iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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David Malakoff @davidmalakoff.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Another scoop from Jeff Mervis (@policyhound.bsky.social): NSF's ~1400 grant terminations have disproportionately affected PIs from groups underrepresented in science: women, racial & ethnic minorities, & those with disabilities. 1/3 www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

Trump officials take steps toward a radically different NSF

Efforts to shrink staff, budget, and focus have alarmed members of Congress

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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 23/02/2025

Brilliant protest. Yosemite National Park workers hung an upside-down American flag — traditionally a symbol of distress or a national threat — thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan.

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Fall on Saturday to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Tracy Barbutes/Special to the Chronicle

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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 23/02/2025

Gregg is a former Marine and Forest Service ranger. He's saved the lives of hikers dangling off a cliff or going through cardiac arrest, and he's bravely fought forest fires to save small rural towns. 100% of his salary is paid by WA state. Elon fired him. Share his story.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/02/2025

When OMB head Russ Vought talks about deliberate efforts to put federal employees "in trauma" and make them quit their jobs, he's talking about people like Michelle, recently fired by Musk/Trump. www.sfgate.com/california/a...

Michelle Beutler cleared 67 trees off a U.S. Forest Service road in two days. It was the spring of 2023, after a record-breaking winter in the Stanislaus National Forest in California’s Sierra Nevada. Beutler, 59, worked alone with a chain saw to remove every fallen tree on a 10-mile stretch of road between the town of Long Barn in Tuolumne County and the popular Hull Creek Campground. She single-handedly finished the work so the road could open in time for Memorial Day.

As a recreation technician based out of the Summit Ranger Station in the Stanislaus National Forest, Beutler’s job was to clean toilets, pick up trash and maintain recreation sites and campgrounds up and down Sonora Pass. She’d typically drive her Forest Service truck 100 miles a day. She sprayed pit toilets with a fire hose. She wiped away graffiti and removed thousands of pounds of house trash, old furniture and useless stuff that people dumped in the forest. She extinguished hundreds of abandoned and illegal campfires. She assisted law enforcement during emergency accidents, helping officers navigate a swath of rugged forest land that she grew up on and knows intimately.

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Jurassic Park Podcast @jurassicparkpod.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

It’s been a wild week for Jurassic fans, but one of the highlights for me was this awesome episode of the podcast featuring @dimetrodude.bsky.social and @conorontology.bsky.social discussing real science! It’s a MUST listen! www.jurassicparkpodcast.com/home/synapsi...

jurassicparkpodcast.com

Synapsids | DINO DNA with Conor O'Keeffe and Caroline Abbott | Dimetrodon and Lystrosaurus — The Jurassic Park Podcast

Synapsids | DINO DNA with Conor O'Keeffe and Caroline Abbott | Dimetrodon and Lystrosaurus

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Dr Soph @sophiavolzke.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

I did capture a SMILING echidna in 2020. Perfect snap of the moment! Might be useful at this trying time :)

An echidna on brown mulch ground looking up at the camera and smiling.

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Thanks so much for having me! It was so fun to chat about Dimetrodon and Lystrosaurus with you Conor, and representations of synapsids in paleo-media! I say let's get even MORE funky non-dino friends in the JW franchise! #paleontology 🦖🪨🧪

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Susan Ferrari @srferrar.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Just wanted to make sure that everyone saw that the NSF RUI solicitation is BACK UP. Program staff indicated that it was accidentally archived. new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

new.nsf.gov

Facilitating Research at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions: (RUI and ROA-PUI)

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Caxela @caxela.bsky.social · 22/10/2024

Moas!

A crested moa (Pachyornis australis) walks through a field of golden grass. Snow-capped mountains stretch across the most distant part of the background.

A coastal moa (Euryapteryx curtus) crests a dune. A line of pīngao runs down the middle and across the top of the dune. A full moon glows above the moa.

An eastern moa (Emeus crassus) walks along a shore at night. The pink lights of aurora australis can be seen above the horizon.

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Tyler McBrien @tylermcbrien.com · 30/01/2025

Here's what Desmond Tutu had to say about DEI and aviation (probably), almost 40 years ago in the Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com/archive/life...

Excerpt of Washington Post article that says:
After he was ordained and had been a priest two years, Tutu was sent to London to study. "I'm sure there was racism there, but we were protected by the church. It was marvelous. We didn't have to carry our passes anymore and we did not have to look around to see if we could use that bath or that exit. It was a tremendously liberating thing."

