iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 4h

Bogotá street scenes this week.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 13/10/2026

“RemoveMacAI ‘turns off Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, and all the summaries, then it deletes the models and stops macOS from downloading them again. Dictation still works because it’s a separate setting’.”

arstechnica.com

Command-line tool quickly removes Apple Intelligence from macOS 27

The tool can free up over 12GB of storage.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Vertebrate Genomes Project @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

📅 Save the date! The next VGP In-Person Conference will be held Wednesday, April 7th - Friday, 9th 2027 at Rockefeller University in New York City. Registration and program details coming soon! vertebrategenomesproject.org/events

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 25/09/2026

An individual in Canada used ChatGPT for eight months to plan one of the country’s worst mass shootings. Yet, if you listen to politicians and media, the real threat of AI is a fantastical scenario where it might wipe out humans in ten years. They need to stop getting fooled by tech deceivers.

disconnect.blog

The media has the AI threat all wrong

Generative AI is harming people today. We don’t need to waste time fantasizing about science fictional scenarios.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Kelly Zamudio @kzutaustin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Plant Colleagues! Open job for Director of the Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center (PRC) at UT Austin. A great job for anyone addressing fundamental questions in evolution of plants and a commitment to herbarium administration and/or collections-based research. apply.interfolio.com/193263

a field of blooming bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Biodiversity Genomics Europe plus (BGE+) @biogeneurope.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

BGE+ will open thematic funding calls via the EU’s #FSTP mechanism: biodiversitygenomics.eu/supporting-c... €2.75M for an ultimate goal: mobilise European researchers to increase production/application of #genomic data during the next 3.5 years @iboleurope.bsky.social @ergabiodiv.bsky.social

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Slice of life on the Río Piñuña, Putumayo, Colombia, where one might cross paths with indigenous folks, „white“ settlers, drug traffickers, military, guerrilla, gold miners, and religious missionaries, all in the same week.

House along the Río Piñuña seen in the distance through a curtain of arial roots.

Houses and stores over the river in Piñuña Negro, historically an extremely violent little town and hub of narcotraffic.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Joe Brennan @biologyjoe87.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Looking for sci comm opportunities? Join us as a writer for American Naturalist press releases! These write-ups are primarily written by graduate students and other early-career scientists. No experience required; we have editors to help along the way. Apps due Sept 1. Please share widely :D

forms.gle

Looking for Press Release Writers & Editors for The American Naturalist

Sign up for the opportunity to write and/or edit for The American Naturalist! We are seeking authors to write press releases for new journal articles. See examples of recent press releases here. We a...

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Sunset over the #coca fields and outhouse in Putumayo 🇨🇴. My second week-long visit here, talking to lots of folks while filtering water for #eDNA work. History, culture, violence, human flourishing, #indigenous self-governance, life & death — it’s all unbelievably complicated and interesting.

Coca field surrounded by rainforest with an outhouse in the foreground, flanked by banana tree on one side, papaya tree on the other. Sunset time but looking east — to see a nice orange sky. Must be light from the west bouncing off the eastern clouds.

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Dinosaurs commonly seen along small Amazonian rivers. #Hoatzin

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

How the kids along the Putumayo river get to school each morning.

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Riding “La Linea” down the Putumayo River 🇨🇴

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Traveling down the Río Putumayo along the Colombia-Ecuador border.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Earth BioGenome Project 🌍 @ebpgenome.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

🧬 The VGP Phase I preprint is out! 🎉 The Vertebrate Genomes Project has completed Phase I, delivering 816 of the highest-quality vertebrate reference genomes ever produced. Explore this major new resource for vertebrate genomics: 📄 tinyurl.com/VGPphase1 @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social #Genomics

Graphic featuring a collage of diverse vertebrates, including a chameleon, sea turtle, frog, whale, bat, duck, axolotl, shark, echidna, salamander, bird, tropical fish, leopard, crocodile, cassowary, clownfish, Komodo dragon, snake and deep-sea fish. Text reads: “A New Milestone for Vertebrate Genomics.” The Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) has completed Phase I, delivering 816 high-quality reference genomes spanning 95% of vertebrate orders.

