Christopher Witt

Opinion | How to Save the American Experiment

Political violence, post-pandemic one-party rule, vast economic inequality, and immigration backlash? The 2020s are the 1920s all over again--and that may show us a way out. Adapted from my book, to be published next week. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...

Roseate spoonbills will splash their wings through the water as part of their beauty routine. Here's one doing so mid-splash, facing straight ahead towards the camera. I really love this shot. #birds

thank you bills tiktok

Attn Black people, stop scrolling.

This is not a drill: Chicago

Do they do impressions though?

My husband was detained by ICE today

Juan Muñoz, an American citizen, father of 2, and local government official, was peacefully protesting w. other elected officials. He was assaulted and taken away

I have had zero contact or updates since

#SOS
@duckworth.senate.gov @durbin.senate.gov

Trump’s Argentina bailout enriches one well-connected billionaire A $20 billion taxpayer-funded rescue package for Argentina is a gift for a hedge fund manager with personal and professional ties to the Treasury Secretary

1. The $20 billion taxpayer-funded rescue package for Argentina, announced last week by the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, delivers an enormous windfall to hedge fund billionaire Rob Citrone.

Citrone has a longstanding personal and professional relationship with Bessent.

To read the university’s triumphant all-campus email about restored NIH funding, you’d think UC administrators made it happen. But that’s not true. In fact the UC *Faculty Association* organized the lawsuit; administrators kept their heads down and hoped it’d go away.

Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

If the purpose of this PSA is to remind ppl that Ferruginous Hawks have feathered tarsi, mission accomplished

Nothing says “land of the free” like armed agents of the state saying “show me your papers if you want your daughter back” bsky.app/profile/nbcb...

Happy Birthday!

Odd cumulonimbus raincloud over Albuquerque on 9/22/25, with bubble-like protrusions resembling a skeleton’s fingers, technically called mamma, mammatus, or mammatoculus

Odd cumulonimbus raincloud over Albuquerque on 9/22/25, with bubble-like protrusions resembling a skeleton’s fingers, technically called mamma, mammatus, or mammatoculus

Odd cumulonimbus raincloud over Albuquerque on 9/22/25, with bubble-like protrusions resembling a skeleton’s fingers, technically called mamma, mammatus, or mammatoculus

Mammatus clouds, but my 10-yr old called them “skeleton fingers”

#NewMexico

Ivory poaching and the rapid evolution of tusklessness in African elephants Intensive ivory poaching during a period of civil conflict caused the rapid evolution of tusklessness in an African elephant population.

Intense ivory poaching has led to the evolution of tusklessness in some African elephant populations, which might reduce poaching, but also happens to be an X-chromosome–linked dominant trait that is lethal to males #EleFunFactFriday #TheMoreYouKnow 💫 🧪 🐘

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This is a massive, history making abuse of your power. It will define your legacy and one day you will come to regret punishing free speech and trying to destroy democracy.

"Health losses attributed to anthropogenic climate change," a brief communication in the journal Nature Climate Change. There's a map showing regions of the world, and pie charts of relevant studies as they apply to different health impacts like "heat-related deaths" and "maternal and child health"

🚨 NEW: Climate change is already causing 30,000 deaths per year - a global annual economic loss of $100-350B USD - but the true damage is probably 10x higher. Out TODAY in Nature Climate Change: the first systematic look at the science of "health impact attribution" 🔓 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

If disease falls in deforest and nobody’s there to disburse it tho?

True😔

But it’s workingggggg!

Bird specimens track 135 years of atmospheric black carbon and environmental policy | PNAS Atmospheric black carbon has long been recognized as a public health and environmental concern. More recently, black carbon has been identified as ...

The Pittsburgh/sooty bird one, of course, is real:

Bird specimens track 135 years of atmospheric black carbon and environmental policy | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Rocky Mountain Oysters

Does this support or refute corvid superintelligence?

It’s Time to Rethink the Academic Tenure Process Opinion | To fight the war on science, higher education needs to reimagine the most important career milestone for faculty.

And yes, now is the right time.

New for @undark.org

"The fundamental problem with the tenure process is that it has struggled to recognize that knowledge is curated, created, and consumed differently today than even a decade ago."

undark.org/2025/09/11/o...

Interior Proposes to Rescind Public Lands Rule, Restoring Balanced, Multiple-Use Management  | U.S. Department of the Interior The Department of the Interior is proposing to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule, aligning with Secretary Doug Burgum’s commitment to restoring balance in federal land manageme...

The BLM is seeking to eradicate the Public Lands Rule, which allows the conservation to be included in land use planning. There are a lot of areas of critical environmental concern in BLM land. It's in the federal register and the public commenting period has started. Please comment!

Germany’s famous study showed over 80% insect declines in farmland over 27 years. “Those findings were often blamed on pesticides and habitat loss. Sockman’s work shows something different. Insects are collapsing even in a meadow with little human pressure. Climate itself may be enough.”

Beyond supergenes: the diverse roles of inversions in trait evolution Chromosomal inversions are ubiquitous across the Tree of Life, with genome-wide studies revealing a bias toward smaller inversions, yet research has disproportionately focused on large, supergene-like...

Beyond supergenes: the diverse roles of inversions in trait evolution www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Like woodpeckers? Or population genomics? Or three-species hybridization? Or selective sweeps?

Then this is for you!

The typeset version of "Evidence for ancient selective sweeps followed by differentiation among three species of Sphyrapicus sapsuckers" is published today:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Good job keeping your head down, pitta mortuus

What are we even doing?

Bc a negative recommendation has serious consequences, i feel obligated to justify reasoning — im not emperor caligula out here.

‘Maybe’ is a borderline case, where u give the committee your take on + and -, and let them sort it out based on how they want to value different types of contributions