)

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Today is the day to commiserate with Charles Darwin, on the 161st anniversary of his confessing to Charles Lyell that he felt "...very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everyone & everything." Here's more of the back story on Darwin writing about this not-so-good day. www.npr.org/sections/kru...

npr.org

Charles Darwin And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Geniuses have it easy, right? They wake up and out pops the brilliance. Well, not really. And not if that genius is Charles Darwin, who's got lots to do and absolutely no desire to do it. Those days (...

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You've seen fireworks that look like jellyfish, but what about a jellyfish that looks like fireworks? The E/V Nautilus filmed this rare Halitrephes maasi jellyfish glowing like a firework at a depth of 4,019 feet (1,225 meters) off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. (📷: Ocean Exploration Trust)

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Garth Marenghi's Catbus @catbus.phd · 03/09/2024

the three genders

three squeeze bottles of sauce labeled
special, Halloween & Mild

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Noah Bressman, PhD @noahwithfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My favorite emails from students are those with the subject, “What fish is this?” Here, we have a skilletfish, our local clingfish species that uses is suction cup-like pelvic fins to stick under crevices and in shells.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The smallest bat in North America is the canyon bat (Parastrellus hesperus), also called the western pipistrelle or American parastrelle. They weigh about 3–6 grams, the weight of a US penny, sheet of paper, or teaspoon of sugar. In flight, they're sometimes confused for moths or butterflies.

A tiny smoke-grey furry bat with darker face, ears and wings. The big story is the tiny size. The entire bat fits on a portion of a human's thumb, a tee-weeny tiny little guy.

This is a viral photo that's circulated for years, but I found it on r/BatFacts posted by u/Pardusco.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Franzi Schimmer captured this Grizzly bear in Brooks Falls, Alaska just floating along, tippy-tapping down the river, browsing the salmon. Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The story of the Texas Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys elator) is, in its own way, the story of Texas. They're native to a tiny area of North Texas where American buffalo once roamed in vast numbers, clearing prairie, making nighttime foraging & escape easier for our k-rat. (📷: Texas Parks & Wildlife)

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Omigod, this is the most heartwarming story possible! Backpack (bear 89) is the son of the 2019 winner of Fat Bear Week, Holly (bear 435). In 2007, he injured his foot & a practice of riding on momma's Holly's back had a new meaning: he was mobility-restricted while it healed. So Holly moved him.

From DISCVR blog's Facebook page, a momma bear & a yearling cub on her back in the shallow water. I think the background has been swapped out, and I can't rule out some AI use there? God, Facebook has become the social media for AI slop : (

The title of the article, which I link below, is "How Bear 89 earned the name Backpack"

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Duckweed flowers (red arrows) are among the smallest in the world & generally can only be seen under a microscope. In Wolffia species, they are at most a few hundred cells, contain 1 male stamen, 1 female pistil. Pollen just floats out to the nearest adjacent plant, sometimes aided by water-bugs.

From: Flower induction, microscope-aided cross-pollination, and seed production in the duckweed Lemna gibba with discovery of a male-sterile clone

Figure 1
L. gibba plant with natural flowers. Red arrows indicate flowers; M, mother frond; D, daughter frond; G, granddaughter frond.

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Here it comes... the large coronal hole is almost directly facing Earth now, which means fast solar wind is 3-4 days away. In fact, NOAA SWPC has just issued a G1/minor storm watch for Oct 2. This means there are chances for mid-latitude auroral displays Thu and Fri nights. #heliophysics

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 30/09/2026

GOAT OR BIRD????

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Qingshan Lake Water Forest in Lin'an District, Hangzhou is a viral attraction sometimes called "Matcha Lake" for the emerald green duckweed (subfamily Lemnoideae). These black swans (Cygnus atratus) & their cygnets are enjoying a nutritious buffet of aquatic plants. Let's learn about duckweed.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 26/07/2024

Me: "I like to dump the dry ice from shipments into the sink and add a bunch of water so it looks like I'm a mad scientist tinkering with forces beyond my understanding, spitting in the face of the gods with my intellectual hubris." Priest: "Okay, again; kind of weird, but not technically a sin"

Don't do this to your plumbing, because it can really mess it up, and this isn't my lab, but it's a sink filled with dry ice that is boiling over with CO2. A black lab bench with carboy of water next to the sink, and a centrifuge on the bench in fashionable "science beige".

Taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/labrats/comments/xuo2kt/lpt_dump_excess_dry_ice_from_shipments_into_the/

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Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · 29/09/2026

You guys, LOOK at this corgi I saw on my morning walk 🥰

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

There are up to 8,000 species of katydids in family Tettigoniidae, 255 in North America alone. But this hot pink katydid isn't some exotic species, it's a 'morph', a normal genetic color variant. Here's the weird part: this is the DOMINANT color gene in katydids. (📷: Audubon Zoo)

From Audubon Insectarium article (it's behind a paywall), a vibrantly pink katydid, probably fresh from molting, sitting on broad green leaves.

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Sure, maybe it’s not biologically accurate- sharks and their relatives, after all, have skeletons made out of cartilage not bone- but I do love my spooky Halloween shark skeleton.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Every year, new graduate students in research labs are confronted by the Totem of Molbio that is "Captain Eppie". Captain Eppie was a promotional item given away with the purchase of Eppendorf centrifuges, but his mismatched eyes, primal energy & faint supernatural aura have led many to ask: WHY?

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Spooky season continues: Let's meet the undertaker of the prairie, the American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus). They quickly inhume corpses they find, to... uh... keep them SAFE... for... uh, later. Protecting a dead bird or rodent or larger so they'll have enough food for their babies.💀🍽️

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

How do Lord Kelvin, submarine telegraph cables & silk dresses give us "LASER ZEPPELIN AT THE PLANETARIUM"? Before he was Lord Kelvin, he was William Thomson, a young scientist with a very sick wife (Margaret Crum). He'd done some early work on thermal conduction & electrostatics...

media.tenor.com

a crowd of people watching a concert with blue lights

Alt: a crowd of people watching a concert with blue lights

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Nikki M @powderedsugarbear.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

You have been blessed by the friend onion :).

A clear container with fried onions in it the sign says "friend onion".

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James Linzel @jlinzel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Morning gastropod derby, courtesy of underneath the recycling bin

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Raqefet Cave in Israel was a sacred burial site for the hunter-gatherer culture known as the 'Natufians' around 13,000 years ago. More recently, we've also discovered here the earliest evidence of BEER BREWING from grains. Even more remarkable because these people HADN'T INVENTED AGRICULTURE YET.

smithsonianmag.com

Traces of 13,000-Year-Old Beer Found in Israel

According to the authors of a new study, the discovery marks the earliest-known evidence of beer production among ancient peoples

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'll save you the click-through: A lab at University of Copenhagen had been feeding draft manuscripts & data into "Claude Science" & then Anthropic announces a discovery that this lab made a year ago but hasn't published yet. It's plausible that Claude found the same signatures independently...

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If you're in line for the wolverine butt-scratching log, stay in line!

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Nature photographer 'pendra100legs' does these amazing macro shots of tiny bugs. This one is delightful (I'll link below to the full thing). It's a globular springtail in genus Sminthurides. These insect-relatives can launch themselves 60 times their height in 1.6 MILLISECONDS. *Voomp*. Gone.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

What it means to be a naturalist in the 1800s. 🫠 "Citizen Milbert and Citizen Le Brun began drawing the porpoise that had been caught the day before. After that, Citizen Péron worked on it to make anatomical observations [...] Afterwards it was shared with the crew for lunch [...]"

« Le citoyen Milbert, le citoyen Le Brun ont commencé à dessiner le marsouin que l'on avait pris la veille. Après c'est le citoyen Péron qui l'a travaillé pour faire les observations anatomiques [...] Après on l'a partagé à l'équipage pour midi [...] »
"Citizen Milbert and Citizen Le Brun began drawing the porpoise that had been caught the day before. After that, Citizen Péron worked on it to make anatomical observations [...] Afterwards it was shared with the crew for lunch [...]"
Journal d'Anselme Riedlé, jardinier, 2 décembre 1800

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

~800,000 years ago, a giant straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, roamed Europe. It was about twice the size of a modern African elephant: 4 m (13 ft) at the shoulder, weighing ~13 tons. This story is NOT about these towering titans. It's about their ᴛɪɴʏ cousins. (📷: Liam Elward)

A life sized recreation next to a standard waving human silhouette, showing Palaeoxloxodon namadicus, which was slightly larger than Paleoloxodon antiquus but probably didn't enter Europe, being specific to India and parts of Asia.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

In 1926, an entire family in Berlin were killed when a seal ruptured in their refrigerator, releasing toxic gas in the enclosed space. Two local men decided to use their considerable powers of intellect to make refrigerators safer. Let's talk about the time Albert Einstein invented a refrigerator.

