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Neil Pederson

@yellowbuckeye.bsky.social
2.3K followers 2.1K following 276 posts

I study old-growth forests and climate change from trees to regions and seasons to centuries. A colleague termed it RetroEcology - broadleafpapers.wordpress.com Love music in 3/4, 6/8, 5/4, 11, & other offbeat signatures (no real pun intended)

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Reposted by Neil Pederson
Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Princeton, McGill and Penn have all denied tenure to women who went on to win a Nobel Prize. It says quite a bit about tenure standards, and the treatment of women in academia. MAGA thinks that DEI gives them an unfair advantage. And that's farcical. www.forbes.com/sites/conorm...
forbes.com
Researcher Demoted By University Of Pennsylvania Wins Nobel Prize For mRNA Discoveries—And Some Academics Urge Penn To Apologize
Katalin Karikó’s research laid the foundation for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines.
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BeshearStan @beshearstan.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Democrats are leading in Elise Stefanik’s district, which Trump won by 21 points in 2024 Constantino is a MAGA nutjob who has stalked his Dem opponent w/ drones, made AI deepfakes, and was very aggressive to his GOP opponent during the primary
👀 NEW Siena poll in NY-21 (Retiring Rep. Elise Stefanik's district):

Blake Gendebien (D) 46%
Anthony Constantino (R) 42%
Undecided 8%

Sponsored by local news outlets NBC5 (WPTZ), Times-Union & WAMC, conducted by Siena from Sept 30-Oct 6 among 496 Likely Voters, MOE +/- 4.6%.
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I chew or scratch n’ sniff a twig each chance I get
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🫶🏻Layla🫶🏻 @laylabelle3.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
“AGAIN”
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Sassafras is on fire this fall
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Fossil taxa are sometimes considered island weirdos without any actual evidence that island effects were important in their evolution. So we wrote a paper on how we could do actual island biogeography in deep time. If you want a copy but can't access it, email me: www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Island biogeography in deep time - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Island ecosystems feature unique species assemblages with diverse evolutionary histories, but identifying island communities in deep time comes with its own challenges. This Perspective explores the a...
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Stag beetles seem to prefer the interior of a broadleaf forest in Japan. Scientists determined this by using a so-called "honey-trap" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
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Kári Tulinius @kattullus.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Incidentally, her reading from that event is online, and it's about as good an introduction to her poetry as can be, if you've never encountered her work.
youtube.com
Anne Carson. Upplestur á nýársdag.
YouTube video by Bokmenntaborgin UNESCO
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Garry Peterson @resiliencesci.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"As a global society and as citizens of Earth, we urgently need a tangible shift in how our legal systems treat the living world. Recognizing the universal rights of nature is the answer" doi.org/10.1038/d415...
doi.org
Nature has rights — it is time the world recognized them
Existing legal frameworks have not halted planetary crises. Recognizing the rights of nature could offer a different path.
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Elizabeth Kolbert @elizkolbert.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A simple idea for regulating data center mania: "No large data center...should receive the permits or grid connection it needs unless its developer brings enough new carbon-free generation, energy storage and transmission online to meet its additional electricity demand—and pays the full cost."
wsj.com
Opinion | Let Physics Regulate the AI Industry
No new data centers without enough clean power to run them.
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Neil Tsutsui @neiltsutsui.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Only 3 more days to apply for our Assistant Professor in Arthropod Biodiversity position! The application deadline is October 9, 11:59pm! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05523
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor - Arthropod Biodiversity - Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Part (but far from all) of what's horrific here is: a woman weighing the consequences of speaking up about being sexually assaulted, because speaking up imposes burdens and costs (and so does not speaking up).
phoenixnewtimes.com
Congressional candidate is raped while repairing her campaign signs
Embarrassed, she initially didn’t want to report attack. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office's investigation is ongoing. A Phoenix New Times exclusive.
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Noam Ross @noamross.net · 07/10/2026
Trump announced $100M to train U.S. citizen scientists only. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... These are not new funds. NSF underspent its education funds by $100M this past year. Of course, it pales in comparison to the $560M lost due to terminated NSF education grants: grantwitness.org/nsf 🧪
Trump Makes $100 Million Push to Train American Scientists

