Alex Champagne

It's a black and white paper header for a short communication, and I've copied the text below. Please stop reading if you don't want the literal copy to be read to you. "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500 DOI 10.1007/s00114-003-0473-9 SHORT COMMUNICATION B. M. Rothschild · D. H. Tanke · M. Helbling · L. D. Martin Epidemiologic study of tumors in dinosaurs Received: 16 June 2003 / Accepted: 29 August 2003 / Published online: 14 October 2003 Springer-Verlag 2003"

One of the amazing things about science is we will never run out of mysteries.

Take "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500", which performed a survey of 10,000 dinosaur fossils for evidence of tumors in the bone.

I was prepared for yes, no, but what I wasn't prepared for was:
"only in hadrosaurs."

It all makes sense. The Bills nickname refers to bird beaks.

Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.

A Hummingbird Clearwing Moth nectarine on a thistle.

On National Hummingbird Day, a reminder of how cool convergent evolution is.

Cannot stop laughing at this

Watch Out!

Diabetic Man With Gene-Edited Cells Produces His Own Insulin—No Transplant Drugs Required A proof-of-concept study finds that donated insulin-producing cells can be genetically modified to avoid provoking the recipient's immune system.

Diabetic Man With Gene-Edited Cells Produces His Own Insulin—No Transplant Drugs Required

A proof-of-concept study finds that donated insulin-producing cells can be genetically modified to avoid provoking the recipient's immune system.

gizmodo.com/diabetic-man...

This desert beetle runs to cool off After a sprint, the temperature of the beetle Onymacris plana drops. Efficient running, a body built for cooling and a little bit of lift all help.

This paper was published 40 years after the original fieldwork was conducted. It’s never too late to share cool research!

Yesterday the Pew Research Center released a report based on the internet browsing activity of 900 U.S. adults which found that Google users who encounter an Al summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than use 's who don't encounter an Al summary. To be precise, only [my emphasis] 1 percent of users who encountered an Al summary clicked the link to the page Google is summarizing.

Hey is it bad if google AI search results stop people from leaving google dot com 99% of the time? All our news and information creators can survive just fine with one percent of their previous search traffic right? I’m sure it’s fine. www.404media.co/googles-ai-i...

Perfect representation of scientific papers. 😅

Table from Friedlingstein et al, Global Carbon Budget 2024 Emissions 1750-2023 - fossil CO2 emissions 490 +- 25; land-use change emissions 255 +- 75; total emissions 745 +- 80 (in billion tons of carbon) Source: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/20113/

Did you know that since 1750, land-use change is responsible for about *one-third* of total CO2 emissions released to the atmosphere?

About 255 billion tons of carbon, or nearly *a trillion tons of CO2e*, have been emitted.

That's basically the ghosts of *2 billion hectares of forests* in the sky.

Read news, op-eds, and analysis, not AI summaries. Create your own art (even if it's messy) or hire an artist to do it. Do your own homework. Talk to people, not chatbots. Keep your thinking and skills sharp and cherish our messy humanity. That's the new punk rock.

Too many favorites to name, but these are two candidates.

Happy to see a great collaborator and a great human featured here!

Definitely a haunted burrow.

Future ID mark to separate Glaucous-winged Gulls from Glaucous-winged X Western Hybrids: Does it ride garbage trucks?

The black morph of the Eastern Gray Squirrel is most prevalent in Michigan and Ontario (50-60%) so a black Gray Squirrel showing up at a Tigers game is a uniquely Detroit experience!

two men standing next to a bunk bed with the words so much room for activities above them Alt: A scene from the movie Stepbrothers with two men standing next to a bunk bed with the words so much room for activities above them.

Me after cleaning my office at the end of the semester.

Saw lots of birds on my first trip to Montrose Point in Chicago! Seeing warblers like this Canada Warbler down so low is such a treat!

The Cardinals knew about the new Pope first, but the Yellow-legged Gulls were second.

my inner monologue as i go birding: "people overlook gray catbirds but they're so cute. maybe my favorite bird? oh a hermit thrush! they're so round. that might be my favorite bird. where's that damn cape may warbler singing from? not my favorite bird. LOOK A KINGBIRD!! is that my favorite bird?" 🪶

My pet gar that I donated to Shedd Aquarium would recognize me and swim over to say hi when I visited her exhibit ❤️🐠

A rare hybrid gar, I raised her since she was 2 inches long, and had to re-home her when I moved to Chicago. I was happy I could visit her in her new home!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Isn’t every day Earth Day? Cooking for the climate, counting Earths, and tracking time in nature

If everyone lived like we do in Canada or the U.S., we’d need 5 planets to support us all. Australians & Koreans would each require more than 4 Earths. We are depleting nature’s ability to support life about 70% faster than it is able to regenerate. That's why I think every day should be Earth Day!

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

🐦 Do some birds have #PrettyPrivilege?
💫 New paper: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2846
We show that ~half the variation in research effort on 293 bird species in US+Canada is explained by just 3 factors: 1)visual appeal, 2)range size, & 3)# of universities w/in ranges. What we did & why it matters:🧵

Started watching The Residence on Netflix, and I am loving the birding angle - and accuracy!

This entire thread is phenomenal!

One aspect of hosting a state level scientific meeting that I didn’t prepare for: Receiving and storing massive amounts of @inphyssociety.bsky.social swag in my office. 😳

Timeline cleanse.

Mark your calendars! Join us for the 15th Annual Meeting of INPhys at the University of Southern Indiana on March 29th, 2025! Abstract submissions are now open — check out the flyer for more details, or visit our website at apsindiana.org/inphys2025