Brooke Byerley Best, PhD

Cartoon dog wearing hat sits on chair at table, coffee cup in front of him. He has a blank stare on his face. Fire and smoke are all around him. Text says "Actually...this is fine."

And finally…

A photo of Heidi Klum in her worm costume, lying on the ground, with an ET microphone in her face, giving an interview. The text says "Next Halloween I'm going as an unmanaged prairie."

The Heidi Klum
Halloween of RxFire memes

A closeup on Samuel L. Jackson's character from the movie "Pulp Fiction." He's looking like he's about ready to lose his temper. The text says "Say prescribed fire is too complicated one more time..."

A scene from the Red Light Green Light game in the tv show "Squid Game." One character has grabbed the back of the jacket of another character and is holding him up, keeping him from falling to the ground. The holder's text says "Prescribed Fire." The falling man's text says "Long term prairie health."

Fire is dramatic, y’all

The main character from the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once" stares at her absurd hotdog fingers. The text over the still says "Counting all the other spots in the garden I want to burn."

This meme is Oscar-winning

The Exit 12 meme, where the arrow pointing straight says "Woody encroachment" and the arrow for Exit 12 off the main road says "Prescribed fire." The car is skidding trying to make take the exit at high speed.

Troy from the show "Community" enters the apartment with multiple pizzas for the party. His face is shocked as he's sees the party goers in chaos. Troy's text says "Me trying to write up a burn plan." The chaotic party-goers say "Wind. Humidity. Fine fuels. Temps."

The path you should be traveling. But also, burn plan are very detailed.

Boromir from Lord of the Rings saying "One does not simply never burn their prairie."

The Danny character from Ted Lasso, whose motto is "Football is life," is smiling and saying "Prescribed burns are life."

Danny would love Boromir. Boromir would hate Danny.

Get in, loser. We’re prescribe burning. (Mean Girls meme)

I made a bunch of prescribed fire memes. In honor of upcoming burn season (will it EVER hard freeze here again?), reposting them here from my Twitter…

photo of a very small snail on a wall with human index finger close to it for scale

#TwitterImportFail

A grapefruit sits in “grapefruit jail” represented by a plastic container with a gasketed locking lid. The container sits on a draped black fabric background. A small description card sits off to one side. It is made to look like an art installation.

Art exhibition placard reading “Grapefruit and BPA Free Plastic. Artist explores the concepts of protection and irony. A grapefruit, already protected by its natural rind, placed in a Lock&Lock Plastic box, not for its own protection, but to protect the dead plants surrounding it from possible pathogens.”

#TwitterImportFail

A white plume of smoke in the distance against a blue sky with a line of fire watchers along the horizon

#TwitterImportFail

Page from a book reads: “"In many respects the botanist looks at the world from a point of view precisely the reverse of that of other people. Rich fields of corn are to him waste lands; cities are his abhorrence, and great open areas under high cultivation he calls 'poor country'; while on the other hand the im- penetrable forest delights his gaze, the rocky cliffs charm him, thin-soiled bar- rens, boggy fens, and unreclaimable swamps and morasses are for him the finest land in a state. He takes no delight in the 'march of civilization,' the ax and the plow are to him symbols of barbarism, and the reclaiming of waste lands and opening up of his favorite haunts to culti- vation he instinctively denounces as acts of vandalism." - L. F. Ward, Flora of Washington and Vicinity (1881, p. 18)”

#TwitterImportFail

One of the dinosaur exhibits featuring a Parasaurolophus with a red head, blue lips, and tiger stripes on body. It is prostrate with chest to ground, as if welcoming guests to jump on its back!

#TwitterImportFail

A woman in glasses and a seafoam cardigan stands in front of a pen containing four goats.

#TwitterImportFail

YouTube video by Brooke Best 2024 GITG: Browsing sounds

#TwitterImportFail youtu.be/f9GSc8wJnZM?...

YouTube video by Brooke Best 2024 GITG: Goats on a log pretend to head-butt

#TwitterImportFail youtu.be/Ox6Y60QCZSc?...

YouTube video by phytophobia Red shouldered hawk eats prey on branch

#TwitterImportFail youtu.be/_Lrhfz2R9Z4?...

YouTube video by phytophobia Red shouldered hawk on branch

#TwitterImportFail

youtu.be/7XzwYayx_x8?...

Hawk in oak tree, sitting in branch with back toward camera

#TwitterImportFail

YouTube video by phytophobia Unmulched trees show trunk damage

#TwitterImportFail

youtu.be/qWY5VRh4Uhk?...

Lots of “study music” playlists on Spotify have songs where the piano pedals are SO LOUD AND DISTRACTING. The one just now annoyed me so much I thought “holy heck I can’t be the only one who HATES this.”

Sure enough, there’s a Reddit thread for everything lol.
www.reddit.com/r/spotify/co...

Asp caterpillars are out right now in #Houston, #Texas. While dangerous, they are also beautifully polymorphic for color. And the cool thing is that no one knows why! #nature #bugs #insects

Supreme Court U.S. v. Skrmetti oral arguments transcript is out: www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...

Must remember to listen to this

"You assholes, you’re the reason that every fucking new car is blinding the shit out of everyone.”

I really like the rhetorical choices made by Nate here.

A group of about 30 people in a classroom, five of them sitting at the panelist’s table in the front.

Person giving a talk in front of a large slide advertising www.500QueerScientists.com. Features two narwhals face-to-face with pride flags as their tooth-horn.

The #LAGNiAppE postbacc program hosted @arachnologynerd.bsky.social this week! It was wonderful, featuring lots of good career advice and spiders 🕷️, culminating in a well-attended #QueerInSTEM panel with LSU scientists inc @invertevoeco.bsky.social, @volatileorganic.bsky.social. #NSFfunded

Jobs PUBLIC GARDENS CAREER CENTER Our Career Development Center is the most comprehensive resource of its kind for the public horticulture industry—providing position openings in botanic gardens, arboreta,...

For those interested in working at a US botanical garden, this is a great resource that I checked compulsively while job hunting: www.publicgardens.org/jobs/

All kinds of jobs, and a slew of internships are showing up now.

#publicgarden #botanicalgarden #horticulture #plantbiology #botany #jobs

Smoke bush, an ornamental Anacardiaceae (cashew, mango, and poison ivy family)

Importing the archive:

The New Scientist is the only source of band names you’ll ever need.

#newscientistbandnames

Folks - some more of us little entomological curators 🪰🦟😎🐜🪲🐛🐌🐝🐞🦗

A three panel comic. In panel 1, a two male turkeys are talking. One of them says "C'mon, admit it: you have a crush on her." The second turkey says "No way." The first says "Admit it!" The second says "Naaah." In panel 2, a female turkey arrives and says "Hey boys." The first turkey says "Oh, hey Sue!" and the second male turkey fluffs up in an impressive display. In panel 3, the female turkey and first male turkey look at the second, who is still completely floofed. He says "...Hey."

A four-panel comic. In panel 1, a narrative caption says "Wild Turkeys are one of North America's greatest conservation success stories. Here to tell us more is a wild turkey." A wild turkey tom pokes his head into the panel and says "Oh hello!" In panel 2, the turkey sticks his head up and says "Hey, look what I can do!" In panel 3, the fleshly dangly bit over his nose droops way down over his bill with a "vloop" sound. In panel 3, the narrator says "Okay, that's... Thank you." The turkey bloops his dangly bit back to the top of his head and says enthusiastically "It's called a snood!" and the narrator says "Thanks."

Comics about turkeys.