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Chris Clark

@selasphorus1.bsky.social
300 followers 164 following 141 posts

I study hummingbirds and owls, and the sounds they make, or not, with their wings.

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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I am kinda intrigued / disturbed by the ability of AI to do maths. I am slow, it takes me hours to do simple things. Yesterday I asked AI for some help and it did an amazing job! Super fast. In the screenshot it has whipped out Lowson's equation in seconds...
AI comes up with Lowson's equation in a form I can use
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Given that most signs in Canada are English message // French message, I assumed that in Quebec it would be similar (French // English). But no. Quebec, sir, where’s the English?
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Jake Berv @jakeberv.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Happy to share this 'capstone' project from my time as a postdoc @umich.edu, where we show that hierarchically nested bursts of body-shape evolution may underlie much of perching-bird diversification over ~50 million years. Free access link here: rdcu.be/fuxB1
rdcu.be
Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space
Nature Ecology & Evolution - A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major...
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 06/07/2026
I'm pretty uncompromising on most first amendment issues but goddamn it posting fake AI nature videos ought to be a felony.
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
@emilytaylorscience.com my daughter (12) was given your book and today has learned about lizard nooses.
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Our recent paper on nightjar sonations has been picked up by more science news media www.sciencenews.org/article/nigh...
sciencenews.org
These birds clack their wing bones together to woo mates at night
During courtship, male scissor-tailed nightjars crack their wings together to make a sharp snapping sound. It's the result of colliding arm bones.
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
youtu.be/q2YT-WyCrBw
youtu.be
The Secret Sound of Nightjars: High-Speed Video Reveals the Truth
YouTube video by UC Riverside
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Woohoo! New paper!! Nightjars bang their wings together to make sound! nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
I don’t think unconditional surrender is imminent.
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Ellis Rosen @ellisjrosen.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
I'm not sure what's going on with my university's schedule of classes... they seem to be planning classes for the afterlife? But when I click through, the BIOL major is no more... #UCR
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Photos from my recent trip to Manitoba. The owls really like perching ON the microphones..
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Cin-Ty Lee @cintylee.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Myiarchus flycatchers ordered by size and intensity of yellow underparts. When it comes to flycatchers, differences between species tend to be very subtle. Impressions of size and color in the field can be quite subjective, but the differences are real.
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
That five-year-old is no angel.
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/s...
nytimes.com
Nature’s Super Feather
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/s...
nytimes.com
Nature’s Super Feather
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention. The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.
ms.now
Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping.
Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.
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Alfred E. Neuman ( MAD Magazine ) @alfreds-mad-world.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
On Closer Inspection...
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dbnewtondoors.bsky.social @dbnewtondoors.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
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Ana María Morales Cañizares @ammcanizares.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Got the first one! Juvie that got measured and got some bling (band). No GPS tag cause the mortality is too high for this age so just some bling… #GoldenEagle #WomeninRaptorResearch #RaptorResearch 🪶
Headshot of a male juvenile Golden EaglePhoto of the tail of a male juvenile Golden EaglePhoto of me holding open the left wing of a male Golden Eagle showing his juvenile plumagePhoto of the feet of a male Golden Eagle showing his new bling (band)
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
The Onion, 23 years ago. theonion.com/no-blood-for...
Point/Counterpoint: No Blood For Oil vs. Exactly How Much Oil Are We Talking About?
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Elina Mäntylä @elinamantyla.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Volle et al. Lifetime evolution of vocal repertoires in a songbird, the black redstart: a longitudinal field approach www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ornithology
sciencedirect.com
Lifetime evolution of vocal repertoires in a songbird, the black redstart: a longitudinal field approach
Oscine songbirds learn to sing mainly by imitating conspecific adults. Song learning programs are diverse, ranging from species that can only learn du…
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Withdrew my 1st scientific paper today. I submitted a paper with a weird result a couple months ago. Got a citation alert on monday, citing paper said nice things abt my paper and had a paragraph on a concept I had not heard of w/ intriguing citations. 1/
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Caught a bunch of birds to show to my Vertebrate Natural History class this weekend, including this gremlin
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Our latest paper is out: Sean Wilcox measured the 3D kinematics of Black-chinned Hummingbirds performing one of their courtship displays. Lots of evidence of flight performance tradeoffs! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Flight performance during courtship in male black-chinned hummingbirds, Archilochus alexandri
Elaborate male display behaviours that require high locomotor performance have been hypothesized to honestly signal male quality to choosy females. Al…
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Dear student, please do not put broken supplies stuff onto the shelf alongside working stuff. Sincerely, your PI
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Quite possibly the easiest thing I’ve ever skinned, and now our teaching collection has a new genus of mammal
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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.
yahoo.com
Let’s be clear about what happened to Jimmy Kimmel
Trump’s most brazen attack on free speech yet.
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Peter Stronach @macstronach.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Spent hours being spellbound by Convolvulus Hawk Moths last night as they nectared on Nicotiana plants in my highland garden!. Up to 3 feeding at a time, their entire abdomens glowing red hot in the thermal from flight muscle use!! #teammoth @migrantmothuk.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Postdoc advertisement! Hi all, I'm looking to hire a Postdoc in BIOACOUSTICS for work on Owls. Your job would be to collect & analyze bioacoustics data, and write papers. 🦉🦉🦅🐦🦜🦉🦉
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Richard Bomphrey @richardbomphrey.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
🚨 Hiring! We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in computational fluid dynamics and structural simulations to investigate biomechanics and mechanosensory feedback in insect flight. Extreme agility ✔️ Morphological computing ✔️ Meshes! ✔️ jobs.rvc.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
media.tenor.com
a close up of a fly 's head with a blurred background .
ALT: a close up of a fly 's head with a blurred background .
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Per the #AOS quiz bowl last night: the bird with the longest tail is the Onagadori, a chicken breed from Japan
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Jarome Ali 🇹🇹 🏳️‍🌈 @jarome.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc. In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking! 🧪 🪶 #colsci
science.org
Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’
Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage
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Dennis O’Rear @djorear.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
The NIH says that mRNA shows promise as a vaccine against multiple cancers. Is this part of the $500M research that RFK Jr canceled? 🧪 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39798545/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Clinical advances of mRNA vaccines for cancer immunotherapy - PubMed
The development of mRNA vaccines represents a significant advancement in cancer treatment, with more than 120 clinical trials to date demonstrating their potential across various malignancies, includi...
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
*Sigh*. Caught a grad student using AI to generate fake citations today. Need to figure out the best strategy to make this a teachable moment. Maybe "gentle teasing"? "Strict warning"? Unclear which will work best in this case.
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 25/06/2025
Presentation for CDC advisers appears to cite nonexistent study to support claims about risk of vaccine preservative www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/h...
cnn.com
Presentation for CDC advisers appears to cite nonexistent study to support claims about risk of vaccine preservative | CNN
A presentation slated to be shared at this week’s meeting of vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claimed that a study in animals suggested that use of the vaccine pre...
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Gustavo Silva de Miranda @gustavo-de-miranda.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Job alert! Sam Noble Museum (OU) seeks a Collection Manager for the Recent Invertebrates collection (insects, mollusks, arachnids & more). You’ll team up with the incoming Curator (👋 me). Apply via jobs.ou.edu, Job # 251244. DM questions. #museumjobs #arthropods #collections
jobs.ou.edu
Jobs - OU Human Resources
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Alfred E. Neuman ( MAD Magazine ) @alfreds-mad-world.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
#writerwednesday #madmagazine
When You're Poor...And...When You're Rich

