Alexander Lees

4 White-billed Diver @ Inverkeithing harbour
08/03/26

Congratulations to my former student Lei Wu who recently published "Parallel divergence with shared barriers and niche
separation between two sympatric avian species groups" (dx.doi.org/10.1111/jse....) (Open Access). Willow Tit Poecile montanus and Marsh Tit P. palustris species groups in China

@richardkbroughton.bsky.social

Acabamos de publicar uno de los artículos que mas bonitos nos han quedao analizando algunas causas y consecuencias de de la migración parcial de los juveniles de buitre leonado.... #RaptorResearch #Ornithology @bou.org.uk onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

This is a real video from the official White House account on a war that is currently killing people. I don’t know how the US is going to come back from this.
The post was “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸 🔥”

Winston Churchill quite literally asked the Americans to overthrow the very popular socialist Iranian government in 1953 because Churchill wanted the UK to keep extracting Iran’s oil wealth without paying for it.

Please do be a bit more historically aware.

This morning: “We’re gonna blow the hell outta these people.”

Tonight: “Please be careful.”

Long-delayed Jan. 6 plaque honoring police installed in Capitol at 4 a.m. The memorial honoring officers who defended the Capitol was required by law to be installed by March 2023.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

War’s Hidden Fallout: How Conflict Fuels Climate Chaos A modern fighter jet like the F-35 consumes around five thousand, six hundred liters of fuel per hour, leading to thirteen to fifteen tonnes of carbon dioxide per flight hour, and with Israel using 20...

If you don’t already follow the wonderful Nigerian writer Adetokunbo Abiola, I’d strongly recommend him. My partly Nigerian-raised husband is in Ukraine making a film, “Climate in a Time of Conflict.” And I’ve watched war’s impacts on Nature in Angola and Namibia.
open.substack.com/pub/adetokun...

I am once again reposting this absurdly useful essay from Tim and Kate, because not enough of you have read it.

One of the few partial wins for #biodiversity from (the threat of) armed conflict 🌍

BREAKING A strike targeting Bahrain's sprawling Al Ma'ameer oil facility has caused a fire at the complex along with material damage, state media reports.

Bahrain's state-owned energy company Bapco declares force majeure after waves of Iranian strikes targeted the country's energy installations

The first lesson of war is ‘know your enemy’ – and Britain’s enemy now is Donald Trump | Simon Tisdall As the Iran disaster escalates, the US president should be seen as an enemy whose actions threaten the lawful, democratic way of life everywhere, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdal...

Bleak but fair commentary
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Airstrike Hit Iranian Emergency Medical Base in Shiraz, Killing 20 Open-source evidence and satellite imagery show that the March 5 strike destroyed a first responders’ outpost in Zibashahr Park, leaving an identified military site 200 meters away untouched

Airstrike Hit Iranian Emergency Medical Base in Shiraz, Killing 20
newlinesmag.com/spotlight/ai...

Some more bad AI guys, e.g. conflation of Plain Swift with Little Swift....

'One year of failure.' The Lancet slams RFK Jr.'s first year as health chief In a scathing review, the top US medical journal's editorial board warned that the "destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 in office might take generations to repair."

In a scathing review, the top US medical journal's editorial board warned that the "destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 in office might take generations to repair."

Wow -- as first spotted by @BadFoxGraphics on X, Fox & Friends this morning used *old footage of a previous dignified transfer* to mislead their audience about the fact that Trump wore a baseball cap during the one yesterday

‘A very dangerous person’: alarm as Pete Hegseth revels in carnage of Iran war Critics say brash, bombastic Fox News host out of his depth to guide US military through murky new Middle East conflict

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

Hitting desalination plants is so bad. Not just evil but strategically incomprehensible. Without desalination 75% of the entire population of the Middle East will be refugees. Israel and Kuwait depend on desalination for 90% of their water and other Middle East states aren’t far behind.

Adult Kittiwake Woodhead Res @derbyshirebirds.bsky.social 0850-0904 when headed E @birdguides.bsky.social #UKBirding

Apparently patch birding does all come good in the end. 1w Ring-billed Gull this evening and glad some people managed to connect after my rather garbled attempt at putting news out. Blog post to follow #ukbirding

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting A plantation worker photographed this new genus of mammal in New Guinea, thought to have been dead for 6,000 years.

A huge #biodiversity "discovery" (scare quotes because indigenous people always knew it was there).

You know what comes next: "lowland forests are under pressure from logging and agricultural expansion"

theconversation.com/meet-tous-an...

The Internet Cuckoos are arriving, Spring is here.

Ship assistance in North American landbirds in the Western Palearctic To the end of 2023, a total of 3,084 individual North American landbirds of 94 taxa had been recorded in the Western Palearctic. The most frequent of these...

End of 2023, a total of 3,084 North American landbirds of 94 taxa had been recorded in the Western Palearctic. The most frequent of these species include Red-eyed Vireo, American Pipit & Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Read more: britishbirds.co.uk/journal/arti...

📸 Mike Durkalec
🥇Subscriber Content

The asymmetry of the value placed on human life is so striking. Israel has a goal to recover 40-year-old remains; to do so, it invades a sovereign country, and the lives of 26 Lebanese are an afterthought. Their names not even worth printing in the New York Times.

"You don't liberate people at the barrel of a gun. Have we learned nothing from Iraq or Afghanistan? All we seem to have learned is from Gaza. Israel has learned that you can bomb hospitals & schools with impunity."

Me on MSNOW with @chrislhayes.bsky.social

Full intv: youtube.com/watch?v=u7LU...

The feature, which launched in August, claims to help you “sharpen your message through the lens of industry-relevant perspectives.” When users select the “expert review” button in the Grammarly sidebar, it analyzes their writing and surfaces AI-generated suggestions “inspired by” related experts. Those “industry-relevant perspectives” include the likes of Stephen King, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Carl Sagan, among many others. The Verge found numerous other tech journalists named in the feature, as well, including former Verge editors Casey Newton and Joanna Stern, former Verge writer Monica Chin, Wired’s Lauren Goode, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Jason Schreier, the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill, The Atlantic’s Kaitlyn Tiffany, PC Gamer’s Wes Fenlon, Gizmodo’s Raymond Wong, Digital Foundry founder Richard Leadbetter, Tom’s Guide editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer, former Rock Paper Shotgun editor-in-chief Katharine Castle, and former IGN news director Kat Bailey. The descriptions for some experts contain inaccuracies, such as outdated job titles, which could have been accurately updated had Superhuman asked those people for permission to reference their work.

The endpoint of journalism is that an AI startup turns you into a fake "editor" without telling you and against your will www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Judging from the prose, the Pentagon appears to be using AI to announce the death of soldiers. If it’s not AI, it’s a person who simply does not care.

"AI is going to change the world" certainly changing press releases:
www.war.gov/News/Release....

Opportunities ***PhD and MSc openings – Movement ecology and conservation*** I will periodically support graduate students, postdocs, and other staff through the Biology Department at the University of New…

I’m recruiting a PhD and MSC student for fall 2026 working on the movement ecology and conservation of Mexican spotted owls in SW forests and rocky canyonlands. Exciting partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory. Great vibrant lab group, high impact research! 🦉

gavinmjones.com/opportunities/