Kyle Copas

Photo of native grasses found in Ukraine

🌱 How do disasters impact plant communities?

After the Kakhovka Reservoir collapse, researchers surveyed Khortytsia Island floodplains in Ukraine to study vegetation shifts from altered hydrology.

Explore the dataset shared via @gbifnorway.bsky.social 💚 🔗 gbif.link/Khortytsia...

Can I throw a ball or a stick for the Loch Garry herd? They look like you need to tire them out or they’ll insist on sleeping on the bed.

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Belarus rarely makes Western headlines — but it should this week.
A quiet move by the Trump administration has just handed Alexander Lukashenka, and indirectly Vladimir Putin, an unexpected gift.
🧵👇

Colombian master's student Esteban Marentes Herrera wins 2025 Graduate Researchers Award Esteban is the tenth student from the Latin America and the Caribbean region to win the annual GBIF award

¡Felicidades a Esteban Marentes, de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali, ganador del Graduate Researchers Award 2025 por su innovador uso de datos de @gbif.org para estimar la diversidad de coleópteros en Colombia! ¡Enhorabuena también al nodo SiBColombia!
🏆 www.gbif.org/news/1fyZVi9...

Nigerian PhD student Kumdet Panshak Solomon wins 2025 Graduate Researchers Award Panshak is the second student from Africa to win the annual GBIF award

¡Gran noticia desde Nigeria 🌍!: Kumdet Panshak Solomon, doctorando en la Universidad de Jos (Nigeria), gana el Graduate Researchers Award 2025 por su trabajo sobre aves endémicas y #cienciaciudadana con datos de @gbif.org . ¡Segundo africano en lograrlo! 👏
🏆 www.gbif.org/news/6uC3zYj...

Great #civicScience opportunity for the @gbif.org network that will feed records from transcribed mollusk labels from the #FieldMuseum !

New! Cassetteboy vs Keir Starmer.

This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

A good portion of the Secretariat of @gbif.org will be away for governing board meeting then. Would love the chance to explore the parallels between climate and biodiversity communications before or after, though, depending on the dates of your two weeks in KBH…

A Texas megachurch pastor and GOP leader has been arrested for crimes against children. Not Robert Morris, a different one. Not Josiah Anthony, a different one. Not Luke Cunningham, a different one. Not Tony Evans, a different one. Not Scott Crenshaw, a different one. Not Steve Lawson, a different o

This is the logical endpoint of the far-right media echo chamber / isolation booth: a confused, elderly man has become president and, with Fox et al as the only source of information he believes, he thinks archival footage of things that happened over years is all stuff that’s happening now.

…the importance of Saturday for bathing and washing is preserved in its Old Norse name, Laugardagr, which means 'bath day'. It's still there in the word for Saturday in all the languages of the Nordic world: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, even borrowed into Finnish.

TIL the only way to make this nugget of etymological wisdom from Eleanor Barraclough’s fascinating book, Embers of the Hands, more fitting would have been to read it yesterday, lordag.

“AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations…”

Photo of handwritten note reading next a book by the notewriter: “To Kyle: / With the Compliments / Read it if you like or dont read it if you like. / Absalom, Absalom! / 9/18/89 Sanae”

Fond of the idea that the first female PM of #Japan shares her first name with a dear friend and teacher, #Sanae Tokizane, literary critic and scholar of #Faulkner and the epistolary form who left this Easter egg of an inscription in my copy of her book, Faulkner and/or Writing: On Absalom, Absalom!

Trinity College Dublin Herbarium

Calling botanical researchers, the School of Natural Science at Trinity College Dublin is hiring a tenure track Assistant Professor in Plant Biodiversity and Conservation.

I know this is someone's dream job, so let me know if that is you and you want to chat!

my.corehr.com/pls/trrecrui...

PM of Albania having a good laugh with President of Azerbaijan and Macron about Trump repeatedly claiming that he ended the war between their two countries which were not at war with each other.

He’s BACKKKK! 🤣

Happy Friday! 🎉🎈

Just walked past East 56th where, amidst barricades and a company of NYC cops, a lone sniper was stretched out atop a black Chevy Suburban intently scoping out targets across Park Avenue.

Indigenous groups criticize Ecuador’s $47 billion oil expansion plan in Amazon Ecuador’s plans to offer dozens of blocks of land for oil exploration for more than $47 billion has prompted opposition from seven Indigenous peoples in the Amazon.

“Ecuador’s plans to auction new oil blocks in the Amazon are doomed to fail. Indigenous resistance, civil society mobilization, & growing international pressure will continue to expose these projects as illegitimate, unlawful, & unfinanceable.”-Kevin Koenig of @AmazonWatch apnews.com/article/oil-...

Netanyahu had fewer attendees than an 8am panel at the MLA.

The Washington Post WP Exclusive New details emerge on Hegseth’s unusual mass gathering of top brass The defense secretary is expected to lecture about the “warrior ethos” for less than an hour, according to multiple people familiar with the event. But top generals are bracing for possible firings or demotions. 4minutes ago

This is going to end up being the most pointless and expensive "this meeting could have been an email" in history.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “‘Thinky think’ before ‘grabby grab’.” Nature has tapped into its global community of readers, writers, friends and colleagues to compile a list of 99 lab tips to help make scientists’ working lives better. One, sent in by a chemist who has been burnt before, is simple: hot things can look cold.

Re: "hot things can look cold": cf. García Márquez G (1967), ch.1:

"Aureliano, on the other hand, took a step forward and put his hand on it, withdrawing it immediately. 'It's boiling,' he exclaimed, startled.”

blue graphic depicting various biological drawings including a flamingo, a tree, a map of the world and fish

The GBIF Guide for Publishing Biological Survey Data has been released! 📊✨

This guide supports ecologists, monitoring professionals and data managers publish survey data to GBIF using the Darwin Core standard and FAIR data principles.

🔎 gbif.link/SAM_guide

@heathnecologist.bsky.social

The administration is hedging its bets on different modes of mass death: why limit yourself to the next pandemic or untreated mortal disease (to say nothing of mere neglect and poverty) when you can have nuclear disaster, too?

Such generosity, this utter emptiness of human compassion and care!

Trump’s nuclear ‘renaissance’ rests on risky plan for radioactive waste The administration goes all-in on recycling spent fuel, despite a history of spectacular mishaps, including an unintentional atom bomb.

"Neither the companies nor the administration has shared the science backing the claim that recycling nuclear fuel at commercial scale using current industry techniques is safe or practical."

"Data for Generative AI Improvement Can LinkedIn and its affiliates use your personal data and content you create on LinkedIn to train generative AI models that create content? Use my data for training content creation AI models" The toggle is set to off

Act quickly; you have until November 3, 2025, to let Microsoft know that you don't want your LinkedIn data used for AI training.

You're opted in by default... Head to Account - Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement & toggle the switch off.

Peach coloured graphic with a drawing of a spider crab and pink text overlaid reading GBIF data use club practical sessions making occurrence maps

🦀 Don't forget to join the GBIF #DataUseClub session TODAY!

📍 23 September 2025 15:00 - 16:30 CEST

Join Matt Blissett and John Waller from the Secretariat for our next Data Use Club practical session: Making occurrence maps. 🗺️

🔗 gbif.link/DUC_mapping

📢Extended Deadline: October 11

ICIMOD is seeking a Senior Regional Information Services Manager to lead our Regional Information Service.