Simon Evans

A headstone with a tree growing around it

John Smith Thorpe & his three sons - William, Thomas and John, with their oak tree guardian from a few years ago

All died between 1865 & 1874, the boys likely of typhoid

Buried at Nottingham General Cemetery

Ah. But why address the problem when you can double-down on avoiding it? bsky.app/profile/seva...

Still struggling with the science but on the plus side I've now got a pun within the pun. I don't know if my target audience exists outwith me, but they would be see a crap talk as an acceptable tradeoff.

This is gearing up to be such a fantastic conference. Filling a void in the meeting landscape that’s been ever more conspicuous. So much so that moves are already afoot to organise a sequel.

So if Future You wants to boast that you’ve been to them all, you will need to register ASAP.

That does sound like a problematic affliction. Waiting for a better view of a great tit's belly seems a mild issue in comparison to counting flock size.

That happens to me, and I'm at the great tit vs. not-a-great-tit level of bird ID ability.

It always makes me smile when I recognise a misplaced birdsong. Because if I've noticed, then I know that there are hundreds of others being severely triggered at what, to most people, would seem an incidental detail akin to an actor's socks changing colour mid-scene.

Struggling to come up with a title for a talk. I've got the pun sorted, but not the scientific part to follow.

It feels horribly emblematic of my career.

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

Comparative analysis across 5,678 insect species shows that, when you control for phylogenetic bias, eusociality has not evolved at a faster rate in haplodiploid species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

The thing I will never cure is the immediate impulse to sex every great tit I see. Every time.

Quite the straw man our verbally hapless friend has built: we *are* having an open debate. And the majority opinion is that his views are repulsive.

That moment of internal conflict where you’re having a great chat with the visiting seminar speaker and then realise the two of you are amidst a goldcrest flock and you desperately want to check for any accompanying firecrests. That.

a close up of a man 's face with his eyes closed ALT: a close up of a man 's face with his eyes closed

Watching through my fingers as the department's favourite child overdoses on self-confidence and throws a bucketload of sarcasm at a professor.

Looking through hundreds of hummingbird photos and it's impossible to escape the conclusion that they are, in essence, a syringe that can hover.

If current trends continue, by 2030 most men in their 30s will be commuting in a transcontinental HGV.

Ett, två, tre! 🥇🥈🥉

Nature is metal. Carrying the decaying skull of your vanquished enemy as a hat.

From a Wildlife photographer of the year contest. www.popsci.com/environment/...

I’ve always thought it would be really cool to compare individuals in a long-term nestbox study with those beyond human interaction, to look for a ‘domestication’ effect. Would you see these differences? Sequence differences?

Photo of the described owl art. It looks like muddy scratch marks on a mottled brown cave wall. The head is very round with two upright lines for ears and a line in the center for a beak. Numerous parallel lines suggest plumage on the wings.

The oldest known image of an owl:

More than 30,000 years ago, someone skillfully scratched the figure of a long-eared owl (Asio otus) into the soft outer layer of the walls of Chauvet Cave, France. The owl is looking backward over their wings, head turned 180 degrees
carnegiemnh.org/ancient-owl-...

Red line graph time series of monthly carbon dioxide abundance from January 1959 through January 2026. There is a seasonal cycle and long-term increasing trend. Current levels of CO2 are at 429 ppm. This is the Keeling Curve graph. A line for CO2 10 years ago is also annotated.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) averaged about 429 ppm in January 2026

10 years ago January averaged about 403 ppm

Data available at gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

What do the practicals involve?

Imagine wearing a #jellyfish as a helmet!?!
Well, that’s exactly what this juvenile jack is doing! Mostly immune to its sting, the jack has taken the jellyfish prisoner.

Shot using #scuba, out over the deep abyss, drifting at night.
#blackwater #blackwaterdiving #scubadiving #gug

Utterly stunning. Every. Single. One.

Semafor: Guinea worm neared global eradication, with just 10 cases reported worldwide in 2025, all of them in Chad, Ethiopia, or South Sudan. When former US President Jimmy Carter founded an eradication program in the mid-1980s, there were millions of infections in developing countries and the only human disease that had ever previously been permanently defeated was smallpox. The parasitic infection, transmitted via contaminated water, leads to three-foot worms emerging from painful leg ulcers, and causes long-term incapacitation and disability. While Carter did not, as he hoped, outlive the last Guinea worm (he died in 2024), he may have come close; the 10 cases mark a 33% decrease year-on-year.

Only 10 cases of Guinea worm disease were recorded *globally* last year.

It may become the second human disease we eradicate, after smallpox.

reading about organisms that aren’t your specialty is like

margins of the quorbus eplungulate, ploobular processes bent posteriorly towards the foobulum

define term “eplungulate”
- lacking plungae. synonym: thubulous

Credibility, peer review, and Nature, 1945–1990 Abstract. This paper examines the refereeing procedures at the scientific weekly Nature during and after World War II. In 1939 former editorial assistants

5️⃣ Watson & Crick 1953 paper was not peer reviewed.

It was not until 1973, when David Davies was hired as Nature's editor, that peer review became a requirement for every paper printed there.

royalsocietypublishing.org/rsnr/article...

A Black-capped Chickadee showcasing winter fashion by donning a snowflake accessory.

Ancient and massive Sweet Chestnut

A 400 year old Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) in Fredville Park, the Kingdom of Kent

A standard 6’ 6’’ Oliver as a size guide

When I think about measles I think about the number 1,000. Thats the number that epidemiologists use to explain harm from measles in children. With 1,000 cases, about 200 children will require hospitalization, 50 will develop pneumonia, and one to three will die.

South Carolina is at 789.