Alex Champagne

Photographs of a dinosaur-looking bird, the shoebill, and popstar Sabrina Carpenter, overlaid with a height comparison showing both are 152 cm, with visual graphics saying the magazine's name SSWAGGER and some Chinese characters

Photographs of a shoebill and popstar Sabrina Carpenter overlaid with a height comparison showing that, yes indeed, both are just 152 cm

I can't even begin to describe this photograph. I think that might be Taylor Swift on a night out with Sabrina Carpenter. But Sabrina is photoshopped to have a shoebill face and talons, with wing-tips coming out her coat but still Sabrina's hair

Just incredible shoebill awareness-raising from this Hong Kong teens' magazine

Mutual gains: nonpresenting undergraduate attendance at regional scientific meetings benefits students and scientific societies | Advances in Physiology Education | American Physiological Society Participation in scientific meetings confers many benefits to undergraduate students and promotes their success and retention in science. However, the cost and time required to attend a scientific meeting is often prohibitive for students, and university funding is often restricted to students presenting research. Small regional scientific meetings offer an opportunity to promote nonpresenting undergraduate attendance because of their reduced registration fees and travel time, but the benefits of attending regional scientific meetings have not been extensively studied. We recruited 45 nonpresenting undergraduate students to attend the annual meeting of the Indiana Physiological Society and provided students with pre- and postmeeting surveys measuring self-perceptions of their professional abilities, sense of belonging in science, confidence in their degree program and career pathway, and reflections on the conference experience. Additionally, because nonpresenting undergraduates made up nearly half of all meeting attendees, we surveyed other meeting attendees to assess the impact of these students on the meeting environment. After attending the meeting, students reported increased confidence talking to other scientists and presenting future research, a greater sense of belonging within the scientific community, more interest in pursuing research after graduation, and increased enthusiasm to attend future meetings. Other meeting attendees felt that the nonpresenting undergraduates had a positive impact on the meeting and enhanced the environment for student presenters. Our results suggest that the attendance of nonpresenting undergraduates at small regional scientific meetings provides mutual benefits to students, universities, and regional scientific societies. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Small regional scientific meetings confer many of the same benefits to nonpresenting undergraduates as large national meetings and regional societies can mutually benefit from the attendance of large numbers of nonpresenting undergraduates.

New paper! Small, regional scientific meetings are a cost-effective way to boost undergraduates’ confidence and sense of belonging in science. Bonus: Regional societies benefit by having the undergraduates there!
@apspublications.bsky.social

In my utopian vision of the future, instead of offloading all the pointless, annoying work tasks (like reports that none one will read and needlessly opaque forms) to robots, we restructure work and society so that the pointless tasks don't happen at all.

I can only think, and fume, about what a slap in the face this is to every person who fought and/or died for the right to learn, who were attacked or killed because they demanded to learn. people who would do anything, anything, for the privilege of a homework assignment

A red morph Eastern Screech Owl

Our local nature center brought their ambassador Eastern Screech Owl to my ornithology class today, and JUST LOOK AT HIM!

Re-names of North American birds: Ross’s Goose - Dwarf Snow Goose Cooper’s Hawk - Laughing Joker Hawk Wilson’s Phalarope - Sophisticated Backward-ankled Swimming Bird Baird’s Sandpiper - Brown-rumped Sandpiper Wilson’s Snipe - Dark-winged Striped Snipe Bonaparte’s Gull - Black-billed Gull Franklin’s Gull - Half-hooded Gull Forster’s Tern - Masked Silver-tipped Tern Bell’s Vireo - Midwestern Vireo Swainson’s Thrush - Sulking Rusty-backed Thrush Wilson’s Warbler - Black-capped Warbler Blackburnian Warbler - Masked Flame Warbler LeConte’s Sparrow - Streaky-naped Butterscotch Sparrow Nelson’s Sparrow - Sputtering Pumpkin Sparrow Henslow’s Sparrow - Olive-faced Sparrow Lincoln’s Sparrow - Bog Sparrow

My ornithology students came up with descriptive names for birds with eponymous names today. Everyone was super creative, and I can’t wait to see the names @amornith.bsky.social has in store!
PS: The alt text has all the names transcribed.

Imagine getting made fun of for your short arms all your life, and finally, after 4 decades, you can exact your vengeance. 🦖

Meet Veronika, the tool-using cow Veronika uses sticks to scratch herself, suggesting scientists have underestimated cow cognition...

