@chwallace
PhD candidate at ASU in hist/phil of biology, dissertation on Dictyoptera. One half of @asabpod.bsky.social. Particular fan of Dictyoptera, Diptera, and freshwater macroinvertebrates. https://www.inaturalist.org/people/cockroacharles
I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out:
www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...
Do you (or have you ever) worked with natural history collections? Are you trans or non-binary? If you said "yes" to both of those, @rin-krichilsky.bsky.social and I want to hear from you! Please consider filling out our survey and please share with others! 🏳️⚧️ 🐛🦕🦴🌿 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
USAID public servants lost our careers, pensions, and healthcare. Some lost their homes. Some lost their children’s tuition. Some colleagues died by suicide. Now we learn our Social Security numbers were stolen and exposed too.
Freshwater macroinvertebrates >>>>>>>>
Parents in the South are organizing to support their trans kids. And it turns out, the vast majority of parents with trans kids support them, contrary to the myth that it's so very hard to do. May these courageous families set an example for all. @translash.org translash.org/wire/parents...
Bugguide photo of a "Thief weevil" (Attelabidae: Pterocolus sp) by user Metrioptera. He is a jolly iridescent turquoise and sort of rectangular in shape, with an unusually wide stance.
let's all take a moment to consider the Thief Weevil and his outrageous pantaloons
NEWS: The Trump administration is forcing transgender inmates to detransition by implementing a new policy that would withhold their medical treatment in a way that puts clinicians in conflict with ethics and patients in danger.
www.advocate.com/politics/nat...
That it was an AI error makes it categorically worse, in my opinion, not less. We value the lives of the "other" so little that we cn't even be arsed to do the due diligence ourselves before murdering 150 kids.
Good piece @willbunch.bsky.social
www.inquirer.com/opinion/iran...
My friend who works at an independent bookstore has told me multiple times to buy my audiobooks from Libro.fm
I knew about trans people way before - I have memories of being like 13 and googling if you could get top surgery without being trans. Didn't figure it out until I started talking to other trans people online when I was 16-17 and went, hey wait a minute.
The approximate cause of death for Anne Frank was the Nazis. The specific cause of death was the outbreak of Typhus at Bergen-Belsen camp, which overtook her (and others) from chronic malnutrition and medical abuse. These conditions are not, in character, unlike our system of immigration camps today
gross!
My latest for @theappeal.org
Women imprisoned in AZ went on hunger strike for more than 2 weeks, issuing 21 polite requests: theappeal.org/arizona-perr...
hannah arendt leaving germany was enormously complicated by the german government invalidating her citizenship and passport. in france she wasn't german - she was stateless. as were all jewish emigrants
Interested in being a #journal #reviewer? The Entomological Society of America journals have a new reviewer application site---if you are interested, this allows you to volunteer! New reviewers will be searchable in the portal by editors, who would love your input! app.smartsheet.com/b/form/8aa2e...
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!
He does! Unclear and Present Danger
Stanley Plotkin had a major hand in the development of a number of vaccines in use today; he designed the rubella vaccine. He remembers the world before widespread use of vaccines & knows what's coming as vaccine policy is rewritten & vaccine confidence is eroded. www.statnews.com/2026/03/02/s...
This is bad news for everyone in the South, and really bad news for low-income trans folks. The surgeons getting pushed out of university hospitals will move to private practice and while SOME people will still get trans surgeries covered by insurance, those on Medicaid won’t.
The group Elevated Access can fly you for free to a provider that is further away. Help is out there, you’re not alone. There is still time.
www.elevatedaccess.org
Sama just posted that OpenAI got the contract:
CBS News chief Bari Weiss is expected to play a major role in steering CNN if the paramount Warner merger goes through
She called her substack "The Free Press" because she was announcing what she was going to destroy in her lifetime
More rational Call to Action here:
If your representative is apart of this committee, please contact
them and tell them to ensure H.R. 7661 doesn't make it to the floor.
It remains a long shot definitely but not worth taking the risk in the slightest.
edworkforce.house.gov/committee/fu...
Text excerpt of H.R.7661 on Congress.gov, ending its definition of "sexually oriented material" with:
“(ii) involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.”.
Legislation can be seen in full, including a link to contact your member of congress at:
www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...
(Alt text added)
A macro photo of a slender, tiny wasp atop a batch of katydid eggs. The eggs, which look like brown lima beans, are tiled along a brown grass stem. Four have roundish holes chewed through their sides, where parasitoid wasps (like the one perched on top of them) chewed their way out. The wasp is metallic-copper colored with a yellow abdomen band and large eyes.
A macro photo of a group of katydid eggs, which look like brown lima beans, tiled along a brown grass stem against a pale green background. In the upper right, a tiny wasp's face is peeking out of an escape hole it is chewing from the inside of a katydid egg it has parasitized. A second egg, lower left, has a hole in it where a wasp has already hatched and flown off.
A macro photo of a tiny, green, newly-hatched katydid nymph perched atop a fingertip, against a green and blue-green background. The fingertip and katydid are lower right, and one of the katydid's extremely long antennae stretches all the way up to the upper left corner of the frame.
From a few years ago: katydid eggs mostly parasitized by tiny wasps. When a katydid hatches, the egg opens like a clam shell; but as you can see (pic 2), if there's a parasitoid wasp inside, they chew their way out. Btw, the baby katydid on my fingertip hatched from the same egg clutch. #BugSky 🐙🌿
two triangular brown butterflies are hanging upside down next to each other under a curved branch
Scientists published a broad review of what they’ve learned about moths and butterflies over the last few decades, with special attention to pivotal moments during the ~300 million-year history of the group.
Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/scie...
Review article:
doi.org/10.1038/s443...
Close-up photographs of a naturally green harvestman (Algidia viridata ssp. bicolor) with a bumpy, textured body that resembles moss or algae. The arachnid's long spiny legs and bumpy body are shown from multiple angles against a blurred green background.
Close-up photographs of a naturally green harvestman (Algidia viridata ssp. bicolor) with a bumpy, textured body that resembles moss or algae. The arachnid's long spiny legs and bumpy body are shown from multiple angles against a blurred green background.
Close-up photographs of a naturally green harvestman (Algidia viridata ssp. bicolor) with a bumpy, textured body that resembles moss or algae. The arachnid's long spiny legs and bumpy body are shown from multiple angles against a blurred green background.
Close-up photographs of a naturally green harvestman (Algidia viridata ssp. bicolor) with a bumpy, textured body that resembles moss or algae. The arachnid's long spiny legs and bumpy body are shown from multiple angles against a blurred green background.
Never miss a chance to get face-to-face with a harvestman.
This is the stunning subspecies Algidia viridata ssp. bicolor, endemic to New Zealand!
When faced with a shockingly exploitative new employment contract that would’ve forced them to sign away their IP, their likeness rights, and their power of attorney, Jupiter Jetson and her coworkers at Sheri’s fought back—fast.
They organized a union in SIX DAYS. www.thenation.com/article/econ...
