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Brian Leavell

@bleavell

sensory ecology | behavior | evolution ○ lover of midges, frogs, bats and bagels ○ PhD w/ @xebernal.bsky.social @ Purdue All my ❤️ to 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ ☮️🌎

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24.10.2023
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Latest posts by Brian Leavell @bleavell

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Trans Girl Scouts Sell 330,000 Boxes Of Cookies In Public Outpouring Of Support The total boxes sold is the highest in the history of EITM's trans girl scout cookie list.

1. In an incredible public outpouring of support, trans girl scouts on our girl scout cookie list have sold over 330,000 boxes of cookies.

Parents report to us that they are in tears from the support.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

05.03.2026 15:34 👍 2110 🔁 676 💬 16 📌 31
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‘An epidemic of suffering’: Why are conservationists breaking down? In December 2024, Rachel Graham, executive director of the Belize-based marine nonprofit MarAlliance, posted on LinkedIn that she knew “5 wildlife & conservation scientists who have taken their lives ...

This is such a good article for anyone working in conservation.

One thing overlooked imo is how the size of organizations play a role, with people in small NGOs working twice as much for twice as less with little protections. First hand experience here 😉

news.mongabay.com/2026/03/an-e... 🌏

04.03.2026 03:20 👍 66 🔁 22 💬 2 📌 6
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Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses "The legislature did not include a grace period."

This is bigotry, pure and simple.

open.substack.com/pub/erininth...

26.02.2026 01:22 👍 3950 🔁 1164 💬 145 📌 147
A pilot in a submersible vehicle collecting sediments samples in 30 meters of water looking for Asgards (microbial relatives of eukaryotes)

A pilot in a submersible vehicle collecting sediments samples in 30 meters of water looking for Asgards (microbial relatives of eukaryotes)

One of the biggest questions in biology is how complex cells evolved about 2 billion years ago. Here's my new story on how scientists are solving the mystery of eukaryotes like us. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qMbo22

18.02.2026 19:17 👍 341 🔁 104 💬 9 📌 8
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2026 Trans Girl Scouts To Order Cookies From! This year, consider ordering your Girl Scout cookies from a trans girl scout to make their day!

Huge announcement: Girl Scouts on our trans girl scout cookies list have sold 250,000!!!!!! Boxes of girl scout cookies, a record for EITM's trans girl scout cookie drive.

Some have only sold 20 boxes though. I put those at the top of the list.

Lets close out this season and make their day! :)

16.02.2026 18:52 👍 1618 🔁 637 💬 31 📌 44

Maybe a crossover ep w Scott Hasn't Seen???

@doughboys.bsky.social
+
@cbbworld.bsky.social
@scottaukerman.bsky.social

07.02.2026 17:26 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

1. It was not an accident.
2. It was not a staffer.
3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia.
4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares.
5. His base agrees with him.
6. He will do it again.
7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

06.02.2026 17:42 👍 27702 🔁 8154 💬 432 📌 300

Three thoughts.

1. It’s always been about the white nationalism

2. He is returning to the old favorites because his support is waning

3. He dabbled with this trope before but would always leave a hair of deniability. Going straight there also seems like a sign of weakness

06.02.2026 16:40 👍 2726 🔁 467 💬 26 📌 18
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The Real Reason ICE Agents Wear Masks Face-coverings may work less to protect federal agents from danger than to make it easier for them to do unconstitutional things.

No masks on cops. No masks on cops. No masks on cops. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

02.02.2026 20:41 👍 8264 🔁 2050 💬 212 📌 122

Trivers and Epstein... vile 🤮

01.02.2026 16:43 👍 38 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1

Kansas just passed a monstrous bill enabling criminal penalties and vigilante lawsuits for trans people using the bathroom according to their gender identity and requires them to surrender their current drivers licenses and birth certificates if it does not match their sex assigned at birth.

28.01.2026 23:43 👍 3782 🔁 1671 💬 119 📌 242

Update: The Trans bathroom bounty hunter bill in Kansas has just passed the Kansas House.

They have rushed it to the Senate for passage.

If it passes, the most extreme anti-trans bill in the nation is about to be sent to the Governor's desk.

Live here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzwe...

28.01.2026 23:43 👍 1524 🔁 861 💬 82 📌 98
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I grew up with Alex Pretti The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

27.01.2026 16:45 👍 17311 🔁 6909 💬 504 📌 329
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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

The US government lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs last year, according to an analysis by Science of newly released OPM data, with 11 departures for every hire. And many OPM calls "voluntary" separations were probably pushed. www.science.org/content/arti...