When Tutu returned to South Africa, he began to rise in the church hierarchy. Still, the strictures of his past sometimes haunted him. He recalls boarding a flight in Nigeria in the 1970s and discovering that the pilot and copilot were black. "I was thrilled," recalls Tutu.

Black pilots! But once airborne, Tutu began shifting uneasily in his seat. He wasn't quite certain why. "I had a nagging worry about whether we were going to make it," he says.

As he squirmed and worried, the cause finally hit him. It was the pilots. "Could these blacks really fly this plane . . . without a white person at the controls?"

The real horror of apartheid, he explains, is that "it can cause a child of God to doubt that he or she is a child of God . . . You come to believe what others have determined about you, filling you with self-disgust, self-contempt and self-hatred, accepting a negative self-image."

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Robert Mahon @bedform.org · 30/01/2025

Scientific societies don’t have to renew their commitments to work in a “bipartisan fashion” right now when one party is actively and extremely rapidly dismantling scientific enterprise in this country.

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Adam Marsh @notthatmarsh.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

This question means something else to a stratigrapher

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Here is a photo of a trans non-binary biologist (me) holding a bird (Eastern Towhee) that is likely a bilateral gynandromorph-- a fusion of cells with female-type chromosomes and cells with male-type chromosomes in one bird! Biological sex and human gender diversity is real and wonderful ❤️🏳️‍⚧️

Photo of SK in a forest in Pennsylvania, wearing a tie dyed field shirt from the 2017 grassland bird Konza Crew and holding a large sparrow that is black on one side of the body and brown on the other.

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Emily Mitchell @egmitchell.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Super excited that our review on the ecology of the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition is now out on how ecology changes across scales from organisms to communities to the world through time. Fab art @franzanth.bsky.social showing the build up of ecological complexity www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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The Anatomical Record @anatrecord.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Trucidocynodon riograndensis, a Late Triassic carnivorous cynodont from Brazil, had spear-like incisors, elongated canines, and advanced brain structures. New CT scans reveal that canine replacement stopped and the species had unique jaw traits. Kerber et al.: buff.ly/40EameI #FossilFriday

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

I already have the Dimetrodon, Gorgonops, Wiwaxia, and Tiktaalik and was wondering what I should add to the collection and then I see...?! Trilobite?! Slippers?!?!? for $27 US DOLLARS?!!??! Ugh twist my arm *adds to cart*

A pair of crazy slick olive green trilobite slippers, specifically the genus Greenops. They look comfy.

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Me but in Evolving Planet at the Field Museum!!! (but also at the aquarium because how can you not be in awe of every critter)

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AAAAHH-lex Plante 🐀👑 @aplante.com · 13/01/2025

ok it's been a rough start to the month here's a pink sky to cheer up the feed a bit #art

a foggy winter morning. the sky is purple and pink with a couple glowing clouds. the twilight hour casts a dusty lilac light over a dusting of snow across a field behind a small farmers' fence. a few semi-bare trees and bushes fade into the background.

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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Our anatomical description of Hapsidopareion is out in Papers in Palaeontology! Thanks to collaborators and mentors @gondwannabe.bsky.social, Arjan Mann, and @hanssues.bsky.social and ISU undergraduate coauthors for their massive help with segmentation! 😄https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1610

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

This building is standing on the shoulders of pterosaurs

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Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Quick sketch I did as a request from patron Flouder who suggested I sketched the Late Jurassic mammaliform Castorocauda lutrasimilis #paleoart #sciart #sketch

A pair of Castorocauda on a partly submerged tree branch. One of the Mammaliforms has its head underwater looking at an aquatic salamander. A Pterosaur flies in the background

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WitmerLab at Ohio University @witmerlab.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Can I just say that this is about the coolest study that I've seen in ages. Just outstanding integrative science! #OA in Nature, too. Plus, the YouTube vid is exceptionally well done: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuvU.... Sorry if I'm gushing, but it's all an early #Crocmas gift. 🐊🎄

doi.org

Self-organized patterning of crocodile head scales by compressive folding - Nature

Crocodile head scales self-organize through purely mechanical compressive skin folding rather than a patterning process controlled by gene interactions.

