Coral Nerd, Ph.D.

Anyone else thinking what I’m running? Next year’s Met Gala theme! No? Just me? #bcvammm #2026MMM

Best Reduviinae tree based on RAxML analysis of 178 taxa using a partitioned molecular dataset of 5 gene regions (16S, 18S, 28S D2, 28S D3–D5, Wg). Bootstrap values are indicated on branches by colored triangles according to support strength. Reduviinae lineages are indicated as red branches and remaining reduviids as blue while outgroup taxa are black. The shaded red box highlights members of the hematophagous Triatominae, here shown as paraphyletic. Red arrowheads refer to the polyphyletic Cetherinae; the asterisk refers to Physoderinae nested within a reduviine clade.

The subfamily Reduviinae (Assassin bugs) is a taxonomist's nightmare. A molecular phylogeny done by Hwang & Weirauch (2018) reveled it is polyphyletic, meaning the group doesn’t share a single recent ancestor. doi.org/10.1371/jour... #2026MMM

touché

#2026MMM WILDCARD
EMOJI BATTLE RESULTS
🦴🆚💉:
🦴👚🐜/💉👚🐜/
🦴👀🐜/💉👀🐜/🦴💥💉/
💉🗡️💀/💉🗡️🦴/💉🍽️🥣/
🏆💉

a woman wearing sunglasses and a green dress is sitting in a chair and talking to another woman . ALT: a woman wearing sunglasses and a green dress is sitting in a chair and talking to another woman .

I expected better of a Bone Collector

Officials now say more than 30,000 gallons of crude oil were released into the Gulf after a hose failure at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port near Grand Isle and Port Fourchon.

Queen Demon (The Rising World Book 2) Amazon.com: Queen Demon (The Rising World Book 2) eBook : Wells, Martha: Kindle Store

There's an Amazon Kindle sale on Queen Demon (the sequel to Witch King, 2nd book in the Rising World series) today for 2.99, US and Canada www.amazon.com/Queen-Demon-... #booksky

Seafood fraud is rampant, imperiling fish populations, report finds The global fisheries and aquaculture sector produces more than 150 million metric tons of food per year, valued at nearly $200 billion. Yet it’s plagued with fraud, according to a new report. The…

Seafood fraud is rampant, imperiling fish populations, report finds news.mongabay.com/2026/03/seaf... “up to roughly 20% of aquatic products are intentionally mislabeled as the wrong species”

Nature Report, Killed by Trump, Is Released Independently

When the US govt terminated the National Nature Asst, @phillevin.bsky.social + the author team were determined not to let that stop them.

They re-organized, set up an advisory committee, found funding…and now the brand new Nature Record is open for public comment. 👏🌳👏🌲

Check it out (link below)!

This is not just cursed, its monstrous. The digital resurrection of a historian who died in January of this year, all so Grammarly can get some more clicks and engagement from students and/or scholars and/or others.

It feels so wrong on so many levels, these ghosts enslaved to AI forever

Meme. Painting of two eels in the water. They are yellow, and so is the background, so it's unclear if these are yellow eels, or eels seen through a yellow filter. They don't much care, I would guess. The eels are dark on top, and are casting shadows below them, such that they seem like eel sandwiches stuffed into the bread of darkness. They deserve names, so we shall call one of the Olivort and the other Trovilo. You can decide which is which. One is looking to the left, and one is looking back over its metaphorical shoulder to the right. Neither is looking at you, and I think that's a choice. You should maybe spend some time thinking about why, and then try to move forward and live your life as the sort of person that eels would want to look at. Meme text reads: "Weir gonna climb Right over your dam"

Let's talk about eels & dams. 'Cause dams are a problem for eels now, but they haven't always been.

Eels can live out of water for a while, & travel overland. Young eels climb up & around small waterfalls as they migrate. And so many medieval dams weren't a problem for them. 1/7
🗃️

our relatively lax laws about sewage discharge from boats (including, & *especially*, US-based cruise ships) is a *huge* factor in the decreasing food safety of Canadian-cultured Pacific oysters.

But urban development in our biggest oyster-farming area is also a huge factor.

