Gary Burness

Do you live in the UK or Canada? Could you spare an hour to help me with an important science project focused on excessive packaging? (all you need is a ruler and a basic kitchen scale) 🤞🙏♻️

Close-up of a yellow and gray bird perched next to text inviting early career researchers to join the FACETS editorial board.

Curious about peer review beyond authorship? FACETS is welcoming early career researchers to join our editorial board as ECR Editors. Submit your application before Mar. 9!

Learn more ▶️ https://ow.ly/4WFa50Y1Ts8

#PeerReview #EarlyCareerResearchers #AcademicPublishing

Street transformation from car space to street willed with people including kids

It’s not just about what you remove (cars, noise, dirty air). It’s about what you add (people walking, a lot of bike parking, trees, outdoor dining, and room for kids to play safely). Amsterdam: 1986 and today.

Streets for people.

HT @hackneycyclist.bsky.social for the great before-and-after

🚀 60% capacity reached!
EOU Fledglings 2026 is filling up FAST!

Registration stays open until we reach full capacity 👀

💸 Last chance TODAY for DO-G travel funding!
📅 Programme is now live!
More info: eounion.org/fledglings

@biologists.bsky.social #EOU26 #Ornithology

Uppsala in late autumn

Join us at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. We’re searching for an Assistant Professor in Biology. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Please repost: 🚨Field assistant position 🐧

We offer a 14-months field assistant position through the French Polar Institute to work on king penguin ecophysiology and behavioral ecology.

Requirements: EU citizen < 30yo having experience with harsh fieldwork & wild bird/mammal handling/sampling.

Oxygen-free metabolism in the bird inner retina supported by the pecten - Nature While the photoreceptor outer segments in the bird outer retina have access to oxygen, the inner retina operates under chronic anoxia, supported by anaerobic glycolysis in the retinal neurons.

Bird retina uses anaerobic glycolysis for energy!!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sorry, I thought you knew I was in Lund

It’s Penguin Awareness Day which seems like a great excuse to post the greatest ever Wikipedia edit.

It's about 0C where I am. But if it's any consolation, it is a damp cold 😎

Wild turkey roost selection is more consistently associated with tree traits than microclimate Animals must cope with a range of climatic conditions across seasons, and they can accomplish this by selecting habitats that are favourable for thermoregulation. Sheltering from environmental condit...

Ever wonder why wild turkey choose certain roost trees? Using GPS- tagged birds over multiple years, recent MSc graduate student Kayla Martin showed that tree size is much more important than microclimate @jeffcbowman.bsky.social 🧪
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Hermaphrodites have lower metabolic rates than gonochores Abstract. Hermaphroditism, where an individual can reproduce as both male and female, offers some clear reproductive advantages. Simultaneous hermaphroditi

Darwin speculated that it was energetically costly to be an hermaphrodite. He thought that might explain why they were relatively rare in animals. Our paper out today tested this conjecture for the first time.
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

The Puffin Conundrum: Young Atlantic Puffins Need Darkness, But Are Attracted to Light New research by Environmental & Life Sciences Ph.D. graduate offers key insight for helping Newfoundland’s beloved provincial bird avoid the risks of getting stranded

A nice write-up on the research of former PhD student @tbrownbirds.bsky.social on light attraction in Atlantic puffins fledglings (pufflings!)

www.trentu.ca/news/story/2...

Reposting this - deadline to apply is January 15

Repeated heatwaves can age you as much as smoking or drinking Long-term study suggests that the more heatwaves people are exposed to, the more it accelerates body ageing.

Extreme heat doesn’t just feel exhausting — it ages your body.
A new study shows repeated heatwaves can age you as much as smoking or drinking.
Climate change is literally speeding up our biological clock.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Dietary melatonin supplementation mitigates the negative effects of artificial light at night in the Pacific field cricket, Teleogryllus oceanicus Abstract. Artificial light at night (ALAN) is linked to negative behavioural and physiological consequences in animals. A potential mechanism for these adv

Melatonin synchronizes internal processes & is an antioxidant. Scientists found that melatonin supplementation improved egg & sperm production in ALAN-exposed crickets. I don't think the upshot is supplements for bugs but it does show that similar mechanisms are involved in invert responses to ALAN

the figures/graphics are fantastic

I think someone should tag John Tory

Employment - Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

EEB Postdoctoral Fellowship @ U.Toronto app deadline Jan 15 2026. Opportunity for independent research, encourages collab across labs/disciplines. Lots of great folks to interact with, Come join us!
eeb.utoronto.ca/employment-2/

Not all sexual swellings signal fertility. Some signal strategy. In our new Current Biology paper, we show how gelada females “fake it” during male takeovers—and why it works.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1m7%7E93QW...

N.L. asks Deloitte to carry out review after 'incorrect' citations found in $1.6M provincial health plan | CBC News The Newfoundland and Labrador government says it's been in contact with the private company responsible for a new report meant to guide the province into the future, which was found to contain fake ci...

ChatGPT fake citations in a 1.6M$ report! Absurdly unprofessional by Deloitte, NL gov't should sue for a full refund. I expect in a few years this too may be seen as 'normal'. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Replaced "orthodoxy" with "evidence" in a edit of the NYT piece about how RFK Jr is dismantling federal support for vaccination- THE GREATEST INNOVATION FOR PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY (shout outs also to closed sewer systems and safe municipal water systems!).

Fixed it for you, @nytimes.com

The claim "the earth is not sitting on the back of a giant turtle" is not evidence-based because studies have not ruled out the possibility....

Everyone should check out the recently updated CDC webpage on Vaccines and Autism. It's now loaded with blatant anti-vax misinformation. Infuriating, but also totally unsurprising considering who it in charge.
www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safe...

Team fish - we need your help! We are trying to build a database of all the fish chromosome-scale genomes where sex chromosomes have been identified. Have you build one or some? Do you know someone who has? Can you post the link in the comments? Please spread the word and repost! Thank you!

Please enjoy my cartoon in today's Toronto Star

A downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) about to drill on a hardwood tree in Rhode Island, USA. Photo credit: N. M. Moody.

When downy woodpeckers pound wood with their beaks they hold themselves rigid like hammers & grunt like tennis stars to stabilise their core muscles at the moment of impact

@nickantonson.bsky.social

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

1/13 New paper out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social
@lummaalab.bsky.social
@erikpostma.bsky.social

We're hiring! Post-doctoral fellow in evolutionary ecology w/focus on ecophysiology.
Uncover why global warming and heatwaves reduce reproductive success and cause excess mortality in wild birds. Work with @cyanistesnord.bsky.social 👏

Please apply no later than 25 November.
👉 lnkd.in/dkAh9jnc