Linda Birkin

Do you have 10 minutes to help an @edinburghnapier.bsky.social MSc student complete her final research project?

Please consider letting us know your opinions towards herring gulls, by completing this short questionnaire tinyurl.com/tfntmfbk

Thank you!

Happy Halloween! 🎃 This is a piece I’ve did before but wanna try a different background color. Orange and black insects lining up for the spooky season! 🧡🖤

a 3-panel comic of a fluffy-haired person holding a praying mantis, holding a jar containing a treehopper, and running amidst several different insects with a net

thank you to the bugs

> Fetching emails from third-party accounts into your Gmail account, with POP, will no longer be supported.

I hate Google.

If you work for Google, I hate you.

'Urban geology': How to find fossils (and other discoveries) in your city's buildings If you look closer at the building stones, tiles and pavements of the big city, you can find a hidden world of geology and history, from fascinating fossils to unusual rocks.

Many thanks to @richardfisher.bsky.social for this lovely article on my #urbangeology rambles! www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Infographic titled “The Chemistry of Apple Flavours” explaining what makes apples sweet or tart and key flavour compounds. Sweetness comes from sugars like fructose, tartness from acids like malic acid. A higher sugar/acid ratio means a sweeter apple. Apple types are grouped as sweet (e.g., Fuji, Gala), balanced (e.g., Jazz, Braeburn), or tart (e.g., Granny Smith, Bramley). As apples ripen, aldehydes convert to alcohols and then to esters, which dominate aroma in ripe apples. Key esters shown include butyl acetate, hexyl acetate, 2-methylbutyl acetate, and ethyl 2-methylbutanoate.

Why are some apples as sweet as honey while others make your face pucker? 🍎

Dive into the chemistry behind apple sweetness, tartness, and aroma in this graphic!

👉 Read more: www.compoundchem.com/2025/10/16/a...

#ChemSky 🧪

Second Nature — A documentary about everything you didn’t learn in high school biology. Debunking myths that females are “inferior” and being queer is “unnatural,” Second Nature follows trailblazing trans Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden as she meets other groundbreaking scien...

Whoop, whoop! The new queer wildlife documentary 'Second Nature,' narrated by the inspirational Elliot Page, will premiere in New York on Saturday. 🐠🏳️‍⚧️🐧🌈🐘

It looks awesome; check out the teaser. Hopefully it will be available in the UK soon.

www.secondnaturedoc.com #lgbtq #nature #film #PrideInSTEM

Announcing Open Letters: a new format in Plants, People, Planet Plants, People, Planet is delighted to announce Open Letters, a new format for groups of experts to present bold and succinct calls to action to those in positions to elicit and enact change, such as…

📨 Plants, People, Planet is delighted to announce Open Letters!

We invite groups of experts to present bold and succinct calls to action to those in positions to elicit and enact change.

Find out more about the new format 👇
www.newphytologist.org/news/announc...

#PlantScience

A rectangular enamel pin with two hinges on the left hand side. It looks like a book and has a picture of a tree on the front. The book is titled: Trees, a miniature guidebook. An open version of the pin shows assorted leaf shapes on the pages of the book. The leaves are labelled by species as oak, horse chestnut, sycamore, hawthorn, ash, alder, hazel, holly, lime, beech, and birch

I'm so proud to announce my most ambitious pin to date: a miniature guide to the trees of Britain (and lots of Europe)!

Available now from my Etsy: canopyrobin.etsy.com/listing/4386...

Settled in for the @ukbms.bsky.social 50th Anniversary conference 🦋 Got my #citizenscience hat on today; used to work with this fairly closely back in the @jncc.bsky.social days!

🎉 Just 2 days to go until the UKBMS 50th Anniversary Conference! 🦋✨

There's a great programme lined up - ukbms.org/sites/defaul... and we can't wait to welcome the volunteers, researchers and butterfly‑enthusiasts from across the UK.

Last chance to book www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-butterf...

Episode 355: Turn Up The Wild

I was featured on @rootsandall.bsky.social podcast this week, talking about #entomology, #wildlifegardening and whatever else danced across my brain while I was chatting😉

Check out my episode here - plus loads of back catalogue of previous episodes:
rootsandall.co.uk/podcast/turn...

🐠🔊 What noise does a fish make? 

Researchers have developed a new tool that combines 360° video with spatial audio to identify fish by their sounds. The result is the most extensive library of natural fish sounds ever published,  including many that have never been identified before.

🌍🧪

A print run of 50 of my '26 calendars will be on pre-order in my Etsy shop tmrw (Thurs) from 8pm UK time.
I create each of my photos using recent neuroscientific research-looking at them alters brain biochemistry & is likely to trigger dopamine release in your brain &...cont'd in following post 🧵

It's officially 𝐁𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡! 🦇What do you most appreciate about bats?

So sad to hear that Jane Goodall has passed away - a life well lived in promoting the understanding and conservation of our fellow inhabitants of our one wild and precious planet.

A caricature of Lt. Columbo (art by Brad Guigar). The header says “Just One More Thing…” and the text reads: “Y’know, I hate to bother ya, but… I noticed your sketchbook there. Looks like you’ve been savin’ the ‘good paper’ for somethin’ special. Thing is… I’ve seen a lotta cases, and the good stuff? It usually never gets used. Might be better to mess it up now while you still got the idea fresh.”

