Chris Moore

The ISC - your new home at UMass Boston?

The view of Boston Harbor from front of campus

Heeeeey #Microbial #Ecology folk! My department has a job opening for a tenure track Microbial Ecologist! Feel free to DM me with questions. Come join our awesome supportive whip-smart & kind crew in the Biology Department of @umassboston.bsky.social! employmentopportunities.umb.edu/boston/en-us...

Let’s talk about AI art.

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

Still waiting for it to trickle down...

Looking forward to this! A non-Elsevier alternative to Theoretical Population Biology / Journal of Theoretical Biology

Burbank Airport air traffic control tower unmanned on Monday evening amid government shutdown The air traffic tower at Burbank Airport is unmanned on Monday evening as air traffic controllers begin to call out in greater numbers due to the government shutdown.

Burbank Airport air traffic control tower unmanned on Monday evening amid government shutdown

Over 400 faculty and staff from the #uva College of Arts and Sciences convened for an emergency vote. 97% of eligible voters endorsed a resolution demanding President Mahoney refuse to consider the Trump admin's Compact for Academic Freedom!!

Many excellent points in this op-ed from @jeremymberg.bsky.social about how we scientists haven't stood up for our principles when the Trump administration attacked representation and diversity efforts.

We should stand up for what we believe in just like our brave federal worker colleagues.

Please do so!! WE NEED MORE SQUID SONGS!!!!

The new Wiley journal review system is an absolute nightmare. Editorial assistants have been replaced by a clunky, AI-enabled website that makes it harder to find and invite reviewers. Associate editor workloads have increased. I'm not convinced the invitations to reviewers are even going through.

Sending troops from Texas to forcefully occupy and suppress cities in Illinois and Oregon IN OPPOSITION TO THOSE STATES' GOVERNORS is literally a civil war and it's cooking my brain that Democrats are simply pretending it isn't happening

[Update, 11:45 p.m.: By Sunday night, a second temporary restraining order was issued in the case, barring the Trump administration from sending any National Guard federalized under 10 U.S.C. 12406 to Oregon from any state or D.C. The move followed actions by the Trump administration overnight to send members of the California National Guard to Oregon and plans to do so as to the Texas National Guard as well. At a hastily called hearing on Sunday night, Immergut harshly questioned the Justice Department lawyer before her, Eric Hamilton, asking him — while noting that he is an officer of the court — “Do you believe this is appropriate way to deal with my order?” Issuing the second TRO in as many days in the case, Immergut called the Trump administration’s actions in apparent response to her first order “in direct contravention” of it.

NEW: Second, expanded TRO issued in Oregon case challenging Trump's National Guard deployment to the state bars any state or D.C. National Guard being deployed to Oregon.

Update at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com/p/judge-bloc...

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪

From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

The Ig Nobel is incredible , one year an Indian guy won it for calculating the average surface area of an elephant and during his acceptance they had an elephant hold up a sign with the surface area of the scientist on it, they do showbiz better than the Oscars

And look at this graphic abstract….. 😱🤯

In sum, the President is certainly entitled "a great level of deference," Newsom II, 141 F.4th at 1048, in his determination that he "is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States." 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3). But "a great level of deference" is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground. As the Ninth Circuit articulated, courts must "review the President's determination to ensure that it reflects a colorable assessment of the facts and law PAGE 22 - OPINION AND ORDER Case 3:25-cv-01756-IM Document 56 Filed 10/04/25 Page 23 of 31 within a 'range of honest judgment.'" Id. at 1051 (quoting Sterling, 278 U.S. at 399). Here, this Court concludes that the President did not have a "colorable basis" to invoke § 12406(3) to federalize the National Guard because the situation on the ground belied an inability of federal law enforcement officers to execute federal law. Id. at 1051-52. The President's determination was simply untethered to the facts. c. Whether there is a Rebellion or Danger of Rebellion Defendants also aroue that the Sentember 28 2025 federalization order is authorized

If a federal judge, appointed by Trump, can call him “simply untethered to facts,” our White House press corps can as well.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

BREAKING: A federal judge has granted a restraining order blocking President Trump's call-up of the National Guard in Portland.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

A screenshot of the landing pages of PubMed and Europe PMC.

🚨 The US government has stopped the funding PubMed, one of the most comprehensive databased of biomedical literature.

Try using Europe PMC (europepmc.org) — the European alternative to PubMed with 46M+ articles.

Apple did something very similar to the people of Hong Kong in 2019, removing an app that allowed protesters to track police movements via crowdsourced information:

gizmodo.com/apple-sells-...

Purple pollen visible in a dissected flower of Linum grandiflorum, flowering flax, an insect-pollinated species.

*Postdoc in Evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University*
We are recruiting a postdoc for a large interdisciplinary project to investigate evolutionary drivers and genomic consequences of pollen evolution in response to pollination mode shifts in flowering plants. 1/5

su.varbi.com/what:job/job...

This is my favorite of the large things. Lots of memories . . .

Shutdown causes ‘confusion’ across the Forest Service - High Country News Prescribed burns are on hold during shutdown while logging continues.

Who is furloughed, and who isn’t, remains uncertain, according to agency employees and observers interviewed by High Country News; it is not being carried out in an orderly or consistent fashion across the agency.

Premature baby dies of measles in Alberta outbreak's 1st death | CBC News Alberta is reporting its first measles death since outbreaks of the highly contagious illness began in March. The province says a baby, who was born prematurely after the mother became sick, died shor...

This is a fucking tragedy www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Black-throated blue warbler standing on branch with yellow green background

Black-throated blue warbler from a quick morning bird today 🌿🪶📷

Photo of Jane Goodall in the center, signing a book, with three women standing slightly hunched behind her. A very young Michelle is to the right, smiling.

As a primatologist, Jane Goodall was a huge inspiration to me. I admired the way she describes chimpanzee behavior with such detail and empathy, and she’s inspired so many people and advocated for chimpanzee conservation and welfare.

However, I'm dismayed at what her narrative leaves out (1/10)

Bridging the gap between individual specialization and species persistence in mutualistic communities Mutualistic interactions among organisms are fundamental to the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Yet, the study of community dynamics often relies on values averaged at the species level, igno...

What sustains biodiversity? 🌿🌸🐝🐦‍⬛ It’s not just about species, it’s also about individuals.
 
Our new paper in @esajournals.bsky.social Ecol. Monogr. shows how the way individuals specialize on their mutualistic partners can scale up to shape species persistence.
 
🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

Get symposium and colloquium proposals together for Botany 2026, the joint meeting of @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social @botsocamerica.bsky.social @herbariumcurators.bsky.social @iaptglobal.bsky.social + Am Bryological Society and Am Fern Society... best meeting of the year!

mailchi.mp/botany.org/b...

It painfully boils my blood

People arm in arm while drinking coffee and holding papers, with text: Why scientists should take more coffee breaks.

Here's a reminder on #InternationalCoffeeDay: It's OK to take a (coffee) break. ☕

"It’s ... helpful to have a venue to share the day-to-day ups and downs of life as a grad student," a #PhD student wrote in this 2019 #ScienceWorkingLife. https://scim.ag/4nvLTBb

How it started vs How it's going: