iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 11h

Unless an extremely popular influencer suddenly gets into 5-month-old biology books

Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 13h

This is very kind! I won't get royalties no matter where you buy the book, so all sales are the same to me. Audio or ebook? Also great. Check out the book from the library, then tell your friends about it and leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads? Amazing!

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 13h

The Fat Bear Week winner used to ride on his mom's back, and survived a serious foot injury as a cub thanks to her care. The runner-up was a female who adopted her niece and raised her alongside her own cub. For more animal parents kicking butt, read my book: bookshop.org/p/books/the-... 🧪

bookshop.org

The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care

A lively and revelatory journey through the evolution of caretaking on Earth, from animal parents to modern-day humans, making the case that caring for children and one another made us who we arePoiso...

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yes, searching for new reader reviews is a toxic habit that I should quit...BUT sometimes a stranger uncannily names what was one of your secret goals while writing the book and it's the best thing ever. 🧪

Five-star review from Goodreads, dated September 28, 2026: "This book made me laugh out loud in every chapter, and cry in one or two. It is one of the rare nonfiction books that I could read before bed without falling asleep, because it's a page-turner! As a parent and science educator, I am perhaps the perfect audience for this book, but I think it has broad appeal. Highly recommend!" The first sentence is underlined.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

SO much going on here about parenting and living in America: medical insurance, employment, grief, depression, online mobs, baseball.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I'm not there either! Hoping to make it work (and see you) next year...

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Tricia Lockwood @tricialockwood.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

“shape of you” by ed sheeran is from the perspective of a dog … he’s in love with the shape of you because it’s all he can see with his dog eyes

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Curtis @soccurt.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I loved Elizabeth's book. She's an effective science journalist and communicator, and on every page, her joy and curiousity about how animals care for others came shining through.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

If two marine weirdos can find each other, your soul spider must be out there too: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-fin... 🧪

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Find Your Soul Spider

There’s always hope.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

If two marine weirdos can find each other, your soul spider must be out there too: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-fin... 🧪

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Find Your Soul Spider

There’s always hope.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

NYC friends! Who will I see tomorrow at my book event with Perrin Ireland? She's talking about animal sex, I'm talking about a common consequence of animal sex, and we'll all have a good time: www.nypl.org/events/progr... 🧪

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

My sister from California must think we plant paid actors whenever she visits Boston. We went to a nail salon today and a woman walked in and declared, "I got hit by a duck boat the othah day!!"

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

After I posted this I opened Facebook and the literal first thing I saw was an ad for freezable horse socks

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The only thing reassuring me these days is how deeply the Meta apps are convinced that I own a horse and/or donkey.

Instagram advertisement for a product called ColiCare, showing a woman and a horse

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

An alloparenting soccer team! I love this so much

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Dr. SkySkull @drskyskull.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This is just a spectacular unintentional self-own

Dude on Threads: If you hate on ai, you better be pretty damn good at whatever you're doing

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Oh yes NOW I think this is real, good job

Scam email with the subject line "Re: A spot for The Creatures' Guide to Caring on a Goodreads Listopia list?" The original email is obvious slop containing a lot of verbose flattery about the book. A few AI tells ("honestly" and "not just a...") are circled in red. The sender has followed up two days later with an email reading "Hello???"

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I'm honestly so confused about how these technologies are legal. I live in MA, a two-party consent state, which means it's against the law to record someone without permission. Every single time I interview a source I start by asking if it's OK to record.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

"The world can feel like a cruel jungle, but human care persists." I love the excerpt from my book that Lisa Sibbetts published at The Auntie Bulletin today: theauntie.substack.com/p/what-predi... 🧪

theauntie.substack.com

What Predicts Helpfulness in Primate Species?

Marmosets, tamarins, and human kids all have something in common: they're wired to help. An excerpt from Elizabeth Preston's The Creature's Guide to Caring.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Counterpoint: I have played 20 Questions with children and they absolutely cannot.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Advice about managing our digital lives and appreciating our families’ unlovely moments, inspired by a scientific study on which European butterflies are the ugliest: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-lov... 🧪

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Love the Boring Butterflies

Nature needs uggos, too.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Beauty bias affects how we study and protect all kinds of species, even butterflies. Which might be a good reason to save your weirdest family photos: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-lov... 🧪

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Love the Boring Butterflies

Nature needs uggos, too.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Six-year-old, trudging sadly back up the sidewalk from the park, with bicycle tire tread marks on her leg: "We had a collusion."

