Eric G. Prileson

Satellite proposals threaten the night sky In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for authorizing satellite launches and operations…

Just submitted my FCC public comment on Reflector and SpaceX's bonkers proposals to choke low Earth orbit with satellites and expose us all to constant ALAN
Get your comment in ASAP!
darksky.org/news/two-sat...

Ant queen frozen in time: New ant species found in Dominican amber A study by Dr. Gianpiero Fiorentino and his colleagues, published in the Journal of Paleontology, describes the identification of a new species of ant, Hypoponera electrocacica, belonging to the genus...

ANT

Outdoor fridge!

The Origins of Agar First introduced into laboratories in 1881, agar remains indispensable as a culture medium.

I’m embarrassed to find how little I knew, or thought, about Agarose. Despite its efficacy, ubiquity & essential nature in labs.
Nor did I know anything about Fanny Angelina (another example, whether intentional or not, of the Matilda Effect) & Walther Hesse.
This is absolutely fascinating.

This article is crazy. These men think "I was just looking for funding for my research" is a defense? So you express "congeniality" for your convicted sex offender donor by asking him to party when he gets out of prison so you can get some funds he made trafficking victims...? That's your defense?

Why Congress’s ICE “Reform” Proposals Won’t Work Right now, Congress is offering hollow gestures and symbolic reforms.

Congress’s ICE “Reform” Proposals are largely symbolic and lack teeth for enforcement; we must demand instead that this unaccountable agency be dismantled (see end of post) open.substack.com/pub/campaign...

2 Olympic athletes on a curling team

@i-jasonalexander.bsky.social A long journey from Minsk to Milan

We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT

Big props to @ctranvancouver.c-tran.com and @trimet.org for free bus/train rides to celebrate Rosa Parks' birthday

River and beach view with a mountain in the background

Wetland area with small lake

View of a river from a bike path

Took a partial day off to do a big bike ride around the peninsula between the Willamette and Columbia rivers in Portland. Totally worth it #bikeday

Figure of Western U.S. snow cover area from 2001 to 2026 illustrates a staggering decline in current coverage compared to historical norms. While the historical data for mid-January typically clusters between 400,000 and 600,000 square miles, the line for 2026 sits in unprecedented territory at the very bottom of the graph. On January 15, 2026, the snow cover area plummeted to a record low of 142,700 square miles—less than one-third of the median and the lowest point in the entire 25-year satellite record. This visual gap emphasizes a severe "snow drought," with the 2026 data point trailing significantly behind even the previous record lows, highlighting an extreme and alarming anomaly in winter precipitation.

The western U.S. faces its lowest snowpack on record despite average or above-average rainfall. Warmer temperatures mean more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, and will worsen droughts in areas like the Pacific Northwest and the Colorado River Basin.

science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...

Portland, Maine

www.pressherald.com/2026/01/30/l...

Salary to living wage plot with only 4 programs falling aprove the 1:1 line and paying a living wage.

Happy recruitment/interview season for PhD students! Recruiting students in ecology & evolutionary biology? Make sure your department's stipend is accurate in our database: rhettrautsaw.app/shiny/Biolog...

Volume 80 Issue 1 | Evolution | Oxford Academic Evolution, the official journal of the Society for the Study of Evolution™, publishes articles in all areas of evolutionary biology focused on broadening...

Be sure to check out all the excellent research from the January issue!
academic.oup.com/evolut/issue...

Overwintering drives rapid adaptation in Drosophila with potential costs to insecticide resistance Abstract. Winter is a formidable challenge for ectotherms that inhabit temperate climates. The extent to which winter conditions drive rapid adaptation, an

Happy to see our paper out now in the January edition of #Evolution 🧪 !
Using #drosophila in outdoor mesocosms, we found evidence for adaptation over a winter period and for putative trade-offs between resistance evolution and overwintering performance
doi.org/10.1093/evol...

In solidarity with today's ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA blackout, MinnMax is donating $1 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for every share of this Bluesky post for the next hour.

The dog or the bus?

Dispatch from the occupation What life is like in Minneapolis now

Reposting this blog:
A clear account of the scope of the operation and effects to citizens and all ppl in #Minneapolis
Dispatch from the occupation
open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

🧪

Heat is deadlier than hypoxia for an elevationally migrating moth Army cutworm moths (Euxoa auxiliaris) undergo a dramatic seasonal migration from the Great Plains of North America up to the highest reaches of the Rocky Mountains. In this experiment, we found that...

New paper from my lab @cudenverclas.bsky.social, led by HIGH-SCHOOL student Serene Park!

We studied a moth that migrates from the Great Plains to the Rocky Mts (and back) each year and tested if they are harmed more by extreme heat or low O2 🧪🌍🐙

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The Cascades frog vanished from this national park. Researchers are bringing it back Nearly 20 years ago, the last known Cascades frog disappeared from Lassen Volcanic National Park. Now researchers are bringing them back, hoping the frogs can stage a comeback.

Check out my colleague, awesome #frog #ecologist, and all-around good guy Ryan Wagner interviewed on NPR's All Thing's Considered re: his work on conservation of the Cascades Frog 🧪
www.npr.org/2026/01/08/n...

@princetonvaughn.bsky.social seeks to understand how animals adapt to rapid environmental change. Lizards in the Caribbean have adapted to survive hurricanes - but how? By studying parallel populations on different islands, we can identify impacted genes and connect phenotype to function #SICB2026

Interested in how plasticity evolves and potential trade-offs with prior selection? Come check out my #SICB2026 talk tomorrow (1/4) at 9:15 and all the Session 12 talks in Oregon 202

picture of announcement that one inch squid studios and blue beehive studios will be at the annual sicb conference 2026. picture of liverwort tea towel on wooden table and wooden spoon and limes next to wording

Hello Portland! Blue Beehive Studio & One Inch Squid Studios will be in Booth 303 during #SICB2026 - stop by and say hi! (& show us pictures of your study organisms please!)
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#Portland #Science #ShopSmall

Desert landscape with cacti and mountains under a blue sky

Canyon desert landscape with cacti and mountains under a blue sky

Rock climber under blue sky

Great trip to the desert to see family; thankful to be able to spend time with the nephew and spend so much time outdoors! #bluesky #sonorandesert

Nazis were executed for killing survivors of a sunk vessel.

www.executedtoday.com/2009/11/30/1...

Evolution 2026 logo. Text: Evolution 2026, Cleveland, OH, June 20-24. A globe with a plane flying across it. Text: Society for the Study of Evolution International Travel Stipends, Deadline: January 30.

Applications now open for the International Travel Stipends to attend #Evol2026! Funds cover registration, travel, food, and lodging. Apply by January 30: www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social

Lol paywall

flyer for a phd proposal defense

It's here!! 😱
Happy proposal defense day! #PhDchat 🧪