iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 18/09/2026

How local is local adaptation? Researchers transplanted more than 700 lab-raised stickleback fish among lake and stream environments, finding that adaptation to specific sites can outweigh adaptation to broader habitat differences. In PNAS: ow.ly/yTOk50ZP97o

Two threespine stickleback fish. Image credit: Marius Roesti.

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KnitMeAThneed @thneed.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

"she’s baffled that the government, with its apparent focus on reading and writing, isn’t paying closer attention to school libraries as a portal to literacy" YES THIS! Invest in something in schools that actually makes a difference to literacy - libraries and library staff!

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Dr. Elizabeth Santos @lizmillermacroevo.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

I am recruiting Ph.D. students this cycle. Students interested in deep-sea fishes and phylogenetic comparative methods are an especially good fit.

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The Press @thepress.co.nz · 19/07/2026

An unexpected visitor turned an ordinary shift into a memorable wildlife story in New Brighton, Christchurch. After a curious seal wandered into Union Minimart, the owner calmly guided it outside before nearby residents helped escort it safely back to the beach. It’s a reminder of the unique…

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Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand @wikimediaaotearoa.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

This image of our native kererū (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) will be Wikipedia's Picture of the Day tomorrow 📸 Photo taken in the Waitākere Ranges by Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0). See it on the Wikipedia home page from 00:00 UTC on 18 July 2026.

A kererū or New Zealand pigeon perched on a branch. The kererū has iridescent green and purple feathers on its head and wings, and a white underside, with red feet, beak and eyes.

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KnitMeAThneed @thneed.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

#BabyGlobe is all checked in to Singapore for the next step in the #journeytowikimania looking comfy!

Baby Globe reclining in a neck pillow a few sizes too large. Then again a globe doesn’t really have a neck…

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Neil Gemmell @profgemmell.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Want to join our team? Check out this opportunity. Closes 30 June NZT.

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Alana Alexander @laninsky.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

The ‘Environmental Omics’ satellite of QRW2026, is happening at Te Pae, Ōtautahi, 3-4 Sep. Further information at: www.queenstownresearchweek.org/latest-advan.... Abstract submission (due June 24th): www.queenstownresearchweek.org/abstract-sub...

queenstownresearchweek.org

Environmental Omics Meeting - Queenstown New Zealand

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Cilla Wehi @cillaw.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

💯 this. Support public transport.

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Neil Gemmell @profgemmell.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

🔬 Postdoctoral Opportunity – Mitochondrial Genome Editing We are recruiting a PDF to study how mitochondrial DNA mutations influence phenotype, metabolism, fertility, and ageing using mitochondrial base editing and Drosophila. Apply: otago.taleo.net/careersectio... 📩 neil.gemmell@otago.ac.nz

🔬 Postdoctoral Research Opportunity – Mitochondrial Genome Editing
We are recruiting a PDF to study how mitochondrial DNA mutations influence phenotype, metabolism, fertility, and ageing using mitochondrial base editing and Drosophila.
This is part of an international collaboration led by Neil Gemmell (University of Otago, NZ) with partners including Damian Dowling (Monash University,
AU), Alex Whitworth, and Michal Minczuk (University of Cambridge, UK).
📍 Based at the University of Otago, with collaboration and research visits in the UK and Australia.
💰 PDF Salary: ~NZ$92.35k/year fixed term for 2.5 years
📅 Deadline: 30 June 2026
If you know postdoctoral candidates interested in mitochondrial biology, genetics, evolution, or genome editing, please share.

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Neil Gemmell @profgemmell.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

In the latest play from Project 2025, the Trump Administration has announced plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a $368 million network of more than 900 instruments that continuously monitor the ocean. This is a deliberate destruction of critical scientific infrastructure.

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Terrible Maps @terriblemapshq.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

There is no other explanation.

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KnitMeAThneed @thneed.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Did you know that New Zealand's only dental school has 80 mannequins with removable jaws in one teaching space? A fact from the recently improved article on the Faculty of Dentistry, on the front page of #Wikipedia right now! @universityofotago.bsky.social en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univers...

en.wikipedia.org

University of Otago Faculty of Dentistry - Wikipedia

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Kate Evans @kategevans.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

500 years ago, people starting building pā all over northern NZ—fortifying their settlements with rows of palisades, cut from nearby bush. Why? What were pā defending—or trying to say? The trees themselves, combined with mātauranga Māori, tell a story. www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-... 🇳🇿🧪 #archaeology

nzgeo.com

The pā builders

Five hundred years ago, people starting building pā all over northern New Zealand—fortifying their settlements with rows of pointed palisades, cut from the surrounding forests. Why? What were pā defen...

