Trevor A. Branch

Yeah I've been asked that as Reviewer 3 and responding with a scathing review agreeing with Reviewer 1 100% and questioning why it was sent to me.

Best news today! BHL is an incredible free open treasure trove of nature papers and books from the 1500s to 1900s, and completely invaluable to my research.

An historic black and white illustration of a paper nautilus floating on the ocean. There are boats, a city and hills in the background.

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more:
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran...
#BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪

Yeah, but I average 40+ review requests a year so it gets a bit overwhelming.

Yup. And just got a response from the editor that they *always* send it back to the reviewers for another round regardless of how minor the comments are.

I never managed to see any kiwis, other than the people and the currency.

Ok yes but that is absolutely not the point I was making.

Ha ha! As both an author and reviewer I just want the process over as quickly as possible!!!

I wish more editors would decide to accept a manuscript after seeing author responses to reviews, instead of requiring reviewers to make that decision. It would save everyone a lot of time*.

*except the editors...

Overly honest footnotes!

This seems to be the main evidence plot in the paper. Predicts 5% average annual growth rates if temperatures stay the same, and the scatter of points is very wide compared to the model fit.

Fighter jet https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/xf-92a-delta-wing/

How do blue whales stop themselves tipping over when they inflate their lower jaw to engulf krill? The upper jaw! The triangular shape of the upper jaw keeps them swimming forward, acting like the delta-shaped wings of a fighter jet

Fish et al. 2026: doi.org/10.1111%2Fmm...

What’s the point of going to the gym?? This forklift can lift and move around weigh more weight more efficiently.

A clear opportunity to sell naming rights to new species descriptions! Imagine Cryptogenius Christopher!

"Science in support of salmon conservation in California" talk by Steve Lindley (NOAA Fisheries, retired), 4pm Thursday 26 Feb in Seattle

Proposal for the next president: cut the US defense budget by 1% and double the acceptance rate of NSF proposals. Would also enormously increase productivity of scientists by reducing the months they spend writing rejected proposals.

Surely asking to be blocked!

Reminder: the entire NSF budget is 9B and NIH like 47B. And they have 500B that they don’t know how to spend.

Am I looking at this right? NYT + WaPo account for like 90% of climate coverage, not sure they are the ones to blame when the others never bothered to cover it in the first place.

Just an informal small group roughly going through the book, not likely to yield you much useful feedback!

habitable exoplanets...
xkcd.com/3103/

‘We’re no longer attracting top talent’: the brain drain killing American science As Trump slashes science funding, young researchers flee abroad. Without solid innovation, the US could cease to have the largest biomedical ecosystem in the world

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Option (1)

It's all very clearly explained in the abstract ;)

You should 100% do it. What's the point of being a scientist if we don't pursue curiosity-driven projects?

I've been there! I think I saw 40% of the entire population of the species while there!

like this!

But their AI technology can also provide a summary of a scientific paper up front, right at the start of the paper!!! ;)

As a general rule, because deep-sea assets are often loud and clunky, creating noise and dropping light on otherwise pitch black regions, we have categorically undersampled large, mobile fauna from the deep sea.

There are monsters in the abyss yet to be glimpsed.

Washington state Senate approves tax on personal income over $1M - My Edmonds News Washington state moved one step closer Monday to creating a personal income tax two years after the Legislature said it wouldn’t. Majority Democrats in the Senate advanced legislation on a […]

Washington has long had among the most regressive tax code in the USA (highest tax rates on poorest people). The state Senate just passed a 9.9% income tax on filers with an income over $1 million per year
myedmondsnews.com/2026/02/wash...