He's trying his bset

a collage of 31 invertebrates in a 7x5 grid, with a list of their latin names in the middle. there are lanternbugs, butterflies, cephalopods, jellyfish, flies, spiders, wasps, flatworms, ants, chnidarians, beetles, crabs, bees, snails, isopods, sea slugs, sponges, sea cucumbers, and bottom right occupying two spaces a horseshoe crab with a long tail. the text (white on black) in the middle: Invertober 2025 1 | Fulgora laternaria 2 | Siproeta stelenes 3 | Sepia officinalis 4 | Cotylorhiza tuberculata 5 | Bombylius major 6 | Brachypelma smithi 7 | Chrysis ignita 8 | Bipalium choristosperma 9 | Nothomyrmecia sp. 10 | Radianthus magnifica 11 | Goliathus goliatus 12 | Macrocheira kaempferi 13 | Bombus pratorum 14 | Monadenia infumata 15 | Argema mittrei 16 | Armadillidium gestroi 17 | Lampyris noctiluca 18 | Chromodoris annae 19 | Aplysina fistularis 20 | Coccinella trifasciata 21 | Histioteuthis heteropsis 22 | Neotibicen linnei 23 | Eristalis flavipes 24 | Hierodula membranacea 25 | Tachypleus gigas 26 | Chicobolus spinigerus 27 | Kiwa hirsuta 28 | Synchlora aerata 29 | Phidippus audax 30 | Parastichopus johnsoni 31 | Gecarcinus quadratus

a collage of 31 invertebrates in a 7x5 grid, with a list of their latin names in the middle. there are lanternbugs, butterflies, cephalopods, jellyfish, flies, spiders, wasps, flatworms, ants, chnidarians, beetles, crabs, bees, snails, isopods, sea slugs, sponges, sea cucumbers, and bottom right occupying two spaces a horseshoe crab with a long tail. the text (black on white) in the middle: Invertober 2025 1 | Fulgora laternaria 2 | Siproeta stelenes 3 | Sepia officinalis 4 | Cotylorhiza tuberculata 5 | Bombylius major 6 | Brachypelma smithi 7 | Chrysis ignita 8 | Bipalium choristosperma 9 | Nothomyrmecia sp. 10 | Radianthus magnifica 11 | Goliathus goliatus 12 | Macrocheira kaempferi 13 | Bombus pratorum 14 | Monadenia infumata 15 | Argema mittrei 16 | Armadillidium gestroi 17 | Lampyris noctiluca 18 | Chromodoris annae 19 | Aplysina fistularis 20 | Coccinella trifasciata 21 | Histioteuthis heteropsis 22 | Neotibicen linnei 23 | Eristalis flavipes 24 | Hierodula membranacea 25 | Tachypleus gigas 26 | Chicobolus spinigerus 27 | Kiwa hirsuta 28 | Synchlora aerata 29 | Phidippus audax 30 | Parastichopus johnsoni 31 | Gecarcinus quadratus

so here it is folks, with one day to spare the complete #SciArt collage of critters for #invertober2024 by @fossilforager.bsky.social

and now I have a fresh clean slate to start the 2025 list! which hopefully is done before September 2026...

I am working on a really cool project - a pop up science and art shop in Swindon!

We are looking for researchers to run public engagement activities in this space from 25th Oct - 1st Nov. If you are interested, please get in touch via my website contact form: www.sarahcosgriff.com/contact

The Boring Fund - Open Collective We support small non-profit organisations (UK) by only funding the really boring (but essential) stuff like insurance, accountancy or admin

The Boring Fund will be open for applications in November.

If your small UK charity needs (up to) £200 to cover something boring like insurance or web hosting, take a look.

They welcome donations too.

🎵bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug
🎵Mr bugman
🎵cent me a pede
🎵give him some feet that are many indeed

Great photos!
...though my brain insists on going 'forbidden juice box' 😆

Not sea glass but fragments of plastic car tail lights, indicators and brake lights, probably washed into storm drains after heavy rain, eventually making their way to the sea. #oceanplastic

i challenge you to find cooler news today than “despite all odds against American scientific research rn, a CO researcher developed a temperature-stable, single dose rabies vaccine that works bc of particles coated in CANDY & SAPPHIRE, & it could help reduce rabies deaths in places w/o electricity”

Does anyone have any guides etc they'd recommend for getting better at mobile phone photography? Real beginner stuff - I have no photography background, but I'm sure I should be able to make this S24 take better bug photos than it does.

^ This!
I tell people 'there is a core of joyful madness in what you do; that little spark of why you think this thing is *important*. Find it and build on it.'

Be weird. Be passionate.

Fat Bear Week 2025 Fat Bear Week 2025

IT’S FAT BEAR WEEEEK

explore.org/fat-bear-week

LIFEHACK: IF ANY'SOLUTION' TO A COMPLEX AND NUANCED ISSUE' IS DECLARED TO BE "PREGNANT WOMEN AREN'T EXPERIENCING ENOUGH PAIN", YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY IGNORE IT

*taps sign*

I have considerably better high-pitch hearing than someone who likes as much Silly Metal as I do should probably have.

Sometimes this is useful; sometimes I have to listen to lightbulbs. 🍅/🍅