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Lzvolk

@lzvolk.bsky.social
1.3K followers 951 following 5.9K posts

Retired biologist (pathology). Living in an intellectual desert, interested in everything. Citizen of Pangea. Aspie.

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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 17h
First day in my physics class: "Nature doesn't care about equations." I decided then I like this prof. (mid-1980's)
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 23h
Sometimes ‘little’ things can make (or break) your day. Outside this morning w/ sunshine (☀️ finally!) I spotted two Kider’s RT hawks (Buteo jamaicensis kriderii) soaring on thermals above me. Being in SW & northern Pacific Coast US more than 1/2 my life I’m used to seeing dark RTH morphs.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Please share widely. This is an American icon for more than 100 years. Join the movement to save it; it’s for the entire world, not just the US.
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Send heartfelt *not angry* messages about why the Academy should stay open. She needs help demonstrating wide community support. Send your personal reasons why Academy has been important to you and your family, as well as Philadelphia as a whole.
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Eric Scott @captainfossil.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Here's an action that anyone who cares about the closure of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia can take to maybe have an impact. Please consider this. Museums are important and what's happening here in Philly is a tragedy with national repercussions.
Holotype horn core of the Pleistocene species Bison antiquus, on display - for now - at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.  Think on that - a *holotype* on display where everyone can see it!  How cool is *that*?!  Plus, the specimen is from the famed Big Bone Lick locality in Kentucky - "Birthplace of American Vertebrate Paleontology" - and was collected by William Clark of Lewis & Clark fame! What an amazing specimen - and how special that it's here *shared with the public" and not stored in off-limits collections!
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Feds have detonated an ongoing bomb destroying science in the US. It will haunt us for decades bc there will be backlash consequences on all its citizens. The rest of the world won’t trust us and will move on. Sadly it’s our own fault. We let it happen.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Interesting. I wonder how an insatiable curiosity fits into this. 😏
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Heated debate on using lipid biomarkers and molecular clock to challenge estimate of earliest animals on Earth. Is that a sea pen in the image? 😏
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Another day in the US horror show.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I agree with this. It’s epidemic in this country. Esp since there’s no vaccine for it and they wouldn’t get vaccinated anyway.
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D @drewnd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
At this point I think that Trump lacks constitutional everything.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Damn; I feel vindicated.👇💯 #agency #ecology #systems "If we perceive that functions of living ecologies are the effect of processes taking place between parts & wholes we become prone to assigning agency to “parts”.... 1/n
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
An eloquent essay on an alternative conception of 'life'. We're often constrained by the classic definition. "Darwinian evolution was likely absent in the events that led up to the emergence of life, especially if nascent living systems were not compartmentalized as well-defined cellular entities."
royalsocietypublishing.org
Lyfe: learning to learn better
Abstract. Learning—in addition to thermodynamic dissipation, autocatalysis and homeostasis—has been hypothesized to be a key pillar of all living systems.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Very exciting!! Busy actin! "..live-cell microscopy of two organisms of the Lokiarchaea & Hodarchaea lineages showed that they dynamically & greatly change their cell shape on a minute time scale & grow & retract their extensive protrusions.." (interested in the signaling networks. Must read.)
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
JFC……. Why is every single day in the US a horror show?
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Quote for the Day: "Ignorance is no longer what it always was—a hollow head, a lack of information or knowledge. In the digital age, it stems from the opposite: an excess of misinformation, entertainment junk, imaginary trinkets, and virtual fanaticisms." - Eugenio Bucci
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Typical Musk project. Ending in a fireball.
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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Hilarious!
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ahem….. Cornell.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Most hilarious in months!! 🤣 (Esp the ‘ape-o-enzyme’)
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Spot on: “Life happens in real time, but experience may be composed in ragtime—like the music genre, full of offbeat notes and uneven rhythms.”
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Most humans have little conception of the world under our feet.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
And we didn’t see this coming?? 🙄
