Dr Rachel Hale Marine Biologist

At least this can be my justification for never being published in Nature 🤣

If your funding agency mandates OA publication (fair enough), but grant amounts go down or stay static while overheads go up, there's no way even medium size grants can justify this cost. What ECR these days can afford this costs? Yet funders & institutes want high impact work, high impact papers.

Might make my next conference poster using this

Cracked, but still there: the glass ceiling persists for senior women in science To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, Mangala Srinivas reminds junior colleagues that career success won’t protect you from gender-based bias.

Leading in science as a woman doesn't mean smooth sailing through gender bias, unfortunately, writes @mangalasrinivas.bsky.social @nature.com. She gives practical advice for navigating the shards of the cracked glass ceiling (hint: there's no magic bullet).

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Perish and publish

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Read all about our adventures catching a real-life demogorgon from the Antarctic deep! @marine-omics.bsky.social @arcsaef.bsky.social

www.marine-omics.net/2026/03/04/f...

Lol that's fair. I actually haven't been to the US for a while now.

But you should go to Greece/Cyprus if you haven't already. The cheese-pastry concoctions are top tier!

Yeah I know. That's always an issue.

Many restaurants, even in Nelson, where providing a veggie/vegan alternative is not an after thought but a large portion of the menu.

Oh really? Yeah I feel like we are good at the halloumi/mushroom alternatives. NZ too if it tempts you over 😉

There is an amazing halloumi burger in central Wellington.

Hmmm well if I come across another I'll definitely try it now!

Luxon? More like Luxoff!

This made me lol. Classic.

Noodlebar, Gloucester Green Oxford, UK
Franks, Norwich, UK

Bonus: I mourn the loss of the incredible onion rings at our local chippie. They switched to shop bought and they're awful and expensive now.

On the one hand we should try and make the deep sea seem less distant and scary.

On the other hand deep sea animals are heckin cool and should definitely have cool names. I'm on the side of "demon whale-biter" for this one.

🐙🦀🌊🦑🧪🪸

Identifying the “demon whale-biter”: Patterns of scarring on large whales attributed to a cookie-cutter shark Isistius sp The presence of crater-like wounds on cetaceans and other large marine vertebrates and invertebrates has been attributed to various organisms. We review the evidence for the identity of the biting age...

Dawg if I was a cookie-cutter shark and found out that my species could have been known as the "demon whale-biter" instead I'd be fuckin' *pissed*. Absolute nomenclatural humiliation.

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

A large iced coffee (in a reusable receptacle!) and a rectangular green cake on a tray.

Transitting home via Singapore.

The green coconut cake was good!

A woodcut of a bird beside the text "YOU UNBEARABLE FUCKING DUMBSHIT"

A report is something that an org can say "we funded that" but intangible, often slow and many unmeasurable conservation gains aren't desired.

It seems to me after interacting with some of these large funding orgs that the funding is only there to fund these information gathering reports. Funding a team of efficient doers (even established ones) doesn't seem to be possible as it doesn't produce "a result".

👀👀👀

Good article, but the framing is wrong. There is not a dearth of interest in taxonomy. There is a scarcity of funding and positions, which is a deliberate choice by funding agencies and institutions. The youth love taxonomy! It's the olds that are failing to meet their passion!

Opinion | To Save Life on Earth, Bring Back Taxonomy (Published 2024)

Quote: "We need to be able to interpret genetic data in a way that humans can understand and use. That's taxonomy's job. And if we want to save what's left of the vast diversity of life on Earth, we'll have to reinvest in this science."
www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/o...

It's the funding of taxonomic research & training that's dying out. Without an ability to identify life forms, we can't recognize/quantify invasions & extinctions and their impacts on ecosystems. Imagine trying to repair a complex steel structure if you can't distinguish different types of bearings.

A close up of the emojis

Mine says "no glyph"
Weird

Genuinely want those bottom two as slippers though...

Alright if you don't like that one there is the Spider Moonsnail....

I know. I was trying to be annoying 😜

Now do fire-work jelly-fish...