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Dr. Wendy Bohon @drwendyrocks.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Xkcd does it again! m.xkcd.com/3221/

Map of the United States with geologic and geomorphic processes highlighted. For instance, the central US landscape was caused by farming, while the Appalachian mountains were caused by continents colliding, while Florida was caused by ongoing disputes between limestone and water, and the southwest was caused by water and time

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Neil Gemmell @profgemmell.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Quite the blast from the past. TIG tips was very handy - one of my extraction protocols published there is still being used in the lab and elsewhere. But, gulp that was 30 years ago!

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John Mackay @dnature.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Time to throw out old papers and files. Used to love the methds-reagnts newsgroup back in the day. And the tech tips online. Even a protocol here from @profgemmell.bsky.social I’ve just noticed !

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Anna MacDonald @annamac.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

While I was down South, this paper was published: MetaZooGene Intercalibration Experiment (MZG-ICE): Metabarcoding Marine Zooplankton Diversity of the Global Ocean. A nice collaboration via SCOR MetaZooGene Working Group - we evaluate #eDNA data comparability among labs. doi.org/10.1111/1755... 🧬🧪

doi.org

MetaZooGene Intercalibration Experiment (MZG‐ICE): Metabarcoding Marine Zooplankton Diversity of the Global Ocean

DNA metabarcoding of zooplankton biodiversity is used increasingly for monitoring global ocean ecosystems, requiring comparable data from different research laboratories and ocean regions. The MetaZo...

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Kirsty Johnston @kirstyjohnston.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

New Zealand has more sunshine than Germany. But only 1 in 35 homes here has rooftop solar. Australia? 1 in 3. Why? I tried to find out - despite some strange secrecy www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

rnz.co.nz

Government ‘kicked the tyres’ on solar subsidies but went with ‘minor’ tweaks instead

It is one of the cheapest ways to cut power bills - yet documents reveal the government shelved a subsidy.

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TweetingTechno @tweetingtechno.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

I find myself slightly suprised to be recommending a video from the Norwegian Consumer Council, but it's bloody good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

youtube.com

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator

YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council

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Bernard Hickey @bernardchickey.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

And people wonder why NZ’s R&D spend is way lower than the rest of the OECD & our productivity is in the toilet. www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

stuff.co.nz

Government’s new science institute to lose 6% of staff less than a year after forming

The Bioeconomy Science Institute is shedding 6% of its staff.

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Wikimedia Foundation @wikimediafoundation.org · 23/02/2026

Every Wikipedia editor starts somewhere. Luckily, the Help:Directory makes the first step easy: it’s a collection of how-to pages and tutorials to guide volunteers through everything from creating categories to adding references.

Illustration of a person lying on their stomach reading a book, appearing focused and engaged. Text reads: How do you edit Wikipedia? Luckily, there's a handy guide.

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Matthew J Shepherd @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

🚨 New pre-print! 🚨 In the largest study of its kind to-date, we investigate the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms driving within-patient evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Read here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... , and follow along with this thread, discussing our findings (1/21)

biorxiv.org

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David Slack @slack2thefuture.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

I haven’t been this excited for a bubble to burst since I was a toddler.

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

The algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects.

nature.com

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature

Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 14/02/2026

I really enjoyed this interview with Mihingarangi Forbes. In 20 minutes we managed to touch on numerous issues relating to how AI is changing society, issues I've been grappling daily in conversations with colleagues here in New Zealand.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 04/02/2026

Landing in Dunedin Aotearoa in about 90 minutes for the start of a trip that represents the culmination of a dream I’ve had since I was ten years old.

odt.co.nz

Visiting academic to address spread of misinformation

For Carl Bergstrom, misinformation is like a living organism — it can travel across networks and spread through populations like pathogens. The...

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 19/01/2026

This isn’t immigration policy. It’s a business model. ICE keeps growing, not because it makes America safer, but because corporations are raking in billions off cages, bodies, and suffering. ICE’s existence is a massive revenue stream.

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Leocadio Blanco-Bercial @blancobercial.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Our last product of the SCOR WG157 MetaZooGene if out! We run a 10-laboratory intercomparison experiment on for zooplankton metabarcoding. Take home: major patterns hold, but sequencing platform matters, taq matters (a lot), add positive/negative controls... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

MetaZooGene Intercalibration Experiment (MZG‐ICE): Metabarcoding Marine Zooplankton Diversity of the Global Ocean

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Mr. Spock 🖖 @spockresists.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Oh dear, When Country Music is Coming out with these lyrics, Republicans better watch out.

