Tom Langen

‘The way we love them in life is the way we love them in death’: a Gullah Geechee community fights for their cemetery In a win for the Gullah Geechee people on St Helena Island in South Carolina, access to a long-used cemetery has been restored

I have fond memories of this community. I did my stateside Peace Corps training at Penn Center on the island, long before it was declared a national monument. I did a homestay with a nearby family. It's a very special place.

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/fe...

It amazes me to think that I have actually seen the largest animal species that has ever lived on earth, the blue whale, and the most massive tree species that ever lived, the giant sequoia.

Some of them played on the same college team. I know - I taught them.

Dancer in the Dark. Bjork wasted in a ridiculous, degrading story. Breaking the Waves pissed me off, DithD made me mad. Lars von Trier's whole jam is to cast terrific women actors in degrading roles within ludicrously plotted films.

BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide.

This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.

Sliding the groomed track
Is the closest I come
To physical grace
To an empty mind

I turn my head
To eye a feather
Lose balance and fall
Laughing, ridiculous
Awkwardly I get up
And continue down trail

#poetry

Groomed ski trail along a fencerow in late afternoon,

Many folks like to ski
In the frigid morning sun
I prefer gliding alone
In late afternoon shadows

I notice texture of bark
Dream stories out of snow tracks
Sky and snow changing colors
As the sun slowly descends

There appears to be no shortage of elite male professors who are eager to cozy up to racist, misogynistic, eugenicist billionaires.

Happy birthday to my inspiration, Mr. Charles Darwin.

Remember the 1619 Project? How it made the case that racism and the legacy of slavery are foundational to the U.S. economy, politics, and social structure. Remember how it was widely criticized for over-emphasizing the role racism plays in US society today?

Yeh, about that...

Bluest Imbolc skies
Shadows stretch to Druid dreams
Raven seeks the dead

#poetry

ICE halts "all movement" at Texas detention facility due to measles infections The measles​ cases at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center were detected Friday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News.

"Who could of predicted?"
I taught college sophomores about concentration / refugee camps and infectious disease epidemics in Ecology last semester, predicting just such an eventuality.

Walking the land with property owners Click on the article title to read more.

Published: A new editorial of mine in Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment , about the value of spending time with people on their land when doing ecology. 🌎🌿🦤

Walking the land with property owners
Tom A Langen, Catherine Benson, Rick Welsh

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Approved university-level sociology textbook in the new MAGAmerica.

As a RPCV (Burkina Faso '84-86'), this really lands hard.

One of the best things I’ve read in a while:

Large brick wall with a tiny white signat the base of the wall that says "Slavery was real"

"Slavery was real"

Tiny sign at the base of a brick wall that, until yesterday, held panels about the people enslaved by George Washington.

Presidents House, Philadelphia.

Person in face mask showing vaccination card for covid-2 shot.

5 years ago, my first Fauci-ouchy. I'm recovering from my 2nd coronavirus-2 infection: mild 'bad cold' symptoms for 2 days. NBD. Grateful for all biomedical researchers and medical care workers involved in developing and delivering this vaccine, and its annual boosters (which I partake).

No longer Brownshirts. Now Brownpullovers.

“The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Friday that it is revoking seven grazing permits in Phillips County that American Prairie had been using to sustain its herd of bison.” 🧪🌐🌾

Status threat, defined as the perception that one’s group status, influence, and position in the hierarchy are threatened, has been shown to impact public attitudes across a variety of issue areas. However, the role that status threat plays in forming attitudes on the renewable energy transition is unknown. Using an original survey experiment in the United States, we examine how status threat shapes attitudes toward the renewable energy transition. Our results suggest that status threat, particularly economic status threat, decreases support for renewable energy policies. Since attitudes toward the transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to one dominated by renewable energy remain mixed, our findings suggest that status threat may be directly hindering the renewable energy transition, which is central to efforts to combat climate change.

New article!

Clinging to power: status threat and attitudes toward the renewable energy transition by Tammie-Louise Finnegan, Cassandra Epping, Nick Florian & Colin Kuehl @profkuehl.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1080/0964...

The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control Buy The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders

Hey, good folks of #TEsky—
Looking for good recent review, suitable for undergrads, of the fnxns of transposable elements in the genome, for class session on the nonlinear, highly regulated, 4D nucleome. Suggestions welcome!

(I'm the author of the "other book" on Barbara McClintock)

TIA!

“Bioregional‐scale acoustic monitoring can support fire‐prone forest restoration planning” out now in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

doi.org/10.1002/fee....

Key components of solutions-oriented environmental research that are supported by activities and reflexive processes

A 🆕 Concepts & Questions article in "Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment": A guide to how scientists and stakeholders can work together to pinpoint fixes and turn research into real-world environmental wins

📄A stepwise process for actionable environmental science research
doi.org/10.1002/fee....

NSF building on Eisenhower Av. HUD now owns.

Destroying the NSF mural in the foyer. Of the Eisenhower building.

The National Science Foundation sign on our Eisenhower Av building is now gone.

The NSF mural in the foyer is removed and torn off in sheets.

We were supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the agency in May 2025. That never happened.

Watertown native negotiated the status of Greenland WATERTOWN ‒ President Donald Trump has expressed his desire that the U.S. should own Greenland, an autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark.

An article this week in the local newspaper (Watertown Daily Times). Watertown NY was home to the diplomat that negotiated the US forfeit of any claims to Greenland and confirmation of Danish sovereignty to the island, back in 1916.
www.nny360.com/news/nationa...

This is my answer, in next month's FEE.
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New paper in @pnas.org — and this is my favourite one out of my PhD thesis! Field transplants of wall brown butterflies show life history evolution during climate change-driven range expansion, BUT non-evolving winter tolerance still sets the range limit.🧵1/12. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Thanks for this contribution to Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment!

Peak cringe.