By Liam Knox
October 7, 2026 at 7:00 PM UTC

The Trump administration is injecting more than $100 million into education programs for American researchers in STEM fields, as federal policies stanch the flow of foreign scientists to the US and policymakers focus on an AI arms race with China.
The initiative, which President Donald Trump is set to announce at a White House summit on Thursday, aims to increase the number of highly trained scientific researchers who are American citizens through fellowships for PhD programs in science and engineering disciplines, according to a White House official.
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Noam Ross @noamross.net · 06/10/2026
Even within the Behavioral and Cognitive division, the topics that NSF SBE funded were really quite narrow: mostly cognitive and computational neuroscience. 🧪 bsky.app/profile/dang...
A word cloud displaying the top terms from project titles and abstracts of 91 National Science Foundation (NSF) Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) funded projects in FY 2026. The largest, most prominent terms in dark brown text include "brain" and "learning". Other prominent medium-large terms in red text include "human," "award," "cognitive," "merit," "intellectual," "criteria," "worthy," "review," "broader," "statutory," "visual," "language," "systems," "neural," "artificial," "intelligence," "students," "activity," and "memory". Smaller surrounding terms include words like "computational," "behavior," "processing," "decision," "children," and "models". The watermark "GRANTWITNESS.ORG" is displayed in the bottom right corner.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 07/10/2026
For over a decade, the National Science Foundation’s SBE has funded my work, leading to discoveries that have improved how we do science, including mechanisms for efficient grant proposal contests that are now used worldwide.
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NC Chapter - Sierra Club @sierraclubnc.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
We're grateful to @ncgovernor.bsky.social for adding his voice to thousands who protest Trump's plan to rescind the Roadless Rule! There's still a few hours to submit your comments - visit sc.org/nc-action to send your comments and read our news release about Stein's letter.
A family looks up at a tree in the Pisgah National Forest, seen from high up in the tree
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Cool! Now do Nor’easters. I learned earlier in the summer that fires in 1903 were put out by a Nor’Easter in June of that year. Leading up to the fires were 39 days without rain, preceded by 33 days of very low rainfall, maybe. News report said 72 days of drought (minimal rainfall)
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Dawn Olcott ❌👑 @dawn-o.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Join us!
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
A kind of nurture vs nature for trees study. Kinda academic.oup.com/treephys/adv...
academic.oup.com
When environments mismatch - The limits of transgenerational climate memory in Scots pine
Abstract. A long-term irrigation experiment in the dry Rhône Valley of Switzerland provides a unique opportunity to examine transgenerational environmental
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Adam Parkhomenko @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Devastating ad for Republicans. You would think Trump wants them all to lose in less than a month.
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Robin Hayward 🌳 🏳️‍⚧️ @canopyrobin.com · 05/10/2026
Did a little interview about the new trans-inclusive guidance 🙂 heart-magazine.com/2026/10/04/t...
heart-magazine.com
Reseachers publish guidelines for inclusive fieldwork for trans+ people
On Friday 25th of September 2026, three researchers at Leeds university released the Trans+ Guidelines for Inclusive Fieldwork.
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Are you a postdoc or new faculty member who would benefit from an invited talk? My department is looking to bring someone for spring. Due to budgetary reasons, you must be either: 1. In driving distance to Orono, ME OR 2. Working on alpine or Arctic plants
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 05/10/2026
"Our rape statutes were written decades ago, at a time when women were gravely underrepresented in the legislature, and when we understood far less about rape than we understand now."
motherjones.com
The loophole that likely doomed the Cornell rape case before it even started
Accusers who voluntarily drink have little protection under an antiquated law many see as victim-blaming.
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Lecia Michelle @leciamichelle.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Eastern bluebird coming in for a landing. #birds #photography #birdsofbluesky
Eastern bluebird with vibrant blue wings and tail and orange and white chest and belly lands in the grass, its wings flapping upwards behind it.
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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Scientist, inventor & women's rights campaigner Eunice Foote died #OTD in 1888. She was the first to demonstrate the greenhouse effect (heat-absorbing properties) of carbon dioxide (CO2), laying the scientific groundwork for #climatechange research. #WomenInSTEM
