whoismitch

The dismantling of the US Forest Service is imminent The public has less than a week remaining to comment on the administration's plans.

The dismantling of the US Forest Service is imminent [via @highcountrynews.org]

Calculating the perfect dose of Tylenol to give my beautiful wife so our child grows up to be an entomologist

An ELSI for AI: Learning from genetics to govern algorithms In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months h...

🧵 The summer of 2025 has been AI's "cruel summer"—wrongful deaths, dangerous therapy chatbots, medical misinformation, facial recognition failures. These aren't isolated glitches but predictable harms from systems deployed without adequate oversight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Remote mountain meadow confirms global insect crisis Colorado mountains study shows insect numbers dropped 72% in 20 years, driven mainly by warming summer nights.

Over 20 yrs of flying insect counts at a remote high(3000m)-mountain meadow in Colorado (by a very dedicated observer) shows insect counts fell by an average of 6.6%/yr, overall a 72.4% drop. The main culprit was rising summer temperatures, especially warmer nights. ½

www.earth.com/news/remote-...

The Floods Kept Coming. He Needed to Grow a Crop That Would Thrive in Water — or to Quit. One Illinois man’s decadeslong fight to convert his fields into rice paddies demonstrates how it’s possible to bring diversity to the Corn Belt, but improbable so long as federal farm policy remains f...

Climate change is shifting where rice can grow.

Long considered a southern crop, it has crept north into Missouri.

It’s a crop that can thrive where others can’t. But for many farmers, making the transition to a new crop is nearly impossible.

Insect populations are rapidly declining even in relatively undisturbed landscapes, raising concerns about the health of ecosystems that depend on them.

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Tracing sources of funds used to lobby the US government about carbon capture, use, and storage Analysis of U.S. federal lobbying disclosures from 2005 through 2024 identifies the fossil fuel sector as the primary force behind a multipronged $954…

New peer-reviewed paper documents massive lobbying by big oil & gas over 20 yrs to promote carbon, capture & storage, spending almost $1 Billion. CCS is a scam.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ant Queens Produce Offspring of Two Different Species, Stunning Scientists Some ant queens can produce offspring of more than one species – even when the other species is not known to exist in the nearby wild.

This Alien: Earth marketing campaign is getting out of hand.

www.sciencealert.com/ant-queens-p...

“How many people, I wonder, can be penned up and tormented—reeducated—before it begins to matter to the majority of Americans?”

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

Trump officials to revoke permit for Massachusetts offshore wind farm In moving to block New England Wind, the administration is seeking to block a third offshore wind project in less than two weeks.

The Trump administration plans to cancel permits for a wind energy project off the coast of Massachusetts that would initially power some 400,000 homes, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

Oh word? Birds-of-paradise are just fluorescing left and right now? Goddamn! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Detecting and attributing climate change effects on vegetation: Australia as a test case Climate change is contributing to vegetation changes that threaten life support systems. Yet, inherent climatic variability and past and present human actions—such as clearing, burning and grazing re...

New paper out on detecting and attributing climate change effects on vegetation with a much needed focus on Australia. Led by the brilliant Dr Laura Williams and @bmedlyn.bsky.social

@plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Nature headline "I invented a life-saving frog sauna." Photo of said frogs in said sauna

have never clicked a headline so fast www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Birds Across the World Are Singing All Day for a Disturbing Reason After analyzing a dataset of more than 60 million recorded birdsongs, researchers found that birds are singing an average of 50 minutes longer per day.

Birds are starting to sing earlier in the morning and continuing to sing longer in the evening in bright landscapes such as cities because of light pollution

our paper on how light pollution affects bird vocal behavior is out today in Science!!

w/ @brentpease.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes | Defector It’s not AI winter just yet, though there is a distinct chill in the air. Meta is shaking up and downsizing its artificial intelligence division. A new report out of MIT finds that 95 percent of compa...

I often find myself saying "what a time to be alive" but friends, today, defector.com/it-took-many...

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Hey everybody! @drjuliawester.bsky.social and I have a new paper!

We surveyed over 800 scientists, science communicators, and science educators who use social media.

Conclusion: Scientists no longer find Twitter useful or pleasant, and many have switched to Bluesky! 🧪🌎🦑

doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Ross Gay show us how to measure time in gardens in this year-long poetry swap. orionmagazine.org/article/lett...

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They're turning hurricanes, floods, and wildfires into a profit center — and more people are going to die as a result.

▶️ Thom and I discuss the demise of FEMA. Full @hartmannreport.com interview on Substack: gregpalastinvestigates.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

#FEMA #DOGE

America’s Largest Landlord Makes Deal With DOJ to Settle Price-Fixing Claims in RealPage Case Greystar, which manages nearly 950,000 apartments, has agreed to stop using “anti-competitive” algorithms to suggest rents. ProPublica previously showed how such software lets landlords set rents in a...

Greystar was using rent-setting algorithms from software company RealPage, the subject of a 2022 ProPublica investigation that showed the firm was helping landlords decide prices in a way that legal experts said could result in cartel-like behavior.

By @heathervogell.bsky.social

Wildlife, Water, and Wildfire Intersect at Wilson Ranch Meadow Healthy mountain meadows in a river’s headwaters have a cascading effect on the watershed that supports wildlife, clean water, and wildfire resilience. Wilson Ranch Meadow, a 90-acre meadow in Eldorad...

Healthy meadows in a river’s headwaters have a cascading effect on the watershed that supports wildlife, clean water, and wildfire resilience. Wilson Ranch Meadow was identified as a site that, if restored, would have watershed-wide impact: www.americanrivers.org/2025/08/wild...

when they have animals at the zoo "make art" for fundraising and so forth, well, i guess what i really wanna say is, that the worst of these ever produced is worth *infinitely* more than any ai generated image ever could be and that this will be true now and for all time

A soaking wet barn swallow shows its bright rusty/ orange tummy as it explodes out of the water in a shower of water drops. They bath by flying into the water , submerging and then popping out and continuing on their flight!

A lot of small birds take a bit of time splashing in shallow water when they bath.
Not swallows.
This barn swallow flew directly into the marsh at Mach 5, completely submerged for a second, and then exploded out in a shower of water drops to continue on its way!
#Birds #photography #wildlife 🪶

Sometimes I think about how much art never gets made because the entire country tied health insurance to having a job but mostly I try not to drive myself crazy.

This administration just dropped the CFPB case against the Navy Federal Credit Union which defrauded our servicemembers to the tune of $95 million in illegal overdraft fees.

Bird Flu May Be Airborne on Dairy Farms, Scientists Report

The bird flu virus that has beset dairy farms since early last year may be spreading through the air in so-called milking parlors and through contaminated wastewater
(Gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/h...

Flood planning could shift with new river discovery Scientists uncover why some waterways form single channels, while others divide into many threads, solving a longstanding quandary in the science of rivers.

Understanding why some waterways form single channels, while others divide into many threads, has perplexed researchers for more than a century.

Discover how this study could help transform flood planning and restoration: bit.ly/4ofTwfG

Opinion | For Once, Some Good News About a Fragile Ecosystem

I’m one of the thousands who signed a petition to protect the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. It was heartening to read this update from Margaret Renkl, who alerted many of us to the threat to it. (>600 plant species, 234 bird species!) 🧪 #conservation

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/o...