A man in a suit demonstrates a modern electrical refrigerator to a woman in a 1930's dress and hat, in what appears to be a showcase of an appliance store.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Let's take a minute to 'think about them beans'. Toe beans, that is. Why do some animals have little pink nubs on their feet, while others... don't? Let's start by looking at the-things-between-the-beans minus the fur. Time to look at a Sphynx cat's foot, up close. CW: cannot be UNSEEN.😬

static.klipy.com

Cute Cat Paws

Alt: Cute Cat Paws: An orange and white marmalade cat is off-screen, with just the rear paws extended over a grey sofa arm. The toe beans flare outward as the cat flexes.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

What in the name of Beetlejuice ARE these things? They're zebra morphs of 'squat lobsters', likely in genus Allogalathea. They're not true lobsters & are more closely related to hermit crabs. Now which one is white with black stripes & which is black with white stripes? (📷: hoopderscotch)

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

'Nature of Wildworks', a rescue in Coarsegold, CA, shared this video of Cliff the Cougar purring in contentment. Cats that roar (lions, tigers) generally can't meow or purr for anatomical reasons. But let's explore WHY cats purr. We can start by asking: WHEN do they purr? (📷: Nature of Wildworks)

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

From the Fort Worth Zoo: Raani the Indian gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) admires her baby, newly hatched. The Fort Worth Zoo had 8 (!) babies hatch this season. The population of these critically endangered crocs is less than 1000 globally, so every hatchling matters. (📷: Fort Worth Zoo)

From a 2023 Facebook post by the Fort Worth Zoo:
"HISTORY IS MADE🚨
The Zoo is thrilled to announce this monumental conservation success - the hatchings of four critically endangered gharial crocodiles. The Fort Worth Zoo is the only institution in the United States to have produced multiple offspring of this critically endangered species. (To date, only one other institution has produced a single offspring in 2016.) In the wild, it is estimated that only about 200 reproducing adults remain. We are so proud of our ectotherms team for this historic achievement!"

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Don't believe the LIES of BIG CORN DOG. These things grow WILD in wetlands across the US. That's why I always carry a jar of mustard when hiking, in case I feel like a snack. Let's talk about Typha latifolia, the broadleaf cattail & their remarkable seed dispersal capacity.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Bless the memory of Stanislav Yevgrafovich, the Man Who Saved the World. At a moment when it mattered, he chose humanity.

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taenia @taenia.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Goooooood morning, pika fans It's September, and you know what that means! That's right, we are Making Hay, we are Perching On Rocks, we are Squeaking

An American Pika carrying a branch across rocky terrain

This is a small brown mammal that looks like an extremely cute cross between a rabbit and a mouse. It has short, round ears, large dark eyes and long whiskers.

Am American Pika crouched on a rock at a 3/4 view towards the camera

This is a small brown mammal that looks like an extremely cute cross between a rabbit and a mouse. It has short, round ears, large dark eyes and long whiskers.

An American Pika with a mouth full of dried vegetation sitting on a rock

This is a small brown mammal that looks like an extremely cute cross between a rabbit and a mouse. It has short, round ears, large dark eyes and long whiskers.

An American Pika perched on a rock and calling

This is a small brown mammal that looks like an extremely cute cross between a rabbit and a mouse. It has short, round ears, large dark eyes and long whiskers.

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Declan Troy @troydeclan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wanted to photograph this moose as he was shedding velvet but on the big day he played hard to get. Once it was gone I couldn't shake him, he was everywhere I went. Chugach State Park #Alaska

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

PEZ Band-Aids Dick van Dyke PCP Kool-Aid ... all older than sliced bread.

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George The Station Cat @george-station-cat.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Apparently we have ongoing IT issues. The Wi-Fi signal keeps dropping and nobody can work out why. IT have investigated and believe they’ve identified the problem. There appears to be a large tangerine obstruction sitting directly on top of it

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"Snotites" was coined in 1986 by cave explorer & park ranger Jim Pisarowicz as a blend of "snot" & "stalactite" because of how much they look & feel like dripping nasal mucus. But, like, made of rock, bacterial biofilm & concentrated sulfuric acid.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

There are days I regret going into the lab side of biology and not the "scrub a happy alligator named Claude" side.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

History is stranger than fiction. The tiny mining town of Swastika, Ontario (pop 500) was named in 1907 for a lucky symbol on a necklace. During WWII, the provincial government put up a sign renaming it "Winston", but locals put their own sign up: "To hell with Hitler, we had the swastika first."

Town sign, in white letters on a blue rectangle: "SWASTIKA", and in the background are lots of trees in late Fall, missing leaves, and a few white buildings with green shingle roofs.
P199 - Wikimedia
Swastika, Ontario, Canada

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Lord of the Rings, but instead of the "Gondor Calls for Aid" Lighting-of-the-Beacons scene, it's just this little guy:

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