A warm-toned, sepia-style artistic illustration depicting Eunice Newton Foote, a 19th-century American scientist, viewed from behind in a softly lit laboratory setting. She stands facing away from the viewer, her back to us, wearing a period-appropriate mid-19th-century dress with puffed short sleeves, an off-the-shoulder neckline, and a full skirt. Her dark hair is styled in an elegant updo with soft curls and a decorative comb or ribbon at the back. She holds an open scientific notebook or paper in both hands at chest height, reading it attentively. The background shows a detailed Victorian-era lab interior with wooden shelves, glass apparatus including tall cylinders and tubes, a bell jar, a thermometer or barometer-like instrument, and other scientific equipment on tables and walls, evoking a sense of quiet discovery and early experimental science. Drawing by Carlyn Iverson, NOAA.
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Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Ah yes, just “the latest sign of how the Trump administration is finding creative ways to work around Congress.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/us/polit… It’s “the latest sign of Trump’s authoritarian seizure of power and attack on science.”
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
But she also highlights how the numbers are on the side of political and social progress – of pluralism and the expansion of a Democratic vision. Most Americans support all of the changes of the last 60 years. It is a tiny extreme ethnonationalist minority that opposes this progress.
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Dr Hannah M. Rowland @hannahmrowland.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago
I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody &everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861
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Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
September temperature time series for the Contiguous U.S. September 2026 broke the record previously set in 1998 by 0.3F.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Maybe time for those who don't experience this directly to return to this thread (which I posted when PTSD was being weaponized to relieve Graham Platner of responsibility for his actions).
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Anne Helen Petersen @annehelen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Grant Witness @grantwitness.org · 29/09/2026
NOAA studies and monitors our coasts, the deep sea, weather, climate and even outer space. It has endured staff firings, suppression of scientific reports, budget cuts and grant terminations. This week we're adding it to Grant Witness's tracking. grantwitness.org/noaa/updates... 🧪
grantwitness.org
Grant Witness is tracking NOAA Terminations and Funding
Tracker and Submission Form is now available on our website
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Jessica Valenti @jessicavalenti.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In 2014, I interviewed a Columbia University student who went from class to class carrying the mattress she was raped on—a protest performance piece to remind college administrators what they put on her shoulders. Twelve years later, we still expect women on college campuses to carry that weight.
jessica.substack.com
Carrying That Weight—Again
I can’t stop thinking about the Cornell rape case
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It is easy within the Greater Megalopolis. We regularly go to NYC. It was a bit uncertain at first. There is a learning curve. A friend told us about the A Better Route Planner app. We typically outperform modeled expectations. This is likely because we do not go too much over the speed limit
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I have in the northeastern US with a similar EV. I have driven from eastern Massachusetts to southern Virginia and back in the heat of the summer and to the northern Adirondacks, which was an EV charging desert at that time, and back during a winter cold snap. Made it home with enough mileage
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A gallery of tree-dwelling ants.
alexanderwild.com
Arboreal Ants: Life in the Treetops - Alex Wild
In the warmer regions of the world, a rich and colorful ant fauna lives entirely in the trees.
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Tim Osborn @timosbornclim.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’ve updated the long-running (starts 1866) CRU Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). This lets us compare the currently developing El Niño with earlier events including 1877-78. 2026 has developed very quickly, similar to the 1997-98 one. Thick line is 3-month running mean, with y-axis reversed.
1866-present timeseries of Climatic Research Unit SOI with some major El Niño events marked.
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Neil Pederson @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I will be presenting "Ancient Trees Bring New Knowledge in Our Rapidly Changing World" as a part of the Hofstra University's Science Night Live public lecture series on Tuesday night, October 20th. If you live on or near Long Island, RSVP here: www.hofstra.edu/academics/cu...