From the murderbot community on Reddit: Not the transcription I was expecting to be doing this episode Posted by Logophage_ - 302 votes and 25 comments

You are 100% correct. He apparently ad libbed some great Swedish jokes in there too

www.reddit.com/r/murderbot/...

Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible History was unmade last year, as engineers began the massive project of ripping the first-ever transoceanic fiber-optic cable from the ocean floor. Just don’t mention sharks.

"Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible"

History was unmade last year, as engineers began the massive project of ripping the first-ever transoceanic fiber-optic cable from the ocean floor.

Do NOT blame #sharks!
www.wired.com/story/say-go...
🌊 🦑

Excellent 🧵 -

Plans for proposed ICE facility in Merrimack, N.H., won’t move forward, governor says - The Boston Globe The announcement comes after months of protest and pushback from Merrimack residents over the proposal.

The announcement comes after months of protest and pushback from Merrimack residents over the proposal, which was part of a $38 billion initiative to establish a “new detention model” for President Trump’s mass deportation agenda, according to records released earlier this month by Ayotte’s office.

I'm constantly trying (/failing) to get this point across.

If you're a trained expert in a field, then it may be worthwhile to question the scientific consensus of your peers.

If you're not, the scientific consensus is absolutely the best you can do and it's arbitrary foolishness to disregard it.

A bunch of deep sea fishes including a gulper eel and some angler fish.

Creatures from the deepest sea

I know OpenAI's CEO is one of (the?) largest Trump donors. Beyond "GenAI is evil," which, you do not need to convince me, I am looking for *specifics* here: what are the ethical ramifications of giving your money to Anthropic that academics should think about when using Claude Code?

Helen Czerski and AGU president Brandon Jones, showing the OSM26 tartan.

Here with AGU President Brandon Jones just after he told me about the official Ocean Sciences Meeting tartan. It’s apparently got the date of the Challenger expedition woven into it. 🌊🌊 Impressed! #OSM26

www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetail...

The fundamental premise behind AI-enabled cheating is that coursework is merely busy work, because your'e just doing it for professors.

We would never say that showing up for football practice is merely busy work because you're just doing it for your coaches.

🌊 #OSM2026 kicks off today in Glasgow!

DOSI is on-site championing #DeepSea science for climate, biodiversity & governance.

📍 Booth #5
📣 Town Hall on Thursday (TH33F)
💡 Deep-ocean sessions all week: www.dosi-project.org/event/ocean-...

#MolluscMonday Dating mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries, nautilus shell cups consist of metal-mounted shells sometimes capped by a small figure of Poseidon. This example on display at the British Museum shows remarkably intricate carving of the shell and septa.

Did…did the wipers get stolen?

BBC Removes BAFTA Film Awards From iPlayer After Initially Failing To Cut N-Word From Ceremony The BBC has apologized after its coverage of the BAFTA Film Awards failed to cut a racial slur shouted by an audience member with Tourette syndrome.

This info was kinda missing from the conversation yesterday.

"The comment, although not clearly audible, was featured in the BBC’s coverage of the ceremony, which was pre-recorded on a two-hour delay before broadcasting on BBC One."

Pre-recorded, two-hour delay. They edited out a "Free Palestine".

The running gag in our house is the “it’s a mimic” joke and this hits on so many levels 🤌

When another species wants to get in on the carcinization

Drawing of a candy bag with the text "KEN'S cuttles FLAVOR BURST." The corner is torn open and several pink and orange cuttlefish are spilling out.

Drawing of a blue octopus at an old-fashioned sewing table. It is sewing a green patch onto a flowery apron.

Drawing of a large red squid teaching three small red squid to make letters with their ink. The teacher's ink spells ABC and each student's ink is making a letter with an error: the A has two crossbars, the B has three loops, and the C is backwards.

Drawing of a large red squid filling most of a swimming pool and playing with a beach ball.

🦑🐙 BIRTHDAY CEPHALOPODS 🐙🦑
I have time and energy to give out cephalodoodles for my birthday again! Reply to this thread today with your request (any cephalopod + anything else) and I'll draw it! Here are some examples from past years:

A chicken walking on the beach the caption is: If you are seeing this the curse is lifted have a good day

Congratulations everyone