Underwater photograph of a humpback whale swimming beneath the ocean surface. Text reads: “Why Vertebrates? More than 70,000 vertebrate species inhabit our planet.” High-quality reference genomes help researchers understand evolution, biodiversity, conservation and adaptation.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

BP quarterly profits up from $2.5bn to $5.73bn as Iran war sends oil prices soaring. Shell doubled its net profit to almost $10bn. High bills fuelling poverty and misery for households and businesses. Boon for execs and shareholders. Must levy 100% windfall tax on oil, gas, energy companies.

theguardian.com

BP profits more than double as Iran war sends oil prices soaring

Energy company’s $5.73bn quarterly profits come after Shell posted second highest quarterly earnings on record

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Morning on the Ecuadorean side of the Putumayo river. 🌤️ 🛶 We’ll be back again later in the year.

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Always glad to hear more XTC on Le Show 🙏🏻 + songs from the Le Show archives and maybe a samba thrown in 🎼

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I'm hoping osprey lovers and striped bass fishermen will band together on behalf of the menhaden, before Omega Protein turns this fish into the next passenger pigeon. richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-great-wi...

richardconniff.substack.com

A Great Wildlife Success Story Crashes Down

On the Atlantic Coast, ospreys are suddenly in grave trouble

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Loren Cassin Sackett @cassinsackett.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Evidence that fighting pathogens requires more than the immune system: Great work by my collaborator @johnneddermeyer.bsky.social showing that evolved resistance to avian malaria in O'ahu 'amakihi is due not only to immune genes, but also calcium flux genes. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Evolution of Resistance to Avian Malaria Infection in an Endemic Hawaiian Honeycreeper

Hawaiian honeycreepers, a group of endemic song birds, represent one of the most stunning examples of an adaptive radiation. An evolutionary history devoid of malaria-causing parasites has made them ....

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Do Ho Suh’s “Karma” in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

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Trevor Caughlin @trevorcaughlin.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

New job--please share! Looking for a postdoc to deep learning methods for identifying plant species from drone imagery. The two year position offers a salary of $78,000 and the option to be based in Boise, Idaho, or Burns, Oregon. For more info: caughlinlab.com/join-the-lab/ #postdoc #drones #ai

caughlinlab.com

Join the lab! – Caughlin lab

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

“We don’t go to other planets because our planet is dying. Our planet dies, specifically because we perpetually want to go somewhere else.” @joshuaschrei

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 20/05/2026

Yesterday Google made it very clear it will degrade Search to use the massive amount of traffic to goes through it to push its billions of users into generative AI tools they aren’t asking for. Search is no longer a portal to the web; it’s a portal to Gemini. disconnect.blog/google-is-it...

Google made its ambitions quite obvious in its I/O announcements in 2023. On Tuesday, it laid out the next stage of its plan. The company made it clear there will be no escape from its generative AI products as AI hype continues to grip Silicon Valley, despite public sentiment very clearly turning against it and the data centers needed to power it. Search is the center of Google’s business and its power, and the company is taking a serious risk with the part of its business that drives more than half of its revenue.

While there will still be a box on google.com, it will no longer be a directory to the web. Now it will be the portal to Google’s suite of services, but especially its various generative AI tools it wants to force its users to become reliant on. In part that’s to try to win the AI war against its competitors, but it’s hard not to imagine it’s also a play to build user dependency on generative AI before it has to further jack up its prices.

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Same here, but 10X fewer. We’ve just finished moving them gradually into 70% EtOH. Hopefully they ‘survive’, and hopefully the formalin-adverse will now wanna work on IDs. (Now if we could solve impediment #2, no taxonomic keys.)