A young woman coring a large Eastern White Pine in an old-growth forest in northern Minnesota.
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 23/09/2026
Updated version of the impacts map that incorporates the latest runs from 13 dynamical models to refine the areas affected by this year's event:
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Felix Hamer • electricfelix @electricfelix.eurosky.social · 22/09/2026
It gets better: refrigerated trailer⚡️⚡️⚡️ #amsterdamelektrisch #electrictruck
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Tuomas Pernu @tuomaspernu.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Hence "strategic conformity becomes a rational career path". Yes indeed. However, I don't see this as a mere early-career problem. The problem is bigger and more pervasive.
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Tuomas Pernu @tuomaspernu.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
"Contemporary scientific systems progressively constrain high-risk and conceptually innovative research while being increasingly structured around short funding cycles, productivity-based evaluation criteria and risk-averse frameworks that favour predictable and non-transformative research outputs."
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Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 03/09/2026
How contemporary academic structures constrain scientific creativity and hold back early-career researchers
dlvr.it
How contemporary academic structures constrain scientific creativity and hold back early-career researchers
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 03 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02575-5In this Perspective, Haubrock et al. argue that today’s scientific structures constrain creativity and that strategic conformity is a rational response. They discuss how this holds back early-career researchers from reaching their full potential as scientists.
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AGU Science Policy @aguscipolicy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🚨NSF seeks community input on future ocean observing priorities 🌊 Read the NSF Dear Colleague Letter here: spklr.io/63326ErWSG Submit your response by 9/30 using this form: spklr.io/63328ErWSy
spklr.io
Request for Input on Future Ocean Observing Priorities
Dear Colleagues, On June 18, 2026, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its intent to continue operations and maintenance of the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) and to issue this Dear Colleague Letter soliciting perspectives on what ocean observation capabilities NSF should provide.
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Earth and Planetary Sciences at ETH Zurich @eth-eaps.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at ETH Zurich invites applications for the position of Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Earth and Planetary Evolution. ethz.ch/en/the-eth-z... Please apply online. The closing date for applications is 15 December 2026.
ethz.ch
Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Earth and Planetary Evolution
The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (www.eaps.ethz.ch) at ETH Zurich invites applications for the above-mentioned position.
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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I talked to Gillian Brockell about the DHS Inspector General’s report on the use of “the box” at Alligator Alcatraz, why detainees’ descriptions of its size and use are likely more accurate than those in the report, and how “the box” has a long history in concentration camps around the world.
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Anthony Ricciardi @ecoinvasions.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Quote: "One of the greatest biological invasions [the Great American Biotic Interchange] highlights how biogeographic processes and biotic interactions can shape continental diversity."
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Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 14/09/2026
Obituary: Robert Ricklefs (1943–2026) www.nature.com/articles/s41... Polymath ecologist whose research and textbooks integrating ecology and evolution have inspired generations of students. Free to read: rdcu.be/D33fLgYcv4Ba
nature.com
Robert Ricklefs (1943–2026) - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Polymath ecologist whose research and textbooks integrating ecology and evolution have inspired generations of students.
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Tanya Cheeke @tanyacheeke.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New paper showing that it took 7 years post-inoculation to see effects on plant communities, highlighting the importance of longterm studies in restoration research esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Inoculation with old‐growth microbes improves restoration quality and reduces non‐native encroachment after seven years
Understanding the mechanisms that promote native seedling establishment in disturbed ecosystems is key to improving the biodiversity and function of landscape restorations. Over seven growing seasons...
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