Chris MacQuarrie

Most (all?) of my research collaborations over the past 15 y have come from social media. I'm not where I am now without it.

Oh, and I once got to trade posts with the guy who wrote/directed the Usual Suspects. We have the same name and a friend tagged him by accident. That was cool.

The Emerald ash borer Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) invaded Belarus | Acta Biologica Sibirica Acta Biologica Sibirica

It's been a while since we added a new country to EAB's roster, but I think this ups the count to 5 - Canada, US, Russia, Ukraine and now Belarus.

journal.asu.ru/biol/article...

That's pretty cool Charlyn. I need that, but for my office door ;-)

Just a small thing we do in the lab to help students indicate how much mental space they need that day.

www.gvsu.edu/ours/faculty...

It seems like more PhD's these days end up in careers outside academia, I've often wondered if we should call Academia the alternative career path.

➡️REGISTRATION OPEN for the EPPO-REUFIS-BFW Conference ‘Safeguarding Forests in Europe: Emerging Risks of Agrilus Wood Borers'

❓The conference is for NPPOs and academia.

🌲The focus is the protection of European forests against quarantine forest pests.

🔗See more www.eppo.int/MEETINGS/202...

Bridging Borders to Battle Invasive Species: Reflections on an International Fellowship in the U.S. Through a fellowship in South Carolina, a scientist from Jersey learned from experts, built collaborations that will advance invasive species response on both sides of the Atlantic.

Through a four-month fellowship in South Carolina, a scientist from the isle of Jersey learned from local experts, built professional collaborations, and gained in-depth experience that will advance invasive species response efforts on both sides of the Atlantic. entomologytoday.org/2025/10/03/b...

Lol. I was not prepared for the number of suits I saw at my first ESA meeting (or the US military recruiters, but that's a different story).

Describe your Blue sky account in a single image

Entomologists conference: American PI: Canadian PI; European PI

I started a list for scientists and others interested in leaf litter fauna, please share and let me know if you want to be added! Do you love a good hand lens, soil sieves, and Berlese funnels? Perhaps this is the place for you.

Today felt weird and then I realized it's because for the first time in 5 years I'm not spending a Sunday at a @canentomologist.bsky.social Board meeting. Hope everyone there is having fun!

Not so sure this is a spurious correlation...

see you can tell it's AI because it spells 'centre' wrong...

🙁

Ages ago, a friend of mine who studied wolves used his animal tracking software to figure out his own "home range". Not sure that fits the bill, but it would be fun.

I'm not sure there's enough characters to get all of them! I probably should have tagged all of the USDA, we work with APHIS and ARS a bit too. But the folks in the Forest Service are our closest American cousins.

Adding a fist bump to our pals in the US Forest Service. Hope you're back in the woods soon.

Dr. Agarwal is among more than 20 researchers who have left their work at Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other big A.I. projects in recent weeks to join a new Silicon Valley start-up, Periodic Labs. Many of them have given up tens of millions of dollars — if not hundreds of millions — to make the move. As the A.I. labs chase amorphous goals like superintelligence and a similar concept called artificial general intelligence, Periodic is focused on building A.I technology that can accelerate new scientific discoveries in areas like physics and chemistry. “The main objective of A.I. is not to automate white-collar work,” said Liam Fedus, one of the start-up’s founders. “The main objective is to accelerate science.” Mr. Fedus was among the small team of OpenAI researchers who created the online chatbot ChatGPT in 2022. He left OpenAI in March to found Periodic Labs with Ekin Dogus Cubuk, who previously worked at Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s primary A.I. lab.

1) This is some pretty remarkable shade thrown at the big AI companies by a startup that's hiring away their researchers

2) That those researchers are giving up millions to do this indicates a rising level of discomfort with OpenAI/Meta/Google/etc's moral standing

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/t...

I feel like I've done that. Like I'll cite the original paper and then briefly give the most important details. Same for repeated methods.

We just did a massive clean-out of my labs, which meant throwing out stuff that belonged to staff that retired 10+ years ago. It was still a bit hard to see it go.

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.

🍁 Ottawa, Central Experimental Farm, 1946!

➡️ View is NE toward Ottawa. Fisher Avenue is the long diagonal road stretching from bottom right toward upper left. Near center of the image, Fisher Ave intersects w/Baseline Rd.

📷 NAPL REA 350-5
🔗 Bygone #Nepean Facebook: www.facebook.com/share/p/1EiT...

#SICB er @noahwithfish.bsky.social wants to share this job:
"Applicants must hold a #PhD. in a relevant area of #Biological #Sciences or closely related #science and must provide evidence of potential for excellence in #teaching and #research."
read in full

www.higheredjobs.com/institution/...

I'm not sure Ratatouille 2 is going to be as good as the first one...

Stanley Park is also the location of one of the first aerial spray programs for an insect pest in Canada. Hemlock looper killed hundreds of trees in the park in the 1920s. The govt of Canada dusted the park to kill the looper. a.co/d/6zEYyc1

Could be worse. You could have this guy: