Jen Bowen

Picture of a screen announcing the winners of a graduate student award for best oral presentation at this years coastal estuarine research federation meeting.

Congratulations to @myadarsan.bsky.social (and the other winners!) for winning the best grad student talk award at CERF! So well deserved! Thanks for another amazing meeting @cerfscience.bsky.social can’t wait until 2027!

A university that signs the “compact” is one that acknowledges its own inability to compete and succeed based talent and merit. It would signal insecurity and mediocrity to current and future students and faculty. Say no. Recruit the best people, protect their freedom and support their hard work.

Thanks to @uslter.bsky.social #APEAL project for kick-starting this work by enabling engagement and collaboration with the local shellfishing community, whose concerns guided these new projects. 5/5

#NSF #REU #PES @mblscience.bsky.social @northeasternu.bsky.social

David Kimbro presents a poster done by REU student Lindsey Davies showing results from recruitment box that were harvested mid-season. Bar graphs on the poster show that yes, the boxes had clams! On a table is an example of one of the boxes, and an aquarium holds some predatory crabs.

Whether predation or poor larval settlement has caused the decline in iconic softshell clams is being studied using recruitment boxes that protect larval and baby clams from predators. Local aquaculture is increasing oyster harvests. Efforts like these can help restore and support the fishery. 4/5

Mya and Jen stand at their table, with a graphical poster behind them describing current microbial methods and examples of coliform bacteria colonies growing on culture plates displayed on the table. The two methods are to be used side by side.

But if contaminants are in the water, shellfish may ingest those as well, with negative effects on the shellfish and harvestability. @bowenlab.bsky.social and @myadarsan.bsky.social are using new approaches to better identify sources and types of contaminants which may help mediate inputs. 3/5

Two large and two small aquaria set up on a table under a shade tent. One large aquarium holds softshell clams and the other holds oysters. Microalgae had been added to both. The small aquaria hold clear water or water clouded with microalgae for comparison.

Hannah Orton measures the change in turbidity in the aquaria using a water quality sonde.

Filter-feeding shellfish like oysters and clams remove algae from estuarine water (thereby also remove nitrogen), promoting water clarity and quality, easily visible and measurable in demo tanks of shellfish with algae compared to tanks with no algae, even approaching the clarity of tap water. 2/5

A group of six people stand around a display table under a shade tent to talk about using current methods in microbiology to identity sources and types of microbial contamination that may be present in estuarine waters, especially after a rainstorm.

A group of six people, standing under a shade tent, watch a demonstration of oysters and softshell clams filter the water held in separate aquaria, and compare them to an aquarium with clear water, and one with water clouded by microalgae but containing no shellfish.

Fun Trails and Sails event this week showcasing new work centered on how estuary and shellfish health are intertwined and the need for people to foster both. We always get engaged attendees from the local community and make great new connections! 1/5
trailsandsails.org

I have always maintained that a big part of the justification for the protocol focus was shedding themselves of the responsibility of moderation and heaping it onto others instead

Amazing! I grew up near the mouth of the Penobscot river and still have a camp on a lake west of Belfast, where we are now, to close up for the winter.

Gorgeous. Looks like late fall blueberry barrens in Maine but too early for that. What is it?

This also drifted into my feed and Gracie, too, sends her best black (ish) dog vibes for healing to all.

Check out this story on work led by recent PhD student Hillary, looking at the role marsh run els can play in maintaining salt marsh ecosystem services.

Collaboration with Shellfishers: an APEAL Seed Project - LTER In October, over fifty attendees at the PIE LTER gathered in a local pub to acknowledge one another's' concerns for issues in the Sound.

lternet.edu/stories/coll... Cool work @pie-lter.bsky.social is doing with soft-shell clam fishers. Love fried clams when visiting coastal New England? Populations are declining and LTER scientists are teaming up with fishers to figure out why. Great job @janetucker.bsky.social @uslter.bsky.social

See @bowenlab.bsky.social Bowen lab undergrad intern Luke Bagdonas demonstrating our #saltmarsh organ set-up in North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in April 2023. (Part 1 of 2)

Two years ago, we planted our greenhouse-reared Spartina alterniflora plants into these marsh organs. A marsh organ is a set of PVC pipes at different elevations (they look a little like a pipe organ!). Here are Luke and Stephanie out there planting, at North Inlet and @pie-lter.bsky.social.

If your God identifies as god, human, holy spirit and mysteriously also bread, do you really get to complain about other people’s gender identity 🤔

Brilliant!

8/8. So, if you’re feeling down about these attacks, I understand—I feel that way too. But just remember that they’re not attacking because your work doesn’t matter; they’re attacking *precisely* because it does. So, get some rest, connect with your people, and keep doing it.

Welcome to Meditations in an Emergency We are very clearly in a lot of emergencies right now. They demand action. But action demands thought and thoughtfulness: who are we, what are our values, our goals, our allies, our possibilities, and...

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social nails it - this is so spot on: "Who while being beneficiaries of unearned privilege imagine themselves as naturally superior even while demonstrating their clownish mediocrity again and again." meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io/welcome-to-m....

Rabbit Feared Extinct Spotted For The First Time In 130 Years, And It's Feisty “I was happy to have found a species that was practically extinct to science," expedition leader Alberto Almazán-Catalán told IFLScience.

taking small victories where I find them. www.iflscience.com/rabbit-feare...

Imagine being so small you shut down the nation’s research enterprise (among other things) because it is benefiting from diverse perspectives that don’t singularly focus on making you and your billionaire class even richer. It hurts my brain.

A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.

Twitter post screenshot of the San Miguel Sheriff account. 5 years ago they posted about a boulder on the road but referred to it as "Large boulder the size of a small boulder".

Happy 5th "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" anniversary! #Geology ⚒️

I love this.

For no reason in particular, I am reading this interesting little book called “On Tyranny” (thanks to @randallhughes.bsky.social) First lesson: Do Not Obey In Advance.

Amazing job!! Students like Johanna give the hope for the future!

@kyleagarces.bsky.social

Don’t forget to get your vaccines up to date!

A cartoon reflecting women in red robes, hanging their heads under white caps, standing in line to enter a voting booth. On the other side of the voting booth women are exiting wearing heels and dresses and pant suits, having cast their handmaid’s tale garb aside, leaving them on the ground outside the voting booth

By the great Mike Luckovich