Dr. Erin Zimmerman 🇨🇦

Ah… my new rationale. 👌🏻

In my favourite place, spending too much money. 🪴

Cool! The botany/history intersection I didn’t know I wanted.

Multiples copies of REEFS OF TIME: WHAT FOSSILS REVEAL ABOUT CORAL SURVIVAL in a box that arrived at the author's front stoop and made her smile.

If you'd like a brief escape from the global chaos, I recommend reading REEFS OF TIME, my latest book. It will take you to tropical islands to hunt for fossils and underwater to living reefs, which are somehow both fragile and resilient (as are we). #scicomm #nonfiction #coral #fossilfriday

Go bird-watching this weekend and support a global community science project Avian enthusiasts around the world will identify and count birds from February 13 through February 16 as part of a massive citizen science project

Anyone, anywhere can take part in this weekend's bird-watching extravaganza for science! 🧪 🪶 www.scientificamerican.com/article/join...

Lower levels of PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ in North Atlantic whales show regulations work: Study North Atlantic long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) now have 60% lower concentrations of some legacy PFAS than they did a decade ago, offering rare good news about the effectiveness of chemic...

In the era of deregulation, it's nice to have a reminder that environmental regulation really does work. I'll be using this little piece of hope as motiviation to fight back against all this deregulation, and I hope you do the same.

Thank you!

Happy Darwin Day! 🌿🌾

The Trump admin’s cruel disbanding of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium My 12-year-old son died from brain cancer. The defunding of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium will deny treatments to children like him.

Today is #WorldCancerDay, so I'm resharing my essay for @statnews.com on the Trump admin’s cruel disbanding of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium.

My 12-year-old son died from brain cancer. This research would have helped children like him

www.statnews.com/2025/09/15/p...

Science is hard, even when you love it. And as much as I love it, it also takes a lot. We make sacrifices. Family. Physical and mental health. Financial security. Most of my colleagues went into STEM as an act of love. Love for people, for places, for the cosmos, for a planet we all share.

Plant morphology in a nutshell. 🌱

#iamabotanist

Let's stop shipping baby chickens in the mail "The practice of shipping chicks through the mail began in 1918 with the promise that chicks would only be shipped if they could reach their destination within 72 hours," writes Tove Danovich. "That i...

“Between postal delays, weather events, and the fact that these are day-old animals, it’s likely that at least tens of thousands of these baby birds will die before reaching their intended destination.”

My latest for @cogwbur.bsky.social

www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...

I cannot wait to watch this.

Arctic warming delays the Afro-Asian monsoon retreat amplifying autumn rainfall Arctic warming delays the Afro-Asian monsoon retreat amplifying autumn rainfall, Zhang, Jie, Chen, Haishan, Ma, Weiqiang, Riaz, Rafi, Syed, Sidra, Ullah, Irfan, Shen, Jiayu

What happens in the rapidly warming Arctic does not stay in the Arctic ...

New study: Arctic warming delays the African and Asian monsoon retreats, amplifying autumn rainfall [and causing extreme floods]

#climatecrisis
HT @carbonbrief.org
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Plant lovers, don't miss the bit about @doctorzedd.bsky.social's next book! #books #writing #botany #womeninstem 👇👇👇

A Feast for the Curious, Issue 28 🌿 A newsletter of botany, evolution, science history, and scientific illustration.

The latest issue of my botany & evolution newsletter, A Feast for the Curious, is out. Herein: ancient giant fungus(?), altering plants' breathing, how humans envision time, and a bit about my next book. 🌿
mailchi.mp/2254356f8112...

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies

Incredible self own for the US. The damage being done to the US scientific enterprise is generational. We will look back on this as a tipping point where the US chose all on its own to stop leading the world in science.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Book announcement for a science book called VERDANT, about plant evolution.

Hey! I’m writing another book!
VERDANT is about how plants have (literally) changed the world. Looking forward to working with @mitpress.bsky.social 🌾🧪🌿

I’ve seen a lot of weird YouTube ads over the years, but I was not prepared for Marky Mark selling me a prayer app.

‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.

“The speed, the scope and the severity of the attacks on science are beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” says @gretchentg.bsky.social.

My @nature.com story on the human toll of the 2nd Trump presidency.

Thx to @dochfroehlich.bsky.social, @briannosek.bsky.social, @katharinehayhoe.com & others.

Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average.
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

Photo of Weinberg. Photographer unknown.

OTD 1908 Willhelm Weinberg gave a talk to the Society for the Natural History of the Fatherland in Württemberg giving the population genetics equations GH Hardy would independently publish 5 months later. It was 35 years before his work was recognized in the Anglophone world.

🐋🌱🥢🧪 #EvoBio #HistSTM

🤮 Fuck right off with that.

The increasingly common habit of screenshotting the AI summary of a Google search and presenting it as evidence must be nipped in the bud immediately. That is nothing. That is not anything, it is not a thing.

Close-up photo of a lamina and midvein, in transmitted light. The lamina is divided into islands surrounded by fine veins. Photo by Scott Zona CC BY-NC 2.0.

Last week, I posted about flower terms; this week, we’ll look at surface descriptors, which are usually applied to leaves. We’ll start with 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲, as seen in this Macadamia integrifolia, meaning “having areoles,” which are the spaces bounded by veins. #Proteaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

The Sand Trout’s Rise - Orion Magazine "Legend says they slumber inches beneath the surface of arroyos and emerge to mate only when water flows."

For your Sunday reading, proud to have this piece in @orionmagazine.bsky.social about the legendary Sand Trout. (Photo is a real life horned lizard, not a mythical creature). More stories about cryptids in their winter issue. orionmagazine.org/article/the-...

What a pleasure it was to write the epic story of plate tectonics - and the woman who brought the theory from the ocean to the land - with the fabulous editors at @highcountrynews.org. Give a read! #womeninstem #science #geology #scicomm

I need some experimental super-fertilizer(?), because this sounds sweet.