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Smithsonian Fish Curator position announcement! Note the application dates of May 12 – June 2, 2026. Should be posted here tomorrow: trustcareers.si.edu#js-careers-j...

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Lovely tribute from the King to Sir David staring the vertebrate fauna of Britain 🇬🇧

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Science Magazine @science.org · 09/05/2026

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. scim.ag/4tsDqRr

scim.ag

After USDA request, Indiana plant biologist locked out of lab by school

Move comes after Roger Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

I've never seen that many vipers in one day here in the American Tropics, not even close. And what of the amphibians? ;-)

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Here’s another plant that stumped the @inaturalist.bsky.social model. www.inaturalist.org/observations... It’s natural position and s hanging straight down. Also from Amazonia, namely Putumayo, Colombia. Anyone know what this might be? 🌱 🧪

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Rio Putumayo. Colombia 🇨🇴 on the left, Ecuador 🇪🇨 on the right.

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Four more páramo flowers. asher alt text t for 🆔s and comments 🧪

_ Orthrosanthus chimboracensis_, in the iris family, species endemic to the Andes + Costa Rica.

_Neobartsia_ (family Orobanchaceae), endemic to the Andes.

_Castratella piloselloides_, endemic to the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes.

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Some flowers from the páramo in Chingaza National park, near Bogotá, Colombia, elevation about 3,000 m. 🧪

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Lovely. But don’t kid yourself. Toucans will also “make a snack” of baby birds right outta the nest. 😋

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Humboldt's squirrel monkey (Saimiri cassiquiarensis), Reserva Natural El Caduceo, San Martín, Meta, Colombia.

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Earth BioGenome Project 🌍 @ebpgenome.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

🧩 From #salamanders with some of the largest, most complex genomes to #invasive species like the American #bullfrog, #amphibian genomics is pushing #sequencing forward — while filling major gaps in the #vertebrate Tree of Life.🧬💻 Big thanks to @crawfordaj.bsky.social for helping shape this post! 🧬✨

Alt EN: Image shows a large green and brown American bullfrog partially submerged in bright green duckweed, with only its head and eyes above the water. Text on image: “Inform invasive species management. Sequencing invasive amphibians, like the American bullfrog, helps track introductions, spread, and rapid adaptation.”
Alt ES: Imagen de una rana toro americana grande, verde y marrón, parcialmente sumergida entre lentejas de agua verde brillante, con la cabeza y los ojos sobre la superficie. Texto en la imagen: “Informan la gestión de especies invasoras. Secuenciar anfibios invasores, como la rana toro americana, ayuda a rastrear introducciones, expansión y adaptación rápida.”

Alt EN: Image shows a smooth, legless caecilian lying on wet soil and leaf litter in a forest floor setting. Text on image: “Fill major gaps in the Tree of Life. Amphibians remain underrepresented in genomic databases. Sequencing them strengthens phylogeny and comparative research across vertebrates.”
Alt ES: Imagen de una cecilia lisa y sin patas sobre suelo húmedo y hojarasca en el suelo del bosque. Texto en la imagen: “Llenan grandes vacíos en el Árbol de la Vida. Los anfibios siguen poco representados en las bases de datos genómicas. Secuenciarlos fortalece la filogenia y la investigación comparativa en vertebrados.”

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Dems scapegoating again rather than taking a good long look in the mirror. Or looking at data 📊 like # of Dems that voted Green vs # of Dems that voted Republican in Florida in 2000. Dig it. 🪏

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Reposted by Andrew J. Crawford

Journal of Evolutionary Biology @jevbio.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Responsible publication of your research! To help you do this @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social and coauthors have put together a handy database of academia-friendly journals, DAFNEE. You can read about it in their article recently published in @jevbio.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

doi.org

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology

Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Emailing details now …. 🙏🏻🐸

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Andrew J. Crawford @crawfordaj.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Reeeeaaallllyy …. 🤩 Wanna illustrate a new species (MS in prep) currently in USNM (Suitland) ??? 🤩👐🙏🏻🐸

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