27.01.2026 01:28 👍 356 🔁 260 💬 16 📌 32
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“The Homeland” Is War on America: The Blood-and-Soil Nationalism That Killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti In the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact: the culture war is an actual war.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: With the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, "Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact—the culture war is an actual war"

26.01.2026 19:11 👍 3437 🔁 1261 💬 27 📌 98
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A video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son.

25.01.2026 01:18 👍 47132 🔁 18175 💬 1014 📌 1851
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This is crazy. These are just regular people out here, wearing snow goggles and gas masks, holding cardboard signs telling ICE to GTFO of MN as federal agents spray tear gas and set off flash bangs or whatever the hell those booms are.

More people rolling out trash cans, and now couches.

24.01.2026 18:12 👍 1215 🔁 278 💬 12 📌 25
Median time under review (time intervened from submission to acceptance) of articles indexed in PubMed with a female first author (n = 2,562,262), a male first author (n = 3,405,821), a female corresponding author (n = 975,010), a male corresponding author (n = 1,946,469), a female first author and a female corresponding author (n = 757,878), a male first author and a male corresponding author (n = 1,357,835), all-female authors (n = 650,280), and all-male authors (n = 2,146,799)

Median time under review (time intervened from submission to acceptance) of articles indexed in PubMed with a female first author (n = 2,562,262), a male first author (n = 3,405,821), a female corresponding author (n = 975,010), a male corresponding author (n = 1,946,469), a female first author and a female corresponding author (n = 757,878), a male first author and a male corresponding author (n = 1,357,835), all-female authors (n = 650,280), and all-male authors (n = 2,146,799)

Female scientists have to wait longer for their articles to be reviewed than their male colleagues. An analysis of 36.5 million papers in the life sciences shows that for females it took 115 days to reach a decision, compared to 101 days for men journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @plosbiology.org

22.01.2026 08:43 👍 139 🔁 75 💬 5 📌 9
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Here’s the report from KARE. The boy is five-year-old Liam Ramos.

21.01.2026 22:48 👍 3642 🔁 1867 💬 217 📌 729

I try to avoid hyperbole when it comes to Trump policies, but this is absolutely frickin’ insane—on about eleventy different levels.

Massive, systemic Fourth Amendment violations because … reasons.

21.01.2026 22:28 👍 7620 🔁 2890 💬 205 📌 64
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Minneapolis, today.

Note how three agents holding the civilian down.

Why spray?

www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...

21.01.2026 21:23 👍 1695 🔁 813 💬 201 📌 161
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Controversial US study on hepatitis B vaccines in Africa is cancelled $1.6m project drew outrage over ethical questions about withholding vaccines proven to prevent disease

One of the most valuable lessons my father taught me was to use my voice to speak up whenever I see wrong doing.
Thanks to every researcher who spoke up against this unethical study and for every reporter who amplified. Advocacy matters. @melodyschreiber.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

15.01.2026 15:32 👍 227 🔁 76 💬 8 📌 8
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Statement from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell Good evening. On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testi

Change a few words and this could have been the statement every university president had the opportunity to make last year.

www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

12.01.2026 02:20 👍 627 🔁 135 💬 11 📌 5
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Your daily reminder that it's OK to scream sometimes.

🦇 : greater bulldog bat
📸 : Christian Ziegler/ Minden Pictures

08.01.2026 21:03 👍 36 🔁 14 💬 2 📌 2
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Cadences of the collective: conspecific stimulation patterns interact with endogenous rhythms to cue socially mediated response shifts Summary: Automated playback experiments reveal that túngara frogs alter each calling response based on conspecific stimulation patterns experienced prior to each call.

Our latest article is out @jexpbiol.bsky.social !
doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

We show that tungara frogs adjust interaction modes to current collective chorusing dynamics based on how patterns of conspecific stimulation experienced between calls interact with their internal call rhythms

06.01.2026 14:51 👍 5 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
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Biologist kidnapped in Mexico In the mountains of central Veracruz, scientific work is rarely abstract. It means walking narrow paths through cloud forest, speaking patiently with communities, and learning to read landscapes that…

Biologist kidnapped in Mexico news.mongabay.com/short-articl... 🧪🌎

04.01.2026 21:16 👍 118 🔁 77 💬 5 📌 9
07.12.2025 05:25 👍 177 🔁 48 💬 0 📌 0

Maybe I’ll tell y’all about Thanksgiving in Uzbekistan, where I was in the peace corps 2000-2001.
I lived in a town; nearest American lived in a qishloq - a true village. A few of us somehow figured out to meet there. (How? No internet, no phones. No recollection of how we planned anything.) 1/

27.11.2025 04:02 👍 183 🔁 30 💬 7 📌 28

Omg IT WORKED. Bless you.

12.11.2025 16:52 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0