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Hi everyone! Back on this site after literally a year! Quick re-intro: I'm Caroline, a synapsid paleobiology PhD student finishing up at UChicago and the Field Museum. Interested broadly in paleoevodevo and quantifying variation 🦖👩‍🔬🐁🦴 I'm on that postdoc/faculty job grind 👀 Happy to be here!

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 09/11/2023

@pattonoswalt.bsky.social loved your 10pm set tonight in Chicago!!! I (sadly) cheered for BRHS.... I am a grad of there (Mr. Richards fucking rules) and W&M. Your work was so important for me + my partner through tough times. This was our first time seeing you live and it was so special. Thank you!

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

Had a great time talking about #Lystrosaurus at #SVP2023 !! So good to see everyone, and watch so many young scientists presenting on such cool work! 🧪🦴🦖

A group of happy scientists from the Angielczyk Lab after lab dinner

A group of paleontologists meeting Fiona the hippo for the first time

A polaroid of two paleontologists in front of a dinosaur mount

A group of paleontologists enjoying the Cincinnati Zoo

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

Loved the paxlovid, hated the paxlovid mouth

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

Isaac keeps coming up with doofy cartoon duos we should get tattooed as couples tats. And they say love isn't real. 🥹

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

Welp...I guess I now have a streak of getting COVID during our med school's head and neck module....at least this time the symptoms are super mild! Bummed to be out of teaching #anatomy for the week though....no craniotomies for me again 🤒😢

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

Everyone wish little miss Vaquita a Happy 1st #GotchaDay ! This little gremlin brings so much joy into our lives, we love being a family with you 😍

A black and white amstaff dog wearing groovy sunglasses, with one of her parents cropped and smiling beside her. She has a very cute blep and little white whiskers.

The same amstaff posing with her parent. She is doing a sloppy sit but looking regally into the distance. Her parent is squatting down to hug her and mean muggin' at the camera with a cool landback beanie.

She's really done it this time. An orange couch with decorative pillows and a heating pad strewn about. The amstaff has rummaged the couch to her liking and is lounging belly up, enjoying her work.

Vaquita and her parent lounging in a hammock. Light is streaming through leaves and she's looking wistfully out into the distance. Out of view is Lake Michigan, so she's probably watching jetskis and seagulls.

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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 18/09/2023

Me, 17 years old: If only the most influential people in the world were excited about the same things I am — science fiction, high fantasy, and evolution Me, 41 years old: Oh no, oh good god no, not like that

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Sheril Kirshenbaum @sheril.bsky.social · 14/09/2023

Looking at my female dominated grad cohort 20yrs ago, I expected we were going to be part of a shift as our careers advanced. But retention %s for women from student to full professor are the same now as when I started writing about it in the 00s. Academia doesn’t support women in science.

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 01/09/2023

Vaquita does ecosystem engineering: completely bulldozing the cushions arranged by her house hominid and creating a comfortable nest for snoozin 😴

A black and white amstaff dog snoozing comfortably on a grey couch with various colored cushions strewn about haphazardly. Chaos of her own making.

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Mark Westneat 🐟 @mwestneat.bsky.social · 01/09/2023

Another nice job, Animal Physiology at William and Mary. #AcademicSky #SciJobs www.wm.edu/as/biology/e...

wm.edu

Assistant Professor of Integrative Organismal Biology

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 31/08/2023

I think it's really funny that while teaching abdomen/pelvis for anatomy at UChicago.... MY abdomen/pelvis decided to produce (what seems to have been) either a ruptured ovarian or mesenteric cyst. And land me in the ER for 12 hrs. 🧪🫀🦴

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 09/08/2023

"girl dinner" I whisper to myself as I assemble the most heinous meals for powerlifting nutrition

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Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 09/08/2023

All y'all asking for codes to invite scientists and Sci comm folks better be inviting Black, Indigenous, LGBTQAI+, and other marginalized folks. Otherwise this isn't going to work. 🧪

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 08/08/2023

I don't know how lists work but I really want to make one called paleoskyology ya know?! 🦴🦕🌿🐟🐚🦣

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Caroline Abbott @dimetrodude.bsky.social · 06/08/2023

Heyo! Intro for the new site! My name is Caroline (she/her) and I'm a PhD student at UChicago working in the Angielczyk Lab at the Field Museum! I study #paleobiology, ontogeny, and macroevolution in the friends and forerunners of mammals, the therapsids!

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