Collin Bos

NSF GRFP is also still not up

A closeup photo looking down at the top of a lizard's head. The lizard has spiny scales on the neck and body, in a high-contrast pattern of dark brown/black and white/bluish-cream. Visible in the center smooth scale atop the head is an oval dot called the parietal eye, a third eye not for image-forming but used to sense day-night cycles.

An extreme closeup photo looking down at the top of a lizard's head (a crop of the other photo in this post). In the center smooth scale is an oval dot, amber colored with a central spot; this is the parietal eye, a third eye not for image-forming but used to sense day-night cycles.

Yarrow's Spiny Lizard (Sceleporus jarrovii), Arizona. See the parietal eye? This third eye has a lens, cornea, & retina, but is not for image-forming. It senses light/dark to help regulate circadian rhythms, and may help the lizard avoid predators & assist with sense of direction. 🦎 #reptiles 👁️👁️👁️

One of our “green new scam” research grants that USDOT terminated focused on making transit infrastructure more resilient to more frequent and severe weather events. But “climate change adaptation” was too woke, obviously, and doing this research is clearly unnecessary

Been wandering the Kerala side of the southern Western Ghats for almost a week, and I’ve finally met, quite possibly, the most stunning frog on the planet. Photos from my phone do not do this frog any justice.

Galaxy Frog
𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴

geckos are particularly fond of partheno-Genesis

Lizard abundance declined over 10 yrs

Side-blotched lizards declined but tiger whiptail abundance unchanging

Ornate tree lizard and zebra-tailed lizard abundance over time

New paper on long-term lizard declines.🦎 Abundance highest in wet yrs (we haven't had many!). Some species abund related to lagged effects from vegetation cover, emphasizing the delayed response of biotic communities to ecosystem changes. #urban #herps 🌎
doi.org/10.1002/eco....

Excellent piece. LLMs can be useful for automating tedious tasks, but for tasks that require rigour and critical thinking, such as peer review, it's problematic on multiple levels.

"I will tell you right now that Columbia has not in my opinion - and the opinion of the Department of Justice - has not cleaned up their act," Mr. Terrell said. "They're not even close, not even close to having those funds unfrozen."

School Bully Shocks Nerds With Further Lunch-Money Demands

MVZ Professor Jim McGuire and Former MVZ Postdoc Simon Scarpetta find that Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the North American desert iguana — evidence of the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any land animal. bit.ly/3DMIAUD

University of California sets hiring freeze in anticipation of Trump cuts The University of California has imposed a system-wide hiring freeze and made additional cuts, its president said on Wednesday, as part of efforts to try to mitigate the impact of sharp cuts in federal funding.

University of California announced a systemwide hiring freeze. This affects not 1 but 10 campuses (including UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC San Diego among others) plus 3 national labs with impact on medical and scientific research and local economies.

www.reuters.com/world/us/uni...

Trump administration freezes $175 million in federal funding to Penn According to a White House tweet, Wednesday's decision is a result of Penn's

They are coming for every university, if you think you’re safe because it hasn’t been yours yet I don’t know what to tell you. Join AAUP, refuse to comply, organize your colleagues

Diplomatic row erupts after French researcher expelled from US for expressing 'a personal opinion' on Trump A diplomatic row has erupted between France and the US after a French researcher was expelled from the country for expressing "a personal opinion" on Trump.

" (...) French researcher was expelled from the country for expressing "a personal opinion" on Trump."

I fear it is now not safe for Europeans to do conferences in the US.

www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/d...

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Evolutionary and Comparative Genomics (277333) | University of Oslo Job title: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Evolutionary and Comparative Genomics (277333), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Wednesday, April 9, 2025

[Please share widely]
Come work at the U. of Oslo. We are advertising a 3-year postdoc in Evolutionary and Comparative Genomics. If working with plant evolution in the Galápagos, pangenome and structural variants sounds exciting for you - this may be your chance!

www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

In biology, I keep thinking of the bacterial strains, yeast strains, plasmids, mouse lines, worm mutants etc etc etc that will be lost to science FOREVER because the freezers and animal facilities won't be maintained

Generations of work will be lost in essentially an instant

Are you suggesting that the 6-fingered man in fact does not exist?!

Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose.

One of our few support systems, IMLS helped countless Natural History Museums modernize and care for collections and libraries. One of the most respectable government entities, IMLS is to be eliminated... really fucking stupid.
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

A digitally edited screenshot of an EPA announcement features a headline that originally read "EPA Launches Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History", but “Biggest Deregulatory” is crossed out in red, and above it, "MOST ENVIRONMENTALLY DESTRUCTIVE" is written in red text. Below the headline, there is a YouTube video thumbnail featuring EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, standing in front of American and EPA flags. A red play button is overlaid on his torso. The background of the image is dark, with black smoke rising from industrial facilities. At the bottom, white text reads, "This one’s a doozy" with an arrow pointing to the right.

Today, EPA's Lee Zeldin announced rollbacks on key environmental regulations, including pollution limits for coal plants, climate rules & EV standards. He called it a “consequential" day of deregulation, but for those who care about clean air & water, it's one of the most destructive in US history.

pholidosis: an R package to compare biological surface patterns https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.23.639543v1

A smooth newt in the palm of a hand

The mild temperatures and gentle rain have brought out the first smooth newts here in Denmark. I had to rescue this one from the cycle path last night; another was already half crushed. In peak activity season, I can save as many as five a night from one 20 m segment of path.

Student drawing of a red diamond rattlesnake. The head is not quite depicted correctly but they get the main idea that it’s triangular and wide at the back. 🐍

A photo of a red diamond rattlesnake.

Gave my first herpetology exam and my favorite and most entertaining question to grade is “Draw a California species, include the Latin name and label 3 defining features”.

Some favs (shared w permission):

A colorful San Francisco gartersnake resting on tall vegetation.

A San Francisco gartersnake basking on reddish vegetation, although the snake is in the open and vibrantly colored it blends in well and is difficult to see.

The San Francisco gartersnake - one of the USA's most beautiful and endangered snakes. Many people don't believe a bright blue and red snake can be discreet - but when seen in its habitat you can see how these snakes can evade notice.

"...a compelling reminder of how deeply our fate is tied to the natural world. 🐸 may seem like a minor player in the grand scheme of things, but their role in controlling disease vectors highlights the complex and often unexpected ways that ecosystems and public health are intertwined." #OneHealth

Amphibian Declines Increase Malaria In Costa Rica And Panama New studies quantify how intact ecosystems improve human health

Thanks to @jdrakephd.bsky.social for highlighting the importance of #amphibians in the services they provide to humans www.forbes.com/sites/johndr... #malaria #disease #frogs #tropical 🐸🧪🌎🦟

Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return at a time when federal employees are being laid off

Want to go visit the national parks this year?
Sorry.
The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired.

www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

Ruby-crowned kinglet at Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area today...

Executive wants to frame the NIH indirects cut as $4B in savings.

But given that NIH returns $2.5 on every $1 investment, this would actually cost US economy a net $6 BILLION (per year!). Not to mention the human costs of wrecking education and research sectors and the communities they serve.

YouTube video by SquaMates Podcast SquaMates Ep. 30: Nolite te serpentes biteyouonyourbum

Episode 30, in which we mostly talk about snakebite in South Africa, will drop tomorrow, 10 February 2025, at 16:00 CET, 10:00 Eastern! You can join the premiere over on YouTube, and also get thr episode on spotify and Apple Podcasts! 🐸🦎🐢🐍🐊
youtu.be/yVaHslVrem8

Letter from the SSE/SSB/ASN councils on the scientific understanding of sex and gender, pls RT

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...