iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Spencer T Behmer @stbehmer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Yes, the contrast is stark! Drab adults work as they are good flyers. Have always wondered why the nymphs look the way they do!

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Steely Dan’s album “Aja” turns 49 today. So take a few seconds to watch Jay Graydon replicate his iconic guitar solo on “Peg”. 🎸 💕

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Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Gloria Steinem have all proven that you don't need to have biological children in order to impact lives as if you were a parent.

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

There's a group of braconid wasps, the Alysiinae, that attack maggots, develop inside the hardened puparia, and have to force their way out. So their mandibles open away from the head to push rather than crush, the teeth appearing to face the wrong direction.

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Phil Stevenson @philstevenson.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Invertebrate of the year. Bombus dahlbomii, a giant ginger bumblebee fondly known as the flying mouse, is in decline in its native Patagonia due to commercial farming www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

‘Panda of the insect world’: the moscardón bumblebee creates buzz for invertebrate of the year

Bombus dahlbomii, a giant ginger bumblebee fondly known as the flying mouse, is in decline in its native Patagonia due to commercial farming

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Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Hmm...

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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

This piece by @jtimmer.bsky.social does an outstanding job of contextualizing OMB's latest attack on American science. Current OMB policy is already choking American science, as this WSJ op-ed points out. The status quo is moribund. www.wsj.com/opinion/get-...

Last August, the Trump administration issued an executive order intended to fundamentally alter how grant funding is handled by the US government. Under the system that had made the US a scientific superpower, peer reviewers rated the scientific quality and feasibility of grant applications, and subject-matter experts within the funding agencies used these ratings to determine which grants got funded. Under the proposed rules, political appointees would have the final say, and they were specifically instructed not to “routinely defer” to peer reviewers.

In the interim, the administration has lost many court cases because it turns out that issuing executive orders doesn’t circumvent legal requirements, and the orders can be vacated if they lack strong justification. To avoid that same fate, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has decided to merge the executive order with other administration priorities and send it through the formal federal rulemaking process.

The result is a horror show for US science research. Not only is peer review made a secondary consideration, but the new rules would allow any federal agency to cancel any grant at any time based on the vague assertion that it isn’t in the “national interest.” The document would also ban any grants on a number of culture war topics, limit international collaborations, and block spending on things like publishing papers and attending conferences.

It is, in short, a recipe for how the government can finish the job of crippling American science.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success.

Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 03/03/2026

Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems. A Review in Nature Reviews Biodiversity describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researchers’ understanding of the clade in the genomic era. go.nature.com/4r0kbgS 🌍 🧪

This is figure 2, which shows global diversification dynamics of six diverse butterfly families.

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Phil Stevenson @philstevenson.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

New paper alert! Sterol content of pollen directly influences solitary bee development & indicates that Osmia larvae are efficient in accumulating sterols or can biosynthesise or modify them, which challenges previous studies. @rbgkew.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Pollen and sterol content differentially affect solitary bee development

Pollen sterols are essential micronutrients for bees, with roles as membrane components, hormone precursors and for regulating gene expression. It is …

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Jim Elser @drlimnology.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Do you know students who are keen for a transformative summer in western Montana! Our @umflbs.bsky.social summer session field courses are OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! Please help spread the word. flbs.umt.edu/apps/educati...

Three young people in a rowboat, one is rowing and one is waving. All are smiling!

Several young people are in shallow stream making measurements.

Two young men are examining a zooplankton sample on Lake McDonald.

A person is laying on his belly in some alpine flowers taking a picture. A tall mountain is in the background.

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Leslie Rissler @ljrissler.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

“This Executive Order is nothing short of obscene," said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). "In what world does Donald Trump think that Americans want political appointees – who, need I remind the President, are unelected bureaucrats – making decisions on what science gets funded?”

democrats-science.house.gov

Ranking Member Lofgren Calls Trump Out for Corrupt Executive Order Requiring Political Appointees to Approve Federal Grants | House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

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iNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

This new paper documents a tenfold increase in research papers using community-collected iNaturalist data over just five years: tr.ee/89Ot3I According to the study, here are four key ways that iNaturalist data directly powers science 🧵⤵️

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Spencer T Behmer @stbehmer.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

A good morning out with @theswordlab.bsky.social exploring the Skunk Trail at the Soltis Center 🇨🇷. Always something that catches the eye.

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 28/06/2025

Spot on. This is the clearest explanation I’ve seen. It ‘s relatable, and humanizes the issue in a way everyone can understand.

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barbararogan.bsky.social @barbararogan.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Beloit, WI revitalized its waterfront and chose this way to celebrate it: by bringing to life Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

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Oliver @oliver48.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

"This was an experiment by a kindergarten class. They dropped seeds in the cracks of the sidewalk to see what would happen. This would help our bees " via I Love Bees

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Side note. There are eight members of the joint chiefs. the chair is black. the CNO (navy) is a woman. the other six are white guys. chair and the cno got fired tonight.

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Jonathan Lambert @jonlambert.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

NEW: NSF confirmed that they fired 168 employees today, out of their staff of ~1,500 feds. This includes some people who'd finished their 1-year probationary periods, which were extended to 2-years last month without explanation. More to come.

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Spencer T Behmer @stbehmer.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

They look aposematic but I don’t know if any work has explicitly tested them. Would be easy. And they are gorgeous grasshoppers!