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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

My heart goes out to the millions of people struggling to remember how to write "Thanks! Sounds great!" in an email.

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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This truck is ready to join the moms group text.

On the highway, the back of a truck has a sign reading "VENTING IS NORMAL"

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Greetings from this year's NY State Fair, where the dominant aesthetic is slop. Tag yourself! Are you: - FUN MT THE FAIR - AE EVERYTHING! BASKETS S6.00 [monsters] - Guinea pig bride I'm GET'EM HOT! GET 'EM YOURS!

A large sign advertising "Sour cream & chives tots" and "Mac & cheese your way!" featuring obvious AI imagery

Close-up from a sign with obvious AI imagery showing a mysterious bucket of food, vaguely sinister slogans, and discs that I guess are supposed to be pickles

Behind some animal cages, a poster board reading "GUINEA PIGS" and decorated with printouts of AI guinea pig illustrations (plus what might be a few actual photos of guinea pigs)

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

It's normal to get crabby when stressed, whether you're an animal with your skeleton on the outside or the inside. It even happens to cuttlefish, who have no skeleton at all. Maybe this will help some of us navigating the start of a new school year: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-fee... 🧪

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Feel Crabby

No matter the species, sometimes we snap

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The researchers know the total number of former NFL players who died during those years. A little more than a quarter of those players' brains were donated to science. And 91% of those donated brains had CTE. So if ZERO of the non-donated brains had CTE, the total proportion would be a quarter.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Headline says "at least 1 in 4" but the finding was NINETY-ONE PERCENT of NFL players' brains donated from 2016–2021 had CTE. Presumably people were more likely to donate if they had known dementia, so the real number is hard to extrapolate. But, horrifying. 🧪 www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/u...

NYT headline: "Study's Alarming Finding: At Least 1 in 4 N.F.L. Players Gets Brain Disease"

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

My 9yo dared my shy 6yo to yell at a stranger out our car window. The 6yo did it, then was so overcome that she cried, "Oh my god! I want to say a swear word but I don't know any!"

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

In fairness to them, my girls play nicely together 90% of the time! And my sisters and I are close as adults. But it's true a sibling can be a convenient target for taking out your bored or anxious energy 😬

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Bones or no bones, we all get grouchier when stressed. At least that's what I'm telling myself as my kids prepare for the new school year by repeatedly kicking each other. elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-fee... 🧪🦀

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Feel Crabby

No matter the species, sometimes we snap

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

!!! I could've watched 10 more seasons of this show

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Jon Mooallem @jmooallem.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

In the future, every food will be recalled for 15 minutes.

• 8-oz. glass jars containing "Gangothri Goat
Pickle"
• 8-oz. glass jars containing "Gangothri
Gongura Goat Pickle"
• 8-oz. glass jars containing "Gangothri
Chicken Pickle"
• 8-oz. glass jars containing "Gangothri
Gongura Chicken Pickle"

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Jill Twiss @jilltwiss.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This is going to involve some weird body-switch things where the dog lives to be 120 and Bryan gets put to sleep at twelve-and-a-half

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Not sure what quirk of the weather was responsible but this has been SUCH a good summer for basil in Boston. I've been making Garden Triage pizza (white with pesto and zuccini)

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I wrote in the book about one chimp population where some females were living past the end of fertility, but not as long relatively as orcas or humans. This kind of natural variation in lifespan could have provided the raw material for human menopause to evolve.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Thank you Nicole!! Yes various species have grandmothers in their social groups, especially elephants. But I'd distinguish between "grandmothers" and "postmenopausal," i.e. females significantly outliving their fertile years. That only happens consistently in humans and some toothed whales. (1/2)

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Jason GRIZZLED Bittel @bittelmethis.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Stumbled onto this old post and was really feeling it today. jasonbittel.substack.com/p/if-woodpec...

jasonbittel.substack.com

If Woodpeckers Can Do It, So Can You

We're taking inspiration where we can these days. Woodpeckers included.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Every parent of small children has discovered this exact photo in their camera roll.

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

How I've modeled my parenting this summer after a burrowing African mammal, and why we should all look to the banded mongoose in these uncertain times: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-par... 🧪

elizabethgpreston.substack.com

How to Parent like a Mongoose

My current summer strategy

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