Erin Hotchkiss

Three American soldiers killed as U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran continue into 2nd day Another five soldiers were critically injured, according to the U.S. Central Command. They mark the first American casualties since the start of operation 'Epic Fury' on Saturday.

UPDATE:

Another five soldiers were critically injured, according to the U.S. Central Command. They mark the first American casualties since the start of operation 'Epic Fury' on Saturday.

"American innovation" now refers to making a kind of atrocity cronut by combining insider trading with war crimes.

Paleoclimate pattern effects help constrain climate sensitivity and 21st-century warming | PNAS Paleoclimates provide examples of past climate change that inform estimates of modern warming from greenhouse-gas emissions, known as Earth’s clima...

Really excited to see this paper out!! Led by @vtcoop.bsky.social we show that if you use cold and warm paleoclimates together, you can reduce uncertainty in Earth's climate sensitivity by quantifying the pattern effect and more precisely constrain future climate change www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace.

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.

We have seen this before. We know how this ends. It doesn't end well.

Extant mollusks Phalium bandatum (top left) from Nakayama, Japan; Cymbiola imperialis (top center) from the Philippines; Muricanthus radix (top right) from the Pacific coast of Panama; Pteria penguin (center) from Palau; Chama lazarus (bottom left) from Guam; and Fimbria fimbriata (bottom right) from Palau. CREDIT: Tracy J. Thomson

Early mollusks evolved a new skeletal feature every 2 million years. Since the Ordovician, that rate has slowed to one per 9 million years—suggesting that despite growing diversity, molluscan evolution has become substantially more predictable. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/IHSt50Ymv1s

I’m grateful for faculty with expertise and track record on prevention & response plans for targeted harassment. I’m most familiar with @rebekahtromble.bsky.social’s projects researchersupport.org & expertvoicestogether.org - I’m sure she can recommend others for everyone who needs help now

"...essentially shifted NSF away from its role as an independent agency that funds all fields outside clinical medicine using input from the research community into a vehicle for administration priorities."

🫤

The Password That Lets Caterpillars Hide in an Ant’s Lair

For some butterflies, only those with a sense of rhythm can survive.

That's because they need to be adopted by ant colonies as caterpillars to make in. Caterpillars mimic ants' sounds to get carried inside, and a new study explores rhythm's role in that.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/s...

@elenabennett.bsky.social and team on 'The future of Global Environmental Assessments: 20 years after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 'Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 79: 101618.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101618
O.A. link:
urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

"the old conferences did not care about diversity. I suggest you not either,” Jeffrey Epstein wrote... “The women are all weak, and a distraction sorry." #WomenInSTEM 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

Piles of bright teal rock salt below and on a few steps that are relatively dry and totally ice-free.

Piles of white rock salt surrounding a drain on a concrete walkway. There is a trail of meltwater draining from a small old snow pile outside of the photo frame, but the concrete is otherwise completely dry

Things that make me sad on campus. Especially while measuring 900 - >1000us/cm (a proxy for salt concentrations) in the same Stroubles Creek watershed, including the campus 'Duck Pond'. The stress threshold for many freshwater organisms is ~350us/cm 😔💧🌎

Grasping Soil: A Syllabus and Essays for the Environmental Humanities Full open-access volume Grasping Soil: A Syllabus and Essays for the Environmental Humanities (2026), edited by Emily Brownell.

New #EnvHum book! Read Grasping Soil: A Syllabus and Essays for the Environmental Humanities by Emily Brownell for free on our Environment & Society Portal. This is sure to come in handy for lecturers in the field.

Scientists: for a new story, I have one big question—>

What is a “good day” in the lab?

I’m looking for epic examples of the best day ever to general criteria for what constitutes a “good day” compared to a nothing-burger day.

Ping me if you have examples to share!

Re-posts appreciated!

Editor’s Note | Reflections From a Museum Pew: Teaching Our Children the Work Is Theirs Torsheta Jackson reflects on legacy, parenting and confronting modern racism through history.

OPINION: "These experiences are still just as present as they were when segregated schools littered towns," Torsheta Jackson writes. "It’s more veiled now, but it still holds court in the minds and homes of many."

How to help — Unbreaking How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

We’re always on the lookout for researchers, writers, and editors to pitch in and help us make and maintain these pages. Here’s how to join us: unbreaking.org/how-to-help/

Our work with NASA Blueflux and others, led by Cheryl Doughty, upscaling CO2 and CH4 fluxes in the Everglades, is published! Check out the paper and see how management and climate are impacting C fluxes across South Florida!

How Addressing Water Challenges Could Reshape Immigration - Science Politics As climate change accelerates, water scarcity fuels unrest, reshapes rural economies, and pushes people to migrate.

Strong piece on #water + #immigration from Georgetown's Dr. Marcus King:

How Addressing Water Challenges Could Reshape Immigration

The lines of causality are often tenuous, but the linkages are there... Please read / share / comment.

sciencepolitics.org/2026/02/19/h...

One scientist talking to two others. "These days. If you're not a mad scientist, you're not paying attention."

Me. I'm a mad scientist.

(Paul Noth cartoons)

Coming up this week!
🧪🌳🌎

Differential Contributions From Chemo‐ and Photoautotrophy to Winter Primary Production in a North Temperate Freshwater System Changing winter conditions influence snow and ice accumulation in inland waterbodies Diverse communities of primary producers are responsible for the fixation of inorganic carbon year-round Guil...

Love this new paper from @tjvmajors.bsky.social and colleagues - looking at contributions of chemosynthetic contributions to net primary productivity with a focus on interesting winter dynamics! agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Hahahahha. Today's hero, live from Washington Heights.

Opinion | The Human Cost of Trump’s War on Science

Deep, well sourced, moving, and enraging story from the NYT

[Gift Link]

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

Millennial-aged peat carbon outgassed by large humic lakes in the Congo Basin - Nature Geoscience Two major humic lakes in the Congo Basin emit ancient carbon from nearby peatlands into the atmosphere, as shown by the isotopic signatures of their carbon pools.

New paper alert! 🚨 Our new study shows that massive lakes in the Congo Basin are outgassing millennial-aged carbon. This challenges the idea that lake CO₂ only comes from modern vegetation.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thread below! 🧵👇

A comic of a bird singing about somebody eating their babies, and a crow responding that they did and they'd do it again. And below them, it is a man listening to a cd of their conversation entitled "relaxing bird sounds"

When I hear lovely birdsong in the morning, I remember this comic and laugh

There is a fun diversity of shade-tolerant flowers around here! Some are more picky about their soil/neighbors than others. Depending on rabbit/deer pressure, you might also try phlox or nodding onion - they don't last long thanks to neighborhood grazers here.

Also whatever common violet varieties you're willing to let take over! They spread too well for my preference in some spots, depending on goals

Geranium maculatum (wild geranium), Eurybia macrophylla (big-leaved aster & other asters), Aquilegia canadensis (columbine), Podophyllum peltatum (mayapple), Polygonatum biflorum (Solomons seal), Mertensia virginica (bluebell), Caulophyllum thalictroides (blue cohosh), Actaea racemosa (black cohosh)

We are excited to officially share GHG-Depths, a database of depth-resolved CO2 and CH4 concentrations in 522 lakes, ponds, and reservoirs worldwide.

Congrats to Joe Rabaey and a huge team of collaborators! @gleonetwork.bsky.social