Maggie Swift, Ph.D.

Proposed NOAA Budget Calls for $0 for Climate Research - Eos In the latest move in a months-long attack on climate science funding, the Trump administration released a budget document on 30 June that calls for zero funding for climate research and the eliminati...

The Trump administration’s proposed FY26 budget for NOAA would eliminate climate research at NOAA. 🧪

eos.org/research-and...

It is difficult to describe just how disastrous it would be if just-released NOAA budget proposal (or even large portions) were to be enacted: It would involve a wholesale dismantling (decimation, really) of entities relevant to weather, climate, & ocean research & prediction.

My Rhinoceros Teacher | Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health 5:30 AMAs dawn yawns and stretches over the African savanna, a line of cars waits impatiently at the wooden gate of Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp. I join the tail end in my tiny white rental car, exhaust...

wildlife.cornell.edu/blog/my-rhin...

If we believe that the way things are now is how they have always been, we lose the ability to imagine a return to previous abundance. Rhinos are no exception -- read more of my thoughts on dehorning, poaching, and the future of rhino conservation in Kruger. 🦏🇿🇦

this is what every anti-zohran attack sounds like

The U.S. must invest in mRNA vaccines against pandemic influenza viruses now If we don’t invest in technologies like mRNA vaccines for pandemic influenza now, once a virus starts going human-to-human, it will simply be too late.

"If we don’t invest in technologies like mRNA vaccines for pandemic influenza now, once a virus starts going human-to-human, it will simply be too late...The next pandemic could become the largest mass casualty event in American history."

Proud to work with Steve!

www.statnews.com/2025/06/30/m...

snap cuts, growing to 35% by 2034

chip and medicaid cuts growing to 12-14% by 2034

Cost estimate of the House-passed "Big Beautiful Bill" is out

It'd be the largest cut to Medicaid+CHIP and SNAP in history while still increasing deficits by $2.4 trillion due to $3.8 trillion in tax cuts

This'd be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in history

Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...

If anyone is interested in applying to this fellowship with me for fall 2026, please reach out! www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons... possible projects are related to #coral population genetics or host-symbiont interactions #fellowships #ecology #evolution #phdsky 🧪🌎

UC Cooperative Extension Specialist - Computational Data Science for Agriculture and Natural Resource Technologies Located at the University of California, San Diego (25-17) University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources is hiring. Apply now!

I know a lot of folks are currently looking for jobs, so this is a timely new position w/@ucanr.bsky.social & UCSD! General role is environment-focused data science, but specific topical focus could be anything from sustainable ag to wildfire risk. More details: recruit.ucanr.edu/JP...

Trump administration cuts to NSF will result in more than 200,000 FEWER people per year involved in basic science, training, and education - what should have been the next generation of US scientists. This isn't even eating your seed corn, it is setting your seed corn on fire and salting the earth.

Kudos to these scientists for sharing! I only just received an ADHD diagnosis, but looking back on my PhD, how could I not have known? I constantly procrastinated & then panic-finished analyses and writing in record time, all while fighting my brain to focus every single day. Exhausting.

'Their loss diminishes us all': Scientists emphasize how Trump's mass NOAA layoffs endanger the world "From our perspective down in the trenches actually working for the government, it feels like the people up top just have no clue about anything."

"Making us less able to fight the biggest problem of the 21st century doesn't make anything more efficient and doesn't make anything great," Shiffman said.

www.space.com/the-universe... 🌎🧪🦑🐠

We have been asked to circulate this for those interested. If you would like to show up to court in Syracuse on Tuesday to support Mr. Taal, please read below carefully and follow courtroom protocols.

Mahmoud Khalil ‘felt as though he was being kidnapped’, lawyers write in new filing Lawyers demand in updated lawsuit that Columbia University graduate student be released from custody Mahmoud Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped when he was handcuffed and shackled and rushed from New York to immigration detention in Louisiana…

Mahmoud Khalil ‘felt as though he was being kidnapped’, lawyers write in new filing

Oh this is beautiful and wondrous!
A total lunar eclipse (seen from Earth) is a total solar eclipse seen from the moon.
Here is the “diamond ring” of last night’s eclipse seen by Blue Ghost on the Moon! 🧪

www.flickr.com/photos/firef...

