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Diane A. Kelly

@dianeakelly.bsky.social
941 followers 407 following 248 posts

Biologist studying biomechanics of sex. Super-picky checker of facts. Science writer, occasional game designer. Loves a hot tea.

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Reposted by Diane A. Kelly
John Timmer @jtimmer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Ok, this "there are two separate brains" thing appears to be making the rounds, and I want to be absolutely clear: this is a press office overhyping some perfectly reasonable science that won't come as a surprise to most developmental biologists.
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Some good news.
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Joel @itsjoels.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is the letter kids got at the end of Dolly’s Imagination Library. I defy you to read this and not cry.
Sorry, I can’t type that.
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 07/08/2026
Our year in Cyclospora so far. cyclo-resources.pophive.org#trends-over-...
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Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
by way of idle wishful thinking - would be great if NYT hired a science writer/thinker for the op-ed page to tell us what’s happening and what’s at stake in the sciences, at a time when they are under attack in a way Galileo would recognize, while newspaper science journalism is facing extinction
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Dr Robin George Andrews @squigglyvolcano.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
NEW: Back in July 2024, an asteroid exploded above New York. None of it was thought to have survived. It turns out that a huge chunk of this space rock smashed through a house in New Jersey—and it contains the chemistry of an alien world. 🤯 Me @ New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/s...
nytimes.com
New Jersey Couple Aids Meteorite Discovery After it Crashes Through Their Roof
A New Jersey couple helped scientists uncover the makeup of an unusual asteroid after it fell into their bedroom.
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 15/07/2026
That's about 2/3 the annual National Science Foundation budget.
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John Timmer @jtimmer.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
In my lifetime, I've seen segments of society lose trust in evolutionary biology, climate science, and vaccines. None of this was due to anything scientists did. All of it was because non-scientists perceived some advantage (political, cultural, financial) in attacking science's credibility.
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
And when you walk across the sand the ground begins to shake.
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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 10/07/2026
This flapping-wing robot has a design inspired by puffins and other diving birds which helps it fly in the air, swim underwater, and launch off the surface! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Dorsal view at right, ventral view at left, and the artist included claspers! (Left shark is a boy)
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Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Slo-mo rough terrain!
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Erik Hoffner @erikhoffner.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
North Atlantic right #whales calving season has produced the highest number of births since 2009 “It is hopeful to see 23 new calves born this year, but their survival into adulthood is still a long journey ahead in an ocean with many dangers and obstacles.” - Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life
North Atlantic right whale mom “Millipede” (Catalog #3520) seen with her calf in Cape Cod Bay on April 9, 2026. CREDIT: New England Aquarium, taken under NOAA Permit #25739-01
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Orin 🚀🦏 @orinoxide.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Happy Leland Melvin day to all who celebrate. 💚
Screenshot of a Twitter exchange in which user @kimerrikin notes that the city of Lynchburg VA declared April 7 2008 to be Leland Melvin Day, and Leland Melvin (@Astro_Flow) thanking them for reminding him.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 07/04/2026
An Earthset, captured by the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission during Monday’s lunar flyby. See more photos released on Tuesday by NASA. nyti.ms/47IKYHQ
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Whenever I see pseudoscientific conspiracy theories about ancient aliens or giant petrified trees or ice age satellites or whatever it drives me crazy because THE EARTH IS COOL ENOUGH JUST AS IT IS! WE DON’T NEED TO REACH FOR REASONS TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING! HAVE YOU SEEN A TULLY MONSTER??!!
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
ntroduce yourself with 5 concerts you've been to Koko Taylor and Buddy Guy They Might Be Giants Violent Femmes Fairport Convention Philip Glass (+1) Squirrel Nut Zippers
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
An animated graphic showing wingbeats of different birds. This one is so beautiful. Image: Eleanor Lutz tabletopwhale.com/2014/09/29/f...
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Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
A thing I think about a lot is how the hyper powerful and tech billionaires want to be seen as people saving humanity, which is why they create space companies to send us to Mars and invest in gen AI to render us more "productive" And yet, not a single one is working to solve climate change.
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mossworm.bsky.social @mossworm.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
PRI REACHED THEIR GOAL!!! MUSEUM OF THE EARTH IS STAYING OPEN!!! Thank you all so much for donating and spreading the word, I'm so overjoyed! Good things are still possible! www.priweb.org/blog-post/pr...
priweb.org
PRI's Wonderful Life — Paleontological Research Institution
By Dr. Warren Allmon , Director of the Paleontological Research Institution December 30, 2025 The holidays are a time for “Christmas movies” in my house, and one that is always on our list is&nbs...
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 08/12/2023
An (ecto)parasitic #Crustmas. This is Dolops (above), which swims around and attaches to fishes (below), but unlike its relative Argulus, which has suckers, it has hooks to hold on. Also, is bizarrely cute! 🧪🦑
Top: Dolops striata (Bouvier, 1899), preserved young (INPA 2277) removed from freshwater stingray Potamotrygon leopoldi (ANSP 197001, 440 mm maximum disk width) collected in rio Xingu ca. 54 km southeast of Altamira, 3°33'10.7"S, 51°51'22.2"W, 10 Mar 2014. Bottom: Dolops discoidalis (Bouvier, 1899), live specimens (INPA 2274) attached to large redtail catfish, Phractocephalus hemiliopterus (ANSP 198243) collected in rio Xingu channel, 3°24'54.3"S, 51°42'42.1"W, 8 Nov 2014. Photos by M. Sabaj. 