Writer • Frank Jacobs
Artist • Jack Davis
Issue • No. 190
Year • 1977
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Awesome as always, ‪@zefrank.bsky.social is back to making True Facts videos! www.youtube.com/watch?v=spuO...
youtube.com
True Facts: Beetles That Took Things Too Far
YouTube video by Ze Frank
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Nate Swick @n8swick.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
The potential deletion of 100 years of bird banding, breeding bird survey, and various other survey data would cripple bird conservation efforts not only in the US, but in the entire hemisphere.
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
This article doesn't say it, but clearly this report was written with use of AI such as ChatGPT. There's a reason legit journals have policies against use of AI in writing scientific paper. Hat tip to good reporting from notus.org www.notus.org/health-scien...
notus.org
The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist
The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.
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Prof Dynarski @dynarski.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
They came for everyone else very quickly www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Trump administration orders US embassies to stop student visa interviews
Directive could severely delay visa processing and hurt universities that rely on foreign students for revenue
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ALT Fish and Wildlife Service @altfws.altgov.info · 28/05/2025
Further, it allows a political appointee (usually not a scientist) to take disciplinary action against those seen as sharing misinformation— based on their political determination. Basically, this is threat to scientists to draw conclusions consistent with the Administration’s position.
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ALT Fish and Wildlife Service @altfws.altgov.info · 28/05/2025
Science and research should be objective. This Exec Order is a rant on science the Administration does not like. Following that it seems to promote good research practices (Sec.3, part a)- but alas… The EO gives a political appointee the power to decide when findings need to be “corrected.”
whitehouse.gov
Restoring Gold Standard Science
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 7301 of title 5, United
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🪷MsGrumpyBunny🪷 @msgrumpybunny.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Well payed, Harvard, well played. Harvard offers FREE American Government course.
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
The Pope has "Florida Man" for an older brother!! www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/u...
nytimes.com
The Pope’s Florida Brother, a MAGA Disciple, Plans to ‘Tone It Down’
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Ze Frank @zefrank.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
New True Facts! Insect Waterbenders! youtu.be/H5bZ4Vk2u7M?...
youtu.be
True Facts: Insect Water Walkers
YouTube video by Ze Frank
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Chris Clark @selasphorus1.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
🤨
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Hegseth deleted all mention of the Holocaust from Pentagon websites. Here is why we need more investigations into antisemitism at American universities.
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