A GPS-collared coyote walking at night with Los Angeles visible in the background. Photo by Johanna Turner

Excited to share our new study "Environmental health and societal wealth predict movement patterns of an urban carnivore"- out today in Ecology Letters! All about how social-ecological features influence coyote movement. (1/n)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
[📸 Johanna Turner]
🧪🌎

Absolutely disgusting. Please call your congresspeople. Fivecalls.org. I’ve decided to call every morning about various issues. This will be the top of my list tomorrow.

Absolutely!

Jim Acosta announces on air that he's leaving CNN and says, "it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant ... don't give in to the lies."

Landscape picture of an old-growth forest in the Adirondacks

New Job opening: Research scientist ecologist with the NY State Natural Heritage program. Responsible for various projects and tasks, the intriguing one to me is being the coordinator identifying old-growth forests: esf.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdeta...

As if “the economy” is separate from the clear need, including the ECONOMIC need, to address the #ClimateCrisis. This “false choice” framing is the most moronic argument an awful politician could make, and shame on any of us for falling for it.

The massive costs of INACTION are already inescapable.

Global ocean temperatures set new record in 2024 Average temperatures across the world’s oceans reached an all-time high in 2024, a new multi-team study shows. The temperatures surpassed even those of 2023, which themselves represented a marked…

Global ocean temperatures set new record in 2024

AWESOME work by some incredible scientists. Papers like these that investigate how we think about and conduct our science are so important. Read, read, read it! Congrats to my grad school labmate Ren, @leafwarbler.bsky.social, and coauthors :)

wait this is awesome! I remember watching y'all have your first conversations about this :) now off to bother Ren for not mentioning on our catch-up call this Sunday that y'all got this published!!

C'mon, how many people are homeowners vs how many come across options when purchasing something to add a carbon offset? I get what you're saying here, but that's a glaring misread.

Can You Lose Your Native Tongue? After moving abroad, I found my English slowly eroding. It turns out our first languages aren’t as embedded as we think.

"the closeness we have with a #language is not just a product of our ability to use it but of other emotional valences as well. If language is a form of identity, it is one that may be changed by circumstance or even by force of will."

#bilingual #multilingualism

www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/m...

NC Senate votes to ban people from wearing masks in public for health reasons The North Carolina Senate plans to vote Wednesday to ban people from wearing masks in public for health reasons, institute harsher penalties on protesters, roll back juvenile justice reforms, raise to...

Republicans are trying to take away and criminalize the right to make decisions around our own health, whether that’s the right to wear a mask or the right to have an abortion. Unacceptable.

When a girl travels to her home country in a dream, she's whisked along on a journey with a familiar stranger where she learns a little bit more about who sh... LAKAY | Haitian Animated Short | CalArts 2024

Lakay -animated short by Amarise Defranco www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbzJ... #haiti #Ayiti #animation

I'm Maggie! I'm a savanna ecologist currently studying how African elephants move around the landscape and respond to fences and roads. I use computation to aid conservation goals. 🧪🌎🐘

Two white flowers among leaf litter with seven petals each, yellow stamens and anthers prominent. Gently scalloped leaves are still curled around the stems. Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

A hand with blue fingernails holds a young barberry leaf, shaped like a dinosaur foot. Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides)

A slightly blurred picture of a yellow trout-lily flower in a backdrop of gray trees and brown leaves. Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)

A white trillium flower (three petals) with a small bee pollinating. White Trillium (Trillium Grandiflorum)

Spring ephemeral roundup - 1 Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) - 2 Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) - 3 Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) - 4 White Trillium (Trillium Grandiflorum).

Did you know that bloodroot seeds are ant-dispersed (myrmecochory)? I love their clasping leaves.