https://bioone.org/journals/proceedings-of-the-academy-of-natural-sciences-of-philadelphia/volume-166/issue-1/053.166.0105/Annotated-checklist-of-parasitic-and-decapod-crustaceans-from-the-middle/10.1635/053.166.0105.short
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
What I'm reading: The breeding plumage of male golden pheasants is beautiful, but blinds them to dangers from above. (This isn't true for the females.) The authors suggest it might be a 'handicap' letting males advertise their fitness to potential mates. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...
A male golden pheasant with a helmet of orange and black feathers (A) that is so large it partly obstructs his visual field (C) next to a female of the species with a head full of smaller gray feathers (B) that don't block her view above her head.
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Movie you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (either War or Trek), LOTR, or Marvel.
media.tenor.com
a man and a woman are sitting in a car and looking out the window .
ALT: a man and a woman are sitting in a car and looking out the window .
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Lisa @tuexplorer1.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
These Enoploteuthid are so colorful. Nice look at the chromatophores. @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 874 #asgardarchaea #MarineLife
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry, Charlie Brown.
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
The only winning move is not to play, Charlie Brown.
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
There's an enormous dead sperm whale on the beach in Nantucket. Fortunately, 55 years ago we learned what NOT to do to deal with it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CL...
youtube.com
The Exploding Whale: An infamous moment in Oregon history creates a strangely beloved icon
YouTube video by KATU News
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 20/11/2025
Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad
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Deep Sea Conservation Coalition @deepseaconserve.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
The Casper octopus gets its nickname from its lack of pigment cells, which gives it a ghostly appearance. Discovered in 2016 more than 4,000 meters below the ocean surface off Hawai’i, it is the deepest-known octopus without fins.
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Butt teeth! Butt teeth! Butt teeth! @panic.gay · 07/11/2025
The notebook I'm using for my sketch workshop today also has my notes from the Monsterotica Romantasy Biology Class dragoncon panel in it, and last night I hung out with @dianeakelly.bsky.social nerding out about echidna genitals. Poor sweet Kevin McDonald might be in for some real weird sketches 😂
A notebook full of weird facts about animals mating and speculation on how that might apply to mothman and serpent folk and minotaurs.
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Patty Brennan @pattybrennan.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Recent paper from our lab on the puncture performance of hemipene spines in snakes! Some are like cat claws, others barely puncture. A single species can have many different spine morphologies and thousands of spines! 🧪 🐍 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
Hemipene from a water snake with spines segmented to illustrate diversity of shape within one species, some are like claws, others more needle like
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Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes
Image of the mechanical ladder outside the Louvre

