Menno Schilthuizen

85% procent van de soorten kennen we nog niet! Aldus bioloog Menno Schilthuizen Menno Schilthuizen zocht uit hoeveel soorten er in de wereld zijn. Hij begon in een achtertuin in Borneo.

Het was weer leuk bij De Nacht Van... met Benji Heerschop op @nporadio1.bsky.social. Lekker breeduit kunnen praten over @taxonexpeditions.bsky.social, ecologie, ecosystemen, en evolutie. En eigen muziek mogen draaien van o.a. Suzanne Burdorf en Baba Brinkman!

www.nporadio1.nl/fragmenten/d...

Book cover to Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution.

My discussion of this book on evolution of organisms adapted to living in cities & towns. Author argues that cities & towns worldwide will ultimately have nearly identical floras & faunas. If they have gained a foothold, may we then plant exotic species deliberately? pandasthumb.org/archives/202...

And whoever coined the phrase "to fall asleep" rests happily in his grave.

PhD position - How jumping spiders see

- Put cute spiders on trackballs!
- Program fancy automated experiments!
- Do cutting edge research!
- Hang out in beautiful Italian cities!
- Be supervised by a super nice chap!

Like invertebrate behaviour and computation stuff? You'll love this.

Link in 🧵

In de categorie "zaken waarom je je niet druk moet maken omdat er niks aan valt te doen maar die toch jammer zijn": #Amsterdam sloopt de fietsflat, die echter monumentenstatus had moeten krijgen.

mainzerbeobachter.com/2025/11/22/d...

Oh Sam, not on Saturday morning!

#SlotenSchonen | ’Snor’ van vegetatie laten staan helpt ook tegen Amerikaanse rivierkreeft (meer predatoren), zeker in combinatie met flauwe oever (minder graafmogelijkheid) 💧Poster van Anoula Voerman, via www.boerennatuurfryslan.frl/poster-aanvr...

#Movember | Laat staan die snor! Bij het schonen van de sloten 💧Goed voor de ecologie en de ontwikkeling van de oever: www.bnnvara.nl/vroegevogels... en www.vlinderstichting.nl/waar-is-de-s... @vlinderstichting.bsky.social

New "Bugs Matter" survey update seems to show ongoing and rapid insect decline, based on bug splats on cars.
@KentWildlife

Drijfveren - Aflevering 14 In Drijveren zie je mensen met een bijzondere passie. Programmamaker Erik Kooyman ontmoet verschillende mensen en maakt korte portretten. Het gaat o.a. over maken, liefde, zoeken, doen en spelen.

Ontzettend grappig filmpje over onze promovendus Vincent van der Spek @naturalis.bsky.social van @omroepwest.nl
www.omroepwest.nl/tv/afleverin...

work!
workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...

Shop our flash sale: Gifts for the intellectually curious Use code FLASHSALE during checkout at the MIT Press Bookstore until November 14th for 40% off your order.

Snap up my book on this flash sale by @mitpress.bsky.social!
mitpress.mit.edu/flash-sale-g...

I had that dream again last night

Menno Schilthuizen @schilthuizen.bsky.social gave a brilliant overview of the interplay between genetic diversity and reproductive isolation in speciation, followed by a discussion with science historian Kärin Nickelsen and biochemist Axel Imhof @bmc-lmu.bsky.social. Chair: @lenabouman.bsky.social

My book Darwin Comes to Town reviewed in The Panda's Thumb by Matt Young!
disq.us/t/4y140f0

A Day at the Beach Hunting Mammoths

Dutch #communityscience, palaeontology, and Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the The New York Times!
#citizenscience #Maasvlakte #Iceage #Mammoths #Beachfinds
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/a...

A rapidly evolving female-controlled lock-and-key mechanism determines Aedes mosquito mating success Houri-Zeevi et al. uncover a lock-and-key mating system in mosquitoes, where females control mating through genital responses to rapidly evolving male structures. Males of the invasive Asian tiger mos...

A rapidly evolving female-controlled lock-and-key mechanism determines Aedes mosquito mating success: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Permafrost in Serbia? You may want to check your geography, @theobserveruk.bsky.social

Folks, Tom is back with another Alt Text Masterpiece 🙏

Een of andere klojo (of meerdere) heeft de ziekelijke behoefte om aangeplante boompjes in het Binnenveld te vernielen. Als iemand daar iets over weet, meld het dan vooral bij @gemeentewageningen.bsky.social of de politie. #stopvandalisme

GS van Gelderland willen oud bos niet meer beschermen. 2000 ha bos buiten het GNN mag op de schop, want gemeenten hebben er maar last van wanneer ze willen bouwen. Bos dat al sinds 1800 bos is.
Zeg er wat van op 26 nov in Arnhem. Aanmelden tot 24 november 12:00 uur via griffie@gelderland.nl

ja als je zo begint | dan lust ik er nog tien

#HarrryMulisch (1927-2010)

Drop by if you're in Munich or around. We'll be talking about deep and important topics, such as the relative roles of isolation and selection in the origin of species, the possibility that cities spawn new species, and how much genetic diversity you can lose before a species loses its resilience.

Graduate student recruitment ad

Big news - I’ll be starting an #insect #systematics lab at University of Nebraska-Lincoln this coming academic year! I’m looking to #recruit #PhDstudents to work in #wasp systematics, especially gall systems, to begin Fall 2026. Please help me spread the word — more details on the flyer below!

Dat was Sulawesi, dacht ik. Hij heeft toen een heel mooie website gebouwd van alle kevers in een cacaoplantage. En de is nog steeds in de lucht, zag ik: www.beetle-diversity.com

YouTube video by KATU News The Exploding Whale: An infamous moment in Oregon history creates a strangely beloved icon

55 years ago today the thing with the whale happened.

Happy exploding whale day to all who celebrate.
youtu.be/V6CLumsir34?...

The Speciation Puzzle: Diversity, Isolation, and Genetic Resilience Prof. Dr. Kärin Nickelsen (LMU), Prof. Dr. Menno Schilthuizen (Leiden) | Chair: Prof. Dr. Axel Imhof (LMU)

🧬 The Speciation Puzzle: Diversity, Isolation, and Genetic Resilience

Join us on Thursday, Nov 13, at 7 PM for a fascinating discussion with Menno Schilthuizen @schilthuizen.bsky.social, Kärin Nickelsen @lmumuenchen.bsky.social & Axel Imhof ‪@bmc-lmu.bsky.social.

www.cas.lmu.de/en/events/ev...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

3 Afbeeldingen in 1 van 3 mensen die pesticiden gebruiken. De foto's zijn niet in Nederland gemaakt.

Nederland exporteert verboden pesticiden. Wij roepen de fractievoorzitters van alle politieke partijen op om een einde te maken aan de export van verboden pesticiden vanuit Nederland.
Teken de petitie nu.

www.pan-netherlands.org/stopgifexport/

Well, let’s just say I haven’t been naming any more molluscs after her since then. Even though she did invent the hashtag “#snailitude”