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Black marks on Cornell building up. What’s odd is I live in Ithaca and have heard/seen nothing about this locally, including Ithaca Times paper.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Indeed a Dark Mark on Cornell University. The university and these boys should be held accountable. For a very long time. I wouldn’t send my kids there.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Unfortunately there is no vaccine, or medicine, for stupidity. And it's epidemic in the US.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I'm not sure the CDC will ever recover credibility and reputation after the last decade+ of turmoil. It started in 2016 and deteriorated exponentially in the last 2 yrs.
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Jeff Atkins @atkinsjeff.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Former strongly pro-AI academics are starting to change their tune as the world becomes increasingly filled with the slop they helped to advocate for. It's like raising kids honestly, they just have to learn things the hard way sometimes.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Fraud in academia circles runs deeper than suspected. Predatory journals garner most of the attention, but now this, too. Long thread; start at post 1. What the F is wrong with people???
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Can we finally put this to bed now???
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Development of quicker and accurate diagnostic assays a good thing, but also must be affordable.
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Michelle Wille @duckswabber.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
H3 is found in birds, humans, swine, with stark differences in evolution. H3Nx viruses in mammals undergo adaptive evolution, those in birds do not. In birds, very high reassortment w no obvious fitness benefit. NA reassorting more frequently than expected in birds 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Interesting that felids seem quite susceptible to many viruses of concern lately - HPAI and a few coronaviruses (FCoV, Aju-CoV, SARS-2 CoV). Could be explained that ⬆️ HPAI susceptibility primarily due to bird hunting, but is it the only one?
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Between habitat destruction (climate & human-causes) and H5N1, bird population threat continues.
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Michelle Wille @duckswabber.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Synthesized current knowledge to identify 43 parameters that influence HPAI. Migratory waterfowl contribute most to HPAI spread when high bird-to-bird transmission rate, long infectious periods and greater aggregation of birds at stop-over sites 👉 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
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Michelle Wille @duckswabber.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Fantastic metalanalysis and review of zoonotic risks in farmed versus wild-caught wildlife for traditional markets for food 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Amazing phylogenetic sleuthing w/ multiple implications, including close connection btwn echolocation & flight. "Our results reveal a late Paleocene ancestor that originated in Europe (99.2% pp), and whose descendants dispersed most probably to Africa."
nature.com
Reference genomes and fossils revise bat family phylogeny and biogeography - Nature
An updated phylogeny of bats is presented, based on new genome assemblies and many ancient fossils and including all known bat families.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Behind every person alive stand 30 ghosts.” Arthur C. Clarke In today’s world, behind many people stand demons. Woe to their children and their children’s children because of the demons that stand behind them. Tainted #legends
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This needs wider exposure. Common criticisms of solar ‘farms’ is “stealing and wasting productive farm land”. Solar panels usually placed on low to non-productive land, grazing by some livestock (aka sheep) compatible, now serving as resource for bees and other wildlife.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Very cool! Have wondered about evolution of bats. 🦇 Know we know!
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Pure Science @purescience.news · 24/09/2026
He Was Looking for a Campsite. He Found a Massive Impact Crater #Science scitechdaily.com/he-was-looking-for…
scitechdaily.com
He Was Looking for a Campsite. He Found a Massive Impact Crater
A camping search on satellite maps led to the discovery of a massive 390-million-year-old impact crater hidden in the Quebec wilderness.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Likely”? Of coarse it is unconstitutional!
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Enjoyed article in #SciAmerican re: sequencing apples in US. Collaboration w/ ME Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association. Latter submitted 10’s of samples from trees on old homesteads/fields. One sample is posited to likely be the ancestor for American apples. 🍏 1/n
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This. Both posts. Will a candidate please rise that has gumption & courage, integrity and perseverance? We are tired of greed, ignorance and liars.
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David Clark @clarkeocrinus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It's still too fucking high.
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A small felid pretending to be a snow leopard? 😏
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Government has a role in checks & balances btwn corporations, industry & the people. Current fed admin has been stripping that away to benefit corps/industry & themselves. This is one leader who isn’t afraid to stand up & resist it for the benefit of his city. We need more like him. ✊🏼 #resistance
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Lzvolk @lzvolk.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I would check the positive column for A through D. Please hurry.
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