Text below says WENN'S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS (When you need to move fast)

Underneath is more German text which translates as "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."
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Javier Lazaro - scientific illustration @lazaroillustration.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Two slugs mating. Collecting material for the next #invertefest ;) #biology #wildlife #invertebrates
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 14/10/2025
Hot Water Balloon xkcd.com/3153/
Comic. [Giant balloon reminiscent of a hot air balloon but wavy and laying on the ground with “bloop” “bloop” sound effects. Two people are in a basket attached to one end of the balloon.] [caption] Hot water balloon rides turn out to be significantly less romantic than the air kind.
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Emily J. Edwards @msemilyedwards.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
i feel like i need to share this oldie but a goodie today
A tumblr post that reads "WHo would have believed that the perfect wikipedia photo caption could have been improved upon?" Two identical images are then side by side. The first caption is "Piper Kerr, a member of the Scottis National Antarctix Expedition, plays the bagpipes for an indifferent penguin, March 1904". The Caption for the image on the left reads, "Piper Kerr (right), a member of the Scottis National Antarctix Expedition, plays the bagpipes for an indifferent penguin, March 1904"
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans
Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.
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Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Boxes also work on bobcats
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Rabih Alameddine @rabihalameddine.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Caterpillar Absolem feasting on Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum)
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Jimmy Bernot 🦐🔬🧬🏳️‍🌈 @jimmybernot.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
This is my 1st time catching my pet archer fish, Legolas, spitting on camera. Archerfish use modified jaw and tongue bones to fire a jet of water to knock down bugs from over hanging vegetation. Here Legolas is shooting down a fruit fly 🪰 🐠🧪
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
I’m really really really glad that @lilolmoi.bsky.social is still here to write this.
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Post you from a different era
A young woman with huge glasses and a ridiculously young Paul Sereno hold up a Herrerasaurus skull
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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 23/09/2025
Irruption.
A four-panel comic. In panel 1, two people are standing outside, facing each other; one is wearing an orange tshirt and one is wearing a green tshirt and a pair of binoculars. The first person says "I heard there's going to be a Red-breasted Nuthatch eruption. Should I be worried?" In panel 2, the second person says "No, it's an irruption - an unusual movement of birds into areas where they aren't usually found. It's great for birders." The first person says "No, I think they said-" In panel 3, both people look alarmed as the ground beneath them begins to rumble. in panel 4, the ground erupts and hundreds of Red-breasted Nuthatches shoot into the sky, lifting the two people into the air.
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Nature @nature.com · 18/09/2025
Nature research paper: Co-option of an ancestral cloacal regulatory landscape during digit evolution go.nature.com/3K576D7
go.nature.com
Co-option of an ancestral cloacal regulatory landscape during digit evolution - Nature
The regulatory landscape controlling Hoxd gene expression in tetrapod digit development was probably co-opted from a pre-existing cloacal regulatory mechanism, as evidenced by the effects of genetic deletion experiments in zebrafish fin, cloaca and mouse urogenital development.
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Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Oh to be a little Tardigrade scratching its back on a bubble. 🫧🐻🧪
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Jean-François Cudennec @limpetnerd.eurosky.social · 08/09/2025
Just woke up from a social media pause and the first thing I see is an incredible footage of a sperm whale casually cruising with a giant squid in its mouth ?? 🦑 🌊 🌿
Vertical photo of a sperm whale with a giant squid in its mouth. The tentacles and body of the squid can be seen emerging between the teeth.Ventral view of the same scene : a sperm whale with a giant squid in its mouth. The tentacles and body of the squid can be seen emerging between the teeth.
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n
sciencehistory.org
History of Molecular Biology Collection
This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.
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Patrick McCann @pjmccann3.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
If you are wondering whether or not you can get a COVID vaccine, wonder no more… 🧪#MedSky
U.S. map showing where COVID vaccines are available (green), available with a doctor’s prescription (yellow), and not available (Nevada - purple).
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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪 From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...
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Diane A. Kelly @dianeakelly.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
100% agree.
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