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Spencer T Behmer @stbehmer.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Do you for sure know it is distasteful?

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Katherine Clark @whipkclark.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Just hours after taking the oath of office, Donald Trump took down reproductiverights.gov — a website to help women find health care and understand their rights. They’re wasting no time assaulting freedom.

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Joseph Spencer @talkingrootworm.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

“The whole of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive” ― William Ralph Inge. Indeed, the arthropod world offers examples in abundance to support of this statement! #Predation #Parasitism #Illinois #Borneo #spider #wasp #caterpillar #cicada #earwig #stinkbug #cordyceps

A dead tan wasp from Borneo rainforest is sprouting Cordyceps fungal fruiting bodies while also adorned with the stalked egg of a lacewing attached to its head.

A light-yellow and rusty-brown striped very large huntsman spider from Borneo with a fuzzy reddish-orange winged ant it has just snatched from the other side of this post seconds earlier. I'd never see something so big, catch something so fast seemingly out of nowhere. <shivers!>

A most unfortunate dogday cicada that was in the process of emerging from its pupal skin was discovered and preyed upon by an earwig and an orb-weaving spider.

A brown-colored stinkbug with orange legs is sucking-up its liquified dinner from a monarch butterfly caterpillar it has killed and now hangs limply from the underside of the milkweed leaf it was once feeding upon

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 13/01/2025

As DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem would enforce Trump’s mass deportation agenda. In her own state, she’s banned from tribal lands after spreading lies: cartels “holding up shop” on reservations and are “recruiting tribal members.” Tribal leaders see it what it is: racist, dehumanizing fear-mongering.

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Joseph Spencer @talkingrootworm.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

One of my summertime favorites: the ant-mimicking #fly #Myiomyrmica fenestrata (Order #Diptera, Family #Ulidiidae). I've found this species at only one location: Loda Cemetery Prairie, Loda Illinois. They look & act like #ants. I haven't a clue about their role in #tallgrass #prairie ecosystems

Mating pair of Myiomyrmica fenestrata flies resting on a diagonal stem. Both sexes are brownish-red in color with typically "gas-mask" looking faces and narrow wings with a single white-ish patch near the wing tip.

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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 10/01/2025

🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court DENIES Trump's bid to stay his criminal sentence in NY. Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh dissent.

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Spencer T Behmer @stbehmer.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Nothing like a Tucson sunset 🌵

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Dan Baldassarre @evornithology.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Incredible video here from Violet Wu. Apparently this is Macaulay Library’s top-rated video of 2024. Featuring the GOAT duck- Torrent Duck.

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Yalda @thatopinionatedgal.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

We are going from this amazing, empathetic, and genuine man to an apathetic and lying man. 😔 So sad. I love my president, and it makes me sad that half of the population of this country never appreciated him for who he truly is, a good man who loves his country and tried to help its people.

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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Jeffries: In our nation's history, 25% of our nation's debt was accumulated during the four years of the former president, 25%. How dare you lecture America about fiscal responsibility ever.

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Rogue Citizen One @roguecitizenone.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Not ONE single Democrat should vote to confirm ANY of Trump’s nominees. Like and share if you agree!! Your turn.

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Alien Super Show @aliensupershow.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Can Gaetz go any lower than this demotion? New episode with guest @hodgman.bsky.social on @meidastouch.com!

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Science News @scinews.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Three must read papers for PhD students. #scisky #PhD #science #research #academicsky 1. The importance of stupidity in scientific research Open Access journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

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Just Jack @just-jack-1.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." - Lao Tzu Take heed, Democrats.

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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

The world stared into an abyss of dictators, appeasement, and looming world war when suddenly the sky began falling...in central New Jersey We were here in 1938, and now we're back. What's really behind a moral panic over drones? My new column www.inquirer.com/columnists/a...

inquirer.com

What a Jersey drone panic is really telling us | Will Bunch Newsletter

Plus, what’s so bad about ABC News’ $15 million Trump cave-in.

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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Not only is helping Ukraine positive for the US economy as a whole, it individually helps a bunch of red states. So naturally, the GOP hates it.

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BrooklynDad_Defiant! @mmpadellan.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

While trump spent his Thanksgiving spreading the hate on his social media, Kamala Harris was spreading the love and joy to needy Americans. We may NEVER forgive you, America.

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Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

A very smart piece by @gregsargent.bsky.social. A must-read.

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Markos Moulitsas @kos.dailykos.com · 27/11/2024

Tariffs and deportations will decimate rural America, the two things Trump literally ran on. What exactly did they think they were voting on?

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 26/11/2024

TODAY’S EPISODE OF: F*CK AROUND AND FIND OUT! US farm groups want Trump to spare their workers from deportation. Gotta ask—how did the farmers vote? It’s almost like actions have consequences…

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Aaron Black @aaronblack.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

PCE inflation has fallen to 2.1%—nearly at its 2% target—and incomes are up nearly $4,000. The economy has grown 12.6% under President Biden—more than any presidential term this century. 16 million jobs created and the lowest unemployment in 50 years. 🚨 Do not let Trump take any credit for this.

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Jon Hutson @jonhutson.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

*tap tap* Is this thing on? Okay, I have an announcement: Any member of the House Ethics Committee could just read the damn Gaetz report into the Congressional record. Let's not be chicken shit about this.

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