The Far Side is coming to life! I’m now eagerly awaiting the invasion of human hand-shaped aliens!

The Horned Lark was my first study species in graduate school, so I’m taking this as a good omen!

Reading this in Gonzo’s voice makes it even better.

Next up: A follow-up study on silly runs

A ChatGPT diagram of a skull with some weird labels. The lower jaw is both the mandible and the occipital bone. Also, the nasal cavity is between two teeth!

Given all the recent buzz about how great ChatGPT has gotten, including its prowess with images, I figured I'd check in on its anatomical skills. Nope.

Earth's largest land animals are limited by salt.

Sodium availability constrains the density and distribution of elephants, giraffes and rhinos across Africa, and offers a new explanation for the so-called 'missing megaherbivores'.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Free access: rdcu.be/eTPY2

Will Byers leaning on a tree with horizontal rows of holes that are a telltale sign of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

Very excited to see Yellow-bellied Sapsucker holes on this tree during season 5, episode 1 of Stranger Things. Will this tree’s counterpart in the Upside Down still have sapsucker holes? 🤔

LOTR would have ended very differently if Frodo had encountered one of these spiders.

I sent a calendar invite for a “TLC Marathon” to my research student today. We’re either running thin layer chromatography plates or binge-watching “My 600 lb Life”.

If birds were actually government drones, then there wouldn't have been any birds during the shutdown.

It's over.

7 basic science discoveries that changed the world Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

Scientists point to a long list of findings that emerged out of fundamental research, the type of studies the US government is cutting, and went on to change the world. Nature lists a few of their examples. 🧪

A meme with two panels. The top panel shows trees at night completely wrapped in bright white Christmas lights, making the area glow intensely. The bottom panel shows a man in bed with his eyes half-closed and red, looking pained and exhausted as if unable to sleep. The caption across the bottom image says, “The bird trying to sleep in its nest be like.” The meme humorously suggests how birds might feel if their tree is covered in blinding holiday lights.

It’s that time of year when this meme becomes relevant again… 🫣

Humans vs. the machine! 💪>🦾

odonates, mosquitoes, craneflies, and selected turtles have entered the chat

It's a black and white paper header for a short communication, and I've copied the text below. Please stop reading if you don't want the literal copy to be read to you. "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500 DOI 10.1007/s00114-003-0473-9 SHORT COMMUNICATION B. M. Rothschild · D. H. Tanke · M. Helbling · L. D. Martin Epidemiologic study of tumors in dinosaurs Received: 16 June 2003 / Accepted: 29 August 2003 / Published online: 14 October 2003 Springer-Verlag 2003"

One of the amazing things about science is we will never run out of mysteries.

Take "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500", which performed a survey of 10,000 dinosaur fossils for evidence of tumors in the bone.

I was prepared for yes, no, but what I wasn't prepared for was:
"only in hadrosaurs."

It all makes sense. The Bills nickname refers to bird beaks.

Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.

A Hummingbird Clearwing Moth nectarine on a thistle.

On National Hummingbird Day, a reminder of how cool convergent evolution is.

Cannot stop laughing at this

Watch Out!

Diabetic Man With Gene-Edited Cells Produces His Own Insulin—No Transplant Drugs Required A proof-of-concept study finds that donated insulin-producing cells can be genetically modified to avoid provoking the recipient's immune system.

Diabetic Man With Gene-Edited Cells Produces His Own Insulin—No Transplant Drugs Required

A proof-of-concept study finds that donated insulin-producing cells can be genetically modified to avoid provoking the recipient's immune system.

gizmodo.com/diabetic-man...

This desert beetle runs to cool off After a sprint, the temperature of the beetle Onymacris plana drops. Efficient running, a body built for cooling and a little bit of lift all help.

This paper was published 40 years after the original fieldwork was conducted. It’s never too late to share cool research!

Yesterday the Pew Research Center released a report based on the internet browsing activity of 900 U.S. adults which found that Google users who encounter an Al summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than use 's who don't encounter an Al summary. To be precise, only [my emphasis] 1 percent of users who encountered an Al summary clicked the link to the page Google is summarizing.

Hey is it bad if google AI search results stop people from leaving google dot com 99% of the time? All our news and information creators can survive just fine with one percent of their previous search traffic right? I’m sure it’s fine. www.404media.co/googles-ai-i...