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Sally Greaves @cardiokiwi.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Seeing a white tui would be a birding highlight! www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-dail... 📷Nathan Pye

A rare white Tui. A medium sized bush bird with a distinctive white throat tuft.

Another photo of a fluffed up white Tui with a 'normal' friend - this one appears black from a distance but has a blue sheen up close, a thin white ruff around its throat and a white throat tuft.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. " www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...

uni-konstanz.de

Early Career Rescue Fellowship

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Dr Selena Wisnom @lswisnom.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

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KnitMeAThneed @thneed.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Octobush was a hit in NZ

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Delwyn Dickey @delwynd.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

As the amount of mis/disinformation and other rubbish content has been allowed on social media #Wikipedia has become an increasingly important resource. Knowing that plenty of experts in their field contribute or teach others like @adzebill.bsky.social also helps to build confidence in it.

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Karen Masters @karenlmasters.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Jess Wade is amazing, and it's my absolute honour to be one of the more than 2000 women in STEM whose wikipedia page she started: mymodernmet.com/jessica-wade... 🧪🔭👩‍🔬

mymodernmet.com

Meet the Physicist Who Wrote Over 2,000 Wikipedia Biographies for Women in STEM

After noticing a lack of entries on Wikipedia for incredible women throughout history, this incredible woman decided to take matters into her own hands.

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Dr Simon Goodman @phoca-sapiens.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Just wow! 🧪🌍🦑🐳🦭

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Tim McLellan @timmclellan.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run. My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor... A thread

Image shows a screenshot of the conclusion of the linked Senate inquiry submission. This text can be found on page 10.

The text is too long for alt text, but here is the first three quarters of the text:

Conclusion

Over the past decade, Nous Group’s UniForum data has quietly taken on the status of authoritative benchmark for the quality of a range of professional and academic services performed by public universities in Australia and across the world. This authoritative status is performed through scientific-looking graphs and scientific-sounding jargon designed to imply UniForum data is generated through rigorous methods and backed by expert consensus. This performance of authority is significant: it lends UniForum data an air of credibility and facticity that makes acting upon its results irresistible.

When one begins to open the black box and examine how UniForum data is actually produced, however, it becomes difficult to justify the degree to which Australian university executives are relying upon it in their decision-making. My analysis is based on a review of publicly available documents, and it is therefore possible that Nous or its clients would point to things not in the public domain that address some of the conceptual and methodological flaws that I have highlighted in UniForum. But the fact that the underlying UniForum data and methodology is not in the public domain is itself one of the key causes for concerns. When the stakes are so high, it cannot be acceptable for Nous Group and its clients to simply tell university staff and governing councils, ‘trust us, these numbers are based on rigorous methods and analysis.’ The lack of rigor, external scrutiny, and transparency in UniForum’s underlying data and methodology would be a cause for concern in any public institution, but it is especially concerning in the context of universities where rigorous, transparent, and accountable knowledge production is a core part of what we do. ...

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

A large number of articles with fake quotes from me have appeared on "Resist"/Dem accounts. I suspect they were written with AI because they are so formulaic. Other "experts" are cited -- all without links. If you see a quote from me without a link to the source, beware. Examples of fakes:

Fake quote from me on Dean Blundell substack

Fake quote from me in (allegedly) Haitian website

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Marc Daalder @marcdaalder.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

New: The International Court of Justice’s finding that granting fossil fuel exploration licences could breach international law casts a shadow over the New Zealand Government’s oil and gas plans. newsroom.co.nz/2025/07/25/w...

newsroom.co.nz

World's highest court sends shot across bow of NZ's climate policy

The International Court of Justice's finding that granting fossil fuel exploration licences could breach international law casts a shadow over the Govt's oil and gas plans.

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Smartphone alerts of preshake warnings for 2.5 billion people in 98 countries countries over the past 3 years @science.org science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Grant Jacobs BioinfoTools/NotJustDNA 🔬🧬🖥️✍️📚🇳🇿 @notjustdna.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

US science politics Political meddling of scientific datasets? And not logging changes. “We found that 114 (49%) of the 232 included datasets were substantially altered.” – mostly changing 'gender' to 'sex'. Data manipulation within the US Federal Government www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

thelancet.com

Data manipulation within the US Federal Government

A US Department of Veterans Affairs dataset compiling veteran health-care use in 2021 was quietly amended on March 5, 2025. A column titled gender was renamed sex, and the words were also switched in ...

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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 12/07/2025

We seriously need a crowdfunding campaign to put a billboard up like this everywhere

Billboard beside road with text that reads: WHEN DID FIRING PARK RANGERS, SCIENTISTS, AND AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS BECOME A BETTER IDEA THAN SIMPLY TAXING BILLIONAIRES?

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