iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

We are hiring a tenure-track Plant Ecologist at the University of Florida! Please share with interested colleagues. explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/54...

explore.jobs.ufl.edu

University of Florida - Details - Assistant Professor - Biology Department

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This is maddening esp. on top of what they're doing in Big Bend. The first wall is bad enough; an extra one behind it seems like a way to keep money flowing to contractors and flip a big middle finger to our national parks. I take a class to this exact spot for the unique biodiversity found here.

tucson.com

Organ Pipe monument closes roads to clear path for 2nd border wall construction

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument closes roads during work on the second border wall, as a tree-sitting protest continues in Lochiel.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Crazy to feel an actual earthquake in Florida a few minutes ago.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I hear how formative these classes are all the time, even from people we randomly meet while traveling. We were spotted at our hotel by a retired oncologist from back east. He got into birds in college and passed that love to his kids, who were taking him to Organ Pipe.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

This year’s class was really great. Teaching a traveling field class is the most exhausting and rewarding thing I do.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

I had my desert class there last weekend- there were snow showers in the area and the light was just wonderful.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I always wanted to pretend to be an architect…

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Actual botanists don't feel like they need to lie to their neighbors about their jobs.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Anisophyllea is a great example this, though I don’t think it pulls off the illusion of compound leaves quite as successfully!

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Outside of Phyllanthaceae, what else has phyllanthoid branching?

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Reposted by Norm Douglas

Nicole Gerlach @ngerlach.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

This is probably a minor thing to fixate on in the whole mess of nonsense that was Jurassic World: Rebirth, but I can't get over the Dunkleosteus head pulled up by fisherman in the beginning. Where the hell did inGen or whoever get its DNA from? 🧵 1/

A still from Jurassic World: Rebirth showing the head of a Dunkleosteus on top of a pile of normal-sized fish. We're looking at it mouth-first, and its jaws are almost as big across as the man standing next to it. They're also filled with huge irregular "teeth" (actually bony projections of the armored plates that cover the front part of its body).

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Those are completely bizarre. I had no idea they turned into pads with wax fingers.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Same. I also try to indoctrinate them into holding their hand lenses up close to their eyeballs, instead of holding them at arm’s length.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Rays on Ray Day, right? (That's a wild pattern BTW, messes with my brain)

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Did you see it here in Gainesville? We saw a bunch at Selby Garden in Sarasota last month. Cycad feeders…

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Thunderstorm got me trapped in my little greenhouse with two dogs and a beer.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Now $5,900. That’s 3X the growth of median household income.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

University of Arizona was ~$950 per semester in-state when I started in ‘91.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Atala, Eumaeus atala, at Selby Botanical Garden in Sarasota. Larvae feed on cycads!

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Reposted by Norm Douglas

Rob @robertferry.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

"If you don't know anything, you don't have a problem." Measuring biodiversity and ecosystem health is crucial to knowing how rapidly decline is taking place and if anything we are doing is helping to mitigate our impact. If this passes, we will be flying blindly into oblivion.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

As a Norm, this is officially the end of an era.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Making woodpeckers is the main thing Quercus hemisphaerica is good for.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

iNat says this is Ammophila pictipennis. How does this waist make any sense?

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Reposted by Norm Douglas

Sarah Brown @brownepoints.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

NEW: DeSantis directed the University of Florida to cancel a nearly-complete search for its next dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — because the governor believed the finalists were not in alignment with the state's opposition to DEI

chronicle.com

U. of Florida Calls Off Dean Search After DeSantis Intervenes

A spokesperson said the governor’s office stepped in after a right-wing group posted videos of the finalists on social media and claimed they were “radical progressives with disdain for Florida’s DEI ...

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Merch for UF’s national championship, which was played in San Antonio, Texas. Whoever chose the background was absolutely trolling this botanist. Saguaro-itis strikes again.

Florida gators basketball championship t-shirt with cacti growing on a mountainous coastline.

Closeup of a saguaro 🌵 cactus. This species doesn’t occur within 800 miles of San Antonio, Texas.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Our pinxterflower is popping nicely too. Love wild azaleas.

Rhododendron canescens, Florida Pinxter Azalea.

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Matthew Hurteau @mhurteau.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

You can’t sell timber if no one is buying. This is like opening up drilling in the arctic. No one is bidding. Sure they’ll sell a little timber, but it will be taxpayer subsidized timber.

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Mark Cuban @mcuban.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

This is a bigger issue than people realize. Not just jobs lost. But their families losing benefits. Landlords losing tenants. Cities and towns losing revenue. This is how recessions start Ready Fire Aim is no way to govern.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Cool to see three liverwort species in one shot!

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Quote post with a picture you took in a National Park. Some UF Biology students who journeyed from Florida to study the biodiversity of the desert southwest- here completing an incredible hike of Arch Canyon, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This class doesn’t happen w/o our public lands!

UF Desert Biodiversity immersion course at Organ Pipe.

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Reposted by Norm Douglas

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

The point is this: Scientists are accused of being partisan. I say embrace it. We're not lying for political reasons. We are defending science as a way of knowing, and as a humanitarian endeavor to help even those groups that are disenfranchised by people in power. If that's partisan so be it.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 03/02/2025

So it turns out that compared to centralized distribution of digital information on the web, printed material in libraries provided a kind of distributed defense against the casual whims of an authoritarian government aiming to rewrite history.

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Reposted by Norm Douglas

Ethan White @ethanwhite.weecology.org · 28/01/2025

Imagine if you're a graduate student who knows they are funded on a federal grant, but doesn't understand the distinction between disbursed and undisbursed funds. You might reasonably think you won't get paid next week even if there